To be honest with you, we can't say that Academy Records & CDs is the best "used" CD store in the city because we don't know how many used CDs Academy really has—and it doesn't know, either. In addition to untold thousands of them, there are countless CDs still in shrink wrap—records, too, both old and new. And DVDs. It's a great place to go for a good (say, Fellini versus Antonioni) argument. But mostly, it's CDs—all genres, all categories, all time periods. Blake and Charles and the rest of the knowledgeable, courteous staff are experts on everything—we couldn't stump them on a single question, from Dexter Gordon to Jonathan Richman to Van Cliburn's first Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 recording to who played the female lead in the Broadway production of West Side Story. Yes, this place will do. 12 West 18th Street, 212-242-3000, academy-records.com (10011)
Other methods of improving read speed were trialled such as using multiple optical beams, increasing throughput up to 72× with a 10× spin speed, but along with other technologies like 90~99 minute recordable media and "double density" recorders, their utility was nullified by the introduction of consumer DVDROM drives capable of consistent 36× CD-ROM speeds (4× DVD) or higher.
