CDepot

I hate to give only 3 starts to CDepot. I’ve been coming to this place for 15 years to buy CDs, and they used to have everything imaginable. Now, as other reviewers have stated, they’ve cut back on their CDs and begun stocking DVDs, video games, and tons and tons of used vinyl. It’s great if you’re into vinyl or like budget horror or kung-​fu movies (they seem to have a lot of those), but a bummer for the CD buyers. Last time I was here I couldn’t find anything on my list of 5 or 6 items I wanted to buy. And I was looking for stuff like Paul Simon’s «Graceland» and Fleetwood Mac’s «Rumours» — it’s not like I was looking for a bootleg from a Shaggs concert. I ended up going to f.y.e. at Wheaton mall and finding everything I was looking for — how sad is that?
Part of the problem is they have boxes of vinyl stacked up against the music counters so you can barely reach the CDs. It’s just very crowded and difficult to browse. The good news is that they seem to finally be organizing their vinyl — I saw some of it stacked into some empty bins and labeled alphabetically. Some day it might be a decent place to go for records. Good luck finding anything there now, though…

Shelves and shelves of CDs, DVDs, new and used, and boxes and boxes of vinyl some in the aisles waiting to be sorted and priced. Various conditions and prices, all genres except XXX. They also buy used stuff. Helpful staff will look up inventory. 45s are still 99 cents, same as they were in the 60s when that would buy you about 3 gallons of leaded gas!

The one very unpleasant employee seems to be largely gone which makes going here once again a great experience. As well, they do seem speedier with their buying stuff process. A college aged guy was working at the register the last time I came here and was very nice. Their selection also seems to have expanded even more which is always nice. They have a thing of screener DVDs at the front now that I love taking advantage of. 99.9% of them are $ 1-​$ 2 as opposed to the $ 20 you’d pay for the DVD at Target or Walmart. I would once again go back to recommending this store, at least until that woman makes her return.

The fact that record/​CD shops practically don’t exist anymore does NOT give the brave few that are still around the right to sit on their laurels and let the place go to pot, which is exactly what this place has done. What a shame, as CDepot used to be so much better!
While the sheer volume of merchandise (despite the complete lack of organization) keeps me from giving it a measly single star, they’re certainly and quickly moving in that direction now that they’ve chosen to turn what was once a great CD store specializing in nearly all musical genres into a nonsensical mishmash of DVDs, Blue Rays, CDs, games, and bunches and bunches of unorganized vinyl. The result is that they no longer have a comprehensive selection in any given medium. Take CDs for example: While they’ve managed to keep up with their Rap, R&B, and Jazz inventory, they seem to have plain quit adding any Rock, Folk, or World music selections in the past two or so years.
I chose to hone in on this one area as it’s one I don’t see much written about in these reviews. The other problems are clearly laid out in review after review, and I concur with them all – dirty environment, employees eating right on top of the merchandise and often not even handling vinyl and other products properly, inability to reach the majority of CDs due to boxes and boxes of vinyl blocking the way, lack of employees’ musical knowledge, mispriced items all over the store that create a massive headache at the cash register, unhelpful and downright rude employees, false promises of buying your merchandise when they honestly have no interest to do so, and completely ripping you off when they do, and so on and so forth. On a more touchy note, as much as I hate to falsely accuse anyone of racism or discrimination, I’m not the only one who has observed and is convinced that black customers receive much friendlier service than whites or others. What’s with that?
It may not be too late for this establishment to turn it around, but for crying out loud … the common pattern of complaints here is so uniform and clear that the owners of CDepot would do themselves a huge favor and get on Unilocal to read what the customers are saying!

Used to go often with my son but, this weekend took a friend who wanted to get some older R&B CD’s. The choices were quite expansive and reasonably priced.
BUT, it was hot as hell in there. No air at all on a 90+degree day. Not good for keeping customers in the store to spend more money. I was soaking wet when we left.

Very surprising to read the reviews about bad customer service; over the years, every single time I’ve been in the store or called up about a particular item (and some of the recordings/​movies I look for are unusual, to say the least), the employees have been helpful and courteous. I’m still giving this place 5 stars, they deserve it.

This is the most disorganized store I’ve ever been into. The regular hourly employees are nice enough, but the owner is rude and has no clue how to run a store.
I go to every record store in the DC area because I am a vinyl collector. I enjoy looking through bargain bins for $ 1-​$ 2 gems, but I’m not afraid to spend big money on more rare records as well. As I was looking through the bargain bin, the owner comes up to me, snatches the records I had picked out from my hands, and barks at me, «These aren’t priced. These aren’t for sale.» There are literally thousands of records in bins and boxes in this store and only about ¼ of them are priced and for sale. How about instead of lurking waiting to snatch records out of confused customers’ hands, you put your inventory away or price it so you can actually make some money to fix your air conditioning and pay your employees to organize your store?

Beware — you can lose hours of your day in here! There is such a wide variety of media in here that almost any need or interest you have can likely be satisfied with a visit to CDepot.
I come here to get physical copies of old classics, new faves, and just poke around to see what I might want to add to my collection. Admittedly, I come here mostly for movies, but the music selection is vast, especially vinyl. They also have video games, audio accessories and equipment, so it can be a one-​stop-​shop in a lot of ways.
The service was good from what I’ve experienced — they’re helpful, but not overbearing. Take some time to get to know them and they can share their insights with you! Definitely take the time to check CDepot out.

CDepot has always had the largest inventory of CDs in the area, but a few years ago they greatly expanded their vinyl (I think that they may have bought out another business, perhaps Orpheus in Arlington), and the store kind of went to shit. The ceiling near the entrance is leaking so bad that they’ve had tarps over the CDs in that part of store. Even after a few years, the aisles are completely crowded with boxes of vinyl, some organized, most not. It’s so bad that it’s difficult to look at CDs in the farthest parts of the bins because you have to lean over the boxes. I used to come here about once a month; now it’s more like twice a year. Very disappointing.

Possibly the most disorganized music/​video store in the Balto/​DC area, but you can find some good items at reasonable prices if you can handle wading through the morass.

I love CDepot, I’ve been here multiple times and always spend way too much money there. And I’m not alone, every time I go there there’s always people there. It’s fairly well organized, but the big issue I found last time was that there were bunches of records and and other things in front of a lot of the CD displays. It’s only been the one time; I hope they fix it the next time I’m there. Not that it’ll stop me, I always find things (especially out of print CDs) to buy.

Terrible Terrible Terrible! I was there a week ago to sell CDs. Prior to coming, I spoke with a guy who informed me that they buy cd’s from $ 1-​$ 3 each. I informed him I had over 100 CD’s, a lot of them still brand new and a lot of them imports from other countries. I explained to them I am moving, and didn’t want to bring hem along. I actually added the majority of them to my library on iTunes. Long story short, the guy who works in the back is extremely rude. After waiting for about an hour, he offered me 40 bucks for all of my CDs! I told him to hand them back over, I rather just give them away! I think he may have actually kept some. Little does he know, I have a list of all my cd’s in alphabetical order. I plan to go through them, and if any are missing, he will definitely hear from my lawyer! STAY AWAY FROM THIS PLACE!!!

Cluttered! Cramped! Gonna have to work to find what you want. I’ve been coming here since 1997, not what it use to be. Prices can be a little high, depending on what you want. They have just about everything… just gotta find it.

That CDepot — once a great CD store — is in decline isn’t surprising in this digital age. But so many of its wounds are self-​inflicted. An ill-​fated decision a couple of years ago to stock vinyl without creating any space for records resulted in a crowded, disorganized store. The CD racks are now blocked by big boxes of records with «Do Not Touch» signs taped on them. I once hoped this was a temporary situation. But, it’s been a couple of years now that you have to bend over piles of boxes to reach the CD racks.
The employees don’t seem to get how lucky they are, in this day and age, to work in an actual record store. Every time I go to this store — which is increasingly rarely — employees are eating greasy, stinky meals at their stations — in the stock area, at the cash register and even on piles of CD and LPs in the main part of the store. Doesn’t matter what time of day — most recently was a Saturday morning around 11 a.m. Time before that was a Tuesday around 4 p.m. Burgers, gyros, pizza, fries — the place smells like a greasy spoon, and it doesn’t even serve food.
It’s such an all-​around unpleasant experience, I’ve decided it’s just easier to go in search of used CDs on Amazon or
, or to drive up to Baltimore’s SoundGarden, where they still appear to make an effort.
It’s sad — like I said, CDepot used to be a great CD store. Now it’s awful. I don’t know who owns this place, but he/​she/​they clearly don’t care about how the store looks or smells. I guess I can understand that. It won’t be around much longer.

One of the most frustrating record stores I’ve ever been to (and I’ve been to a lot). TONS of unpriced records everywhere with big signs saying «don’t touch,» employees who look like they’d rather be anywhere else but there, some times there’s not even music playing in the shop, horrible cheap plastic sealed sleeves on all the records, no listening stations, bad access to the expensive records –you have to literally climb over boxes to get to them, etc. Just too many bad things to list. The large «we buy coins» sign out front should give you a clue as to how much these guys love music.
There are some good records in here and the prices aren’t too bad but the rest of the experience just makes me want to never come back.

Great selection of CDs. They recently added Records and Videos DVDs/​Blu-​Ray in the last few years. They have alot of hard to find stuff that you would normally have to order on the Internet. Since they added the records, its gotten a bit cluttered and sometimes uncomfortable trying to reach items that are fartherest away near the wall. Its hard to return items. For example I returned a CD that was skipping in my car but played in there system, they wouldn’t take it back. The staff isn’t particuliarly friendly. But overall I enjoy the store and can spend quite a bit of time looking around and trying to find stuff I don’t have. I recomend the store since it’s getting increasingly difficult to find music in the physical format because of mp3 downloading.

The name CDepot seems a little inauspicious for vinyl hunting, but don’t be fooled. This store has a lot to offer vinyl lovers. As others have noted, the organization scheme is… well it isn’t a scheme, as such. They have a lot of bargin boxes, a row of unsorted new arrivals, and then the typical divisions (jazz, rock, blues, etc.) that you’d expect. I spent three hours looking through just about everything, and I bought a lot of stuff. In fact, I left behind a number of things I’m regretting (a Stooges record… an X record…). They also have a «good stuff» bin behind the counter. This is ostensibly the more collectable stuff. Priced accordingly.

Having been an assistant manager for the now-​defunct Kemp Mill Music (a DC area record store chain) in College Park MD during the early 90’s, I am a mark for a good ‘record’ store. CDepot popped up during the early 90’s on Route 1 in a much smaller location — near the Bike Shop and College Park MD post office. They were direct competition for our store and we had reason to worry. I was happy to see that CDepot moved locations up the road into a much larger space during the late 90’s while I was living in Wilmington NC. During that time, Kemp Mill filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
My thoughts: Excellent CD selection, reasonable prices for new and used CD’s and LP’s. Wall to wall music… They also carry a large array of DVDs and games. CDepot still is one of the only places in Prince George’s County MD that will actually give you cash for used DVDs and CD’s. Granted, if you pop in on a Saturday to have your collection looked at, you may be in for a long wait. I would recommend visiting the store in the AM on a Saturday or during the week while the kids are in school.
For the new vinyl snots /​kids — LPs are very disorganized. It would take a full staff several weeks to organize all of the vinyl that they have incurred. If you are a serious crate digger, you might be up to the task. Be prepared to spend an entire day there — Saturday or Sundays are best.
A couple of other random notes: I overheard a conversation between a clerk and a customer attempting to sell coins/​currency. The owner of the store (not in much) is the only person that will buy currency that you are attempting to sell. Make sure you call in before making a trip. This applies to selling vinyl as well. The shop has one particular employee that evaluates vinyl from the public. Call before making the trip if that is your sole reason for visiting.
Keep up the great work, CDepot! You are still living in my favorite dream!

You know how there are books and blogs and magazines dedicated to organizing your life? I don’t think the people at CDepot know about those. At all.
When I first walked in the door, I had to check my bag which, which wasn’t a problem. I then had to walk around for a few minutes to figure out what I was looking at. The interior is a lot bigger than I expected, with three racks of records and CDs going down the middle of the room and the walls covered floor to ceiling in old LPs. Some of the sections are ill-​labeled and it took me a while to figure out that the rock section goes all the way around the walls of the store.
The selection is nice, including used and new CDs. I found some old original Dismemberment Plan CDs (except for Emergency & I, which I was looking for) and some other used indie CDs scattered around. There was a strictly new releases section for rap and hip hop, but not one for any other genres. Then again, it could have been hidden away somewhere.
I don’t have a turntable at the moment so I wasn’t really in the market for LPs but as far as I can tell they have a pretty expansive selection of used records. The records seem especially unorganized, despite two employees cataloging boxes and boxes of them. I did thumb through the 7“s and found some pretty good titles.
They have a few cases of DVDs, which is nice because on the whole this is one of the cheaper records stores I’ve been to.
Compared to other record stores in other cities this place isn’t the greatest, but it is very good for College Park and I’m confident they would have what you’re looking for (after some digging), so I give it four stars.
Also, the few boxes full of $ 1.00 VHS sadly did not contain any Jerry Maguire tapes, and that is the real reason I gave this place four stars.

I agree with Jenni K. This place is very sketchy. In fact, I’d driven by it numerous times and never even noticed it. However, I think being sketchy is one of the requisites to being a record store. Yes, I said record store. This place carries vinyl. It is awesome. In addition, they carry CDs, DVDs, and Blue Ray discs. You can find some very random or obscure items here for really cheap. My friend found a rare Oasis 7-​inch vinyl for $ 4, but had seen it online for $ 40. And, from what I can tell, they carry all styles of music, which rocks!
Totally worth your time if you have the patience to sift through all of their stuff.