RALEIGH - Donald Bennett lifted the needle on his portable record player and gently dropped it into the grooves of a spinning vinyl record: "A Very Good Year, 1983-1984."

"It's good," he said after cocking an ear to the funky jazz. "Shocking because it's from a high school band."

Bennett, 38, a Durham resident and former New York disc jockey, stepped away from buying the rare record because of its $125 price tag. But like many of the music fans who attended the Record & CD Collectors Show on Sunday at a Holiday Inn, he found much to like.

The twice-a-year convention, held in Raleigh since about 1996, caters to a diverse crowd. But while CDs are becoming more popular at the show, a common thread remains -- a love for older vinyl LPs and 45s.

In an age with lots of CDs and MP3s, many music lovers say they continue to collect vinyl because of its "warmer" analog sound.

"You get things supposedly the human ear can't hear, but your body can feel it," said Paul O'Boyle, a Charlotte dealer at the conference. His company, Activ-Analog Records, releases techno dance music records in vinyl. "In a dance club, you can hear the difference on a good system."

Vinyl records also make for better collectibles, fans say. You can admire the artwork more easily on a large LP cover. "It's more a connection versus a digital download that's so impersonal," said Clayton resident Andy Kellman, 41, who works in Research Triangle Park but sells music as a hobby.

The convention had a good cross-section of nearly all genres -- including albums from popular artists such as Pink Floyd, James Brown and Jethro Tull.

Suzann May of Wendell and her boyfriend, Lloyd Edwards of Raleigh, picked up nine Rolling Stones LPs, including some early Mick Jagger. Edwards already has about 800 Rolling Stones records at home, ranging from Japanese imports to albums recorded in Italian.

Dealers also tried to meet other more eclectic tastes.

"After a while, people -- they're just bored with Beatles and Elvis stuff," said Tim Harris, a dealer from Lynchburg, Va., who specializes in Jamaican reggae, such as Hindi soca music.

Harris' crates of quirkier finds included subgenres of "outsider music," "loner folk," "spiritual jazz," "Christian ventriloquist" and "Christian pirate" music. That last category, he explained, typically involves former biker guys who got into bad accidents, lost limbs, and got into singing Christian music.

"You can't make this stuff up," Harris said.

Easier-to-care-for CDs seemed to have a larger presence at the convention this year. Ponytailed Ezequiel Espinoza Martinez, 36, of Fuquay-Varina, stocked up on heavy metal at the convention. Accompanied by his girlfriend Angeles Lopez, who was wearing a black Iron Maiden T-shirt, Martinez spent more than $200 on 20 albums -- all CDs.

And more buyers these days are taking tracks off vinyl records and converting them into MP3s for iPods anyway.

But Bennett, the Durham collector, who digitizes some of his 3,000 records for sampling in DJ mixes, says vinyl continues to be the medium where he discovers new disco and R&B.

"You really can't find [some music] on CD," he said.