Vinyl Lives at Thornton's Don's Discs.

• Author: PETERSON, ERIC

After 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, Don Radke was Looking for a change. In 1978, he started selling records out of a motor home. In 1982, the business evolved into Don's Discs, a store that now operates out of a 5,000-square-foot retail space in Thornton. Radke's inventory spans every musical genre and is internationally revered -- it is not uncommon to find a German collector or Japanese dealer perusing the store for days at a time.

"Basically, we've bought seven radio station libraries in the past couple years, so we have an influx of product established that is overwhelming -- to say the least," laughed the 64-yearold Radke, surrounded by shelves and bins containing more than one million records.

How many discs are in inventory? "1 have no idea," he said. "It varies hourly."

While the Radkes also sell tapes, CDs and other formats, "My love is my vinyl," he said. "CDs are convenient, but they're not my forte because much of the music that I want to listen to isn't on CD."

Of his primary product -- vinyl records -- Radke said, "It's not like hamburger where you buy a pound, eat a pound, go get another pound. My odds of selling (some records) are very, very low."

After surviving the CD era, Radke thinks that the analog record can coexist with the upcoming onslaught of Internet-distributed digital music. "The vinyl has a more natural...