I don't really buy CDs anymore, but any of the Amoeba Records in California are great. Amazon is another great place.

I don't buy CD's very often. I usually buy them second hand of the internet.
I buy most of my new music on vinyl.
I buy most of that at the Music Machine in Sittard. Nice little musicshop.
I've bought stuff there since I was 14, they know me :)

I pick up what stuff I can in HMV, I also use Amazon and EMP (mail order and online shop) for some of the harder to find things. Some things that I cannot find at all I end up downloading though.

I either buy at HMV, or through online stores.

Amazon.

I buy CDs online at Amazon through the Marketplace (used or new, whichever is cheaper) and also from the local CD Warehouse and Best Buy, if there's a sale. Here's a post I made at another forum involving the retail experience:

Know what? I'm kinda starting to care less and less about retail stores.

Example: I was streaming some albums online tonight at work and decided I really really had to have them. So, on my 15 minute break, I pull up Amazon on my phone and bam bam bam, I pull up the albums (CKY, Fastway, Mark Ronson), check prices, go for the best options, buy them right then and there and then go back to work.

The entire experience took less than 15 minutes and I was able to buy all these albums for cheaper than I could at CD Warehouse (even with shipping), I bought half of them in new condition, and I had a selection to choose from as far as quality of the discs went.

Yeah, record stores are nice for the "instant gratification" but now with streaming music, I HAVE even faster instant gratification. I can listen to an album in full at my leisure (instead of having people wait in line for the listening station or having to wait for others), in relative silence (instead of hearing it in-store with the loudspeakers blaring different music overhead), buy it online, and then continue to listen to the 320kbps stream until my lossless copy arrives.

I also don't have to deal with taking the album up to the clerk, waiting for them to grab the disc, then listening to it, then handing it back to them if I decide I don't like what I'm hearing and making them go through all that work of reshelving stuff (which clerks HATE).

As far as the "expertise" at a record store goes....quite honestly, most of the clerks I've dealt with don't know any more about the music I'm listening to or purchasing than I do. Yes, it does happen occasionally, but for the most part I don't need clerks when I have an internet full of people to ask.

Is the environment fun? Yes. Is the environment a really cool place? Yes. Is there more social interaction? Meh. Not really. Nothing I couldn't live without that I don't get someplace like here.

Really, the best thing that I can find about retail stores right now is that it's sometimes easier to discover new groups and albums because they're all there within eyesight, unlike online. That will always trump the online experience of discovering bands, to some degree, but again, we have instant clicking and YouTube now so that puts a HUGE dent in that little aspect.

Sometimes if you get lucky the prices in store are cheaper than online, but that's fairly rare.

Anyway, I will continue to use retail stores while they're around, and I think I'll still miss them (to some degree) because of the overall experience (when they're gone), but for right now? I see less and less benefit to them.

There's something catharic about rooting through somebody else's old, cracked, sharpied-on CD's at the used bin at FYE......

Here in Louisville I have an FYE at the mall (about 45 minutes away), a Half Priced Books about half an hour away, and Ear Xtacy, Louisville's 30+ year old record store. Has literally everything, including free shows to go to almost every week, and indie/rare artists out the wazoo. Definitely worth the 40 minute drive.

And I rarely buy things on iTunes anymore. I'd rather support local places.

We have a used record shop in town where I get the majority of my cd's. Support your record stores! Sometimes I occasionally go to Best Buy or buy them on amazon.

local shop and online