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Are CDs really overpriced?

Thaspian	Date: August 24, 2008 @ 9:10 PM In the 70s, a full length LP cost over $25 in today's money and music sales were booming. I see a lot of CDs in the store I like for ten bucks. Is the issue the cost of music? I think it isn't. I think it's making music that people actually want to buy that is the issue, not the price of it. Maybe I'm dead wrong? Discuss.
Distilled1	Date: August 24, 2008 @ 9:43 PM I think your right Thasp. I do believe with the availability of music easy on the net, the loss of LPs (the art work (and no one tell me you can put a zeppelin III or Cheech and Chong monster paper in a CD, or just the idea a 3.5" cover is artwork... 12" was a great way to look at the music as well as listen to it! I don't know about the 25$ in todays money, I was teen early 20s sex drugs and rock and roll boy cback then,,, still have about 150 LPs in acid free plastic covers... but I was poor, hell was Detroit poor, bought most my Lps at "the record collector, at 2.99 used now some of those with that tag still on fetch 50-100 if I sell, some are worth 20 cents!, but eve then new at K-mart or Sears, were 5.99-6.99 new releases not old recordings , I'm talking say Motley Crue was new at K-mart (shout at the devil if I remember right I paid about 5.99... is that really 25$ today? I don't know if thats true, point me to that. I just know that today I can't find anything I would pay over 10 USD for and you can find CDs even the bad riaa ones for 10 but when you have 13 year olds that want the latest greatest even wal-mart is over priced!!! and its cheaper to by off line or should I dare say it ? torrent it, because they listen to it for 2-4 weeks and the next stupid song is whats hot, never from the band/singer they just wanted... it used to be a LP would have one , 2, 3, 8 top 10 hits on it they played more than one song... the single died then they tried to bring it back but never did to the music buying people ... now theres singles but they try to sell you a CD full of garbage for the one hit song! (they did that back then to yes, but it seems too me the music was worth it, maybe I'm just an old fart, and the music today just doesn't suite me... but hey I like it all even some of the top 40 radio stuff, I just wont buy it!
Thaspian	Date: August 24, 2008 @ 10:47 PM you're talking used. used != retail price in a mall store used CDs bring it down even further. on ebay as cheap as $1.50 from reputable sellers! and the 60s market was all about singles. release a single, and if the market likes it, THEN put together an album.
Distilled1	Date: August 24, 2008 @ 10:55 PM "Motley Crue was new at K-mart (shout at the devil if I remember right I paid about 5.99" the year it was released withing the second top ten... it cost this much Yeah I bought used a lot but that 5.99 was NEW! at K-mart, and as I think more than likely Sears! (yep they sed to hacve a nice music selection... not sam goodie or music ...____ drawing a blank" but one of the mall stores that were about 50% more
zedsalt	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 3:14 AM New releases on CD are going for $16-18 around here; that goes down to nine when they've been out for a few months. If there was an album that I really wanted that was available on vinyl for $25, and it had a label on it or something denoting that it was recorded, mastered, and duped in analog, I'd happily pay the extra dinero. I'd go as high as $40, if the other option was a $9 CD...or 15-20 free MP3s, for that matter...
zedsalt	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 3:20 AM When I bought "Too Fast for Love" (DMusic's own Mystery Machine turned me on to it), I picked it up at a nearby privately-owned record store where the price was marked in pounds, and up-to-date exchange rate info was posted at the counter. All the cool Metal albums and Kerrang! magazine weren't being marketed on this side of the pond yet.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 5:24 PM When I was a teen, back in the UK, vinyl single disc albums were about 8.99 and double albums 12.99 UK Pounds (double that up more or less for US Dollars). Singles were 1.99 and 12" singles were 2.99 or 3.49. When CDs came on the scene, they were typically 13.99 for a new release and as much as 24.00 for back catalgoue. CD singles were 4.50. When I first came to Canada in 2000, CDs were typically CDN$14.99 on new release and $22.99 for back catalogue for single CDs. Now it's more like $9.99 on first release at the likes of Walmart and Best Buy for a limited time and rising to $14.99. Where the expenses still lie are in back catalogue, some back catalogue material is $25 for a single disc. So I think a lot depends. If you average it out, between new release price and what it costs until it has to be reordered as back catalogue, that's about 14-15 dollars. Still significant, add on 13% taxes and you're looking at about 16.50. SO unless you get the door crasher specials at the discount stores, CDs are still possibly more expensive than they could be. When you consider that if you are pressing 5,000 or more copies, that each disc is about 45 cents each to produce. (ok distribution adds some money too, but there's still quite a bit of profit in it for the label and the retailer, assuming they can sell the discs )
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 5:25 PM I should add that in the UK, new release prices have come down quite a bit since then.
Veracohr	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 5:31 PM My local replication house offers runs of 1000 for about $1.30 per CD. This includes 3-color on disc printing, 4/4 insert printing, standard jewel case with black, white or clear tray, proofs, barcode and overwrap. Assume that major labels getting much larger quantities get a better price, and calculate from there.
ChillinBuzz	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 5:41 PM On 25th Aug 2012, leedsquietman said: I should add that in the UK, new release prices have come down quite a bit since then. Prices have come down on a lot of CDs, however at times you still see some new albums (and quite a few compilations or re-releases) being much more, I've seen them range from £8.99 or £9.99 right up to £30 and more. If we went on UK-US exchange rate (around £1=$1.85 as I type) that would make an album roughly around the $18 mark. Not an accurate figure by any means but it's way less than what it was a few years ago. That said, it doesn't take into account possible reductions in production costs, less income to artists/songwriters, etc.
Thaspian	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 8:26 PM that no one gives a fuck that they probably shouldn't spend the money on it, because they simply have to have it! Maybe I'm nuts. " id="293595">It's interesting to me because I've noticed over the past year a lot of people who are "broke" prioritize accordingly to keep their interests. People who live 3 to an apartment manage to have $600(at the time) iPhones. or fancy clothes, or go out every now and then. Even broke people manage to get stuff that's seen to them as absolutely necessary for their enjoyment/hobbies/well being. I think it's not about making it cheaper. I think it's like work. You don't make yourself cheaper to compete with your direct competition - you educate yourself and obtain experience so you can charge a certain amount, for exemplary top notch services. It's about making music more relevant in one's income stream by making amazing music that transcends genre and demographics, that no one gives a fuck that they probably shouldn't spend the money on it, because they simply have to have it! Maybe I'm nuts.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 8:26 PM If you shop around, you can get CDs done to the same specs at $1.00 per CD (US dollars) and I've even seen offers at 90 cents a CD for 1,000 by various companies in magazines such as Electronic Musician and Musictechmag. Major labels had the expense of building their own pressing plants in the 80's anf 90's but most of them now outsource or bought a stake in duplicators. Depending on the artist, they can print them for as low as 30 cents a CD (this is probably pressing 20,000 at a time).
Thaspian	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 8:27 PM that post started at "it's interesting to me", but DM sucks, so it fucked up my post. like the damn preview button.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 25, 2008 @ 8:29 PM I agree with you Thaspian. Still, it's easy to rip off a CD, not quite so much an iphone At least not right now Yes, some of the people who do complain about spending 15 bucks on a CD will happily waste all manner of money on other crap.
Cryxan	Date: August 26, 2008 @ 6:42 AM Since pressing/production costs are so low, they shouldn't be a significant contributor to the cost of the final product. IMO, the price should be determined by what I'm actually getting. That is, if I'm buying an album by an established artist like Tori Amos, and I'm pretty much guaranteed to enjoy the majority if not all the tracks, then I'm willing to spend $15 or even $20 for the album. If the artist is a new sensation whose only two good tracks have already been played to death on the radio, the price should be in the range of $5 to $8. Once they've built up a fan base and demand, they can charge more. One thing that really works for the music companies is that music appeals to us emotionally, and marketing people are extremely good at exploiting that. Especially when it comes to the new sensation, because those are targeted at young people, who are easier to market to when it comes to selling an image. They know how to create demand out of nowhere by placing songs on the charts, having DJ's hype it up, using certain imagery in music videos, etc. I used to buy a lot of CDs in the early and mid 90's, because I was a member of Columbia House and they often had good deals. Buy one at regular price, get one for free, and as many as you want after that for $1.99. With shipping, it came to about $7.50 per CD because I usually bought 10 at a time. Those deals started to go away, slowly but surely. When the average rose above $10, I stopped buying from them. I don't buy nearly as many CDs these days, although I'd like to and I would, if the prices were more reasonable.
BlackMage	Date: August 27, 2008 @ 2:19 AM My maximum price that I'm willing to pay is 12€ (rarely, under 10€ and then were talking). It's not that I'm a poor bastard, but I'm a cheap bastard.
Fraser	Date: August 27, 2008 @ 6:20 AM I don't really buy cd's anymore, I just buy all my music from beatport.com and audiojelly.com. Both those sites have all the electronica I want (which I can never find on cd's at the local cd store), and have a 'top 100' section for each sub genre of electronica. Helps me find good music faster Also, there's a 'independent artist' section on audiojelly, so I can support other artists as well as have my own stuff put up. I think cd's are more of a thing of the past...
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 27, 2008 @ 11:56 AM Depends. Maybe for the ipod generation. I personally hate the compressed sound of mp3s and aacs, even though I own 2 mp3 players. It says a lot about the world we live in in that we are happy to embrace technology which sounds worse just because it is more portable and has a 'cooler, fresher' vibe. The argument about having access to more tracks is a fair one, but I'd rather listen to 10 good tracks than have a hundred mediocre ones on a portable flash drive. In most cases I can totally tell the difference, especially on the high end. Most electronica doesn't employ a very wide dynamic range, excepting maybe some more ambient orientated stuff, your typical techno or trance stuff translates better to mp3 because it is often quite simple structures and not filled with 50 tracks. However, some other genres, such as classical, or blues/jazz or even some contemporary rock and alternative music often suffers because it has a wider range of instrumentation and more dynamic range. So I'd rather play a CD in these genres of music. And nobody could ever convince me that plugging an Ipod or similar device into a really great stereo sounds good. It might be OK for pumping up beats at a house party, when the background noise is high and most people are too drunk to know otherwise, but that's about it.
Thaspian	Date: August 28, 2008 @ 1:57 AM Even on Thiels I've been hard up to find anyone who could tell the difference between Vorbis at -q6(192k nominal) in a controlled A/B/X blind test with a variety of music. DVD-A and SACD were supposed to be the next gen formats but with CD sales dropping in every neighborhood where broadband was becoming available new formats was the least of anyone's worries from what I hear. I think the future for that is in regular data DVDs one can play on a computer.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 28, 2008 @ 1:51 PM Vorbis is a better codec than mp3 imho. I can usually tell Q6 but take it up to Q8, 9 and 10 and then you will probably outfox me. Q6 is definately superior to mp3 encoded at 256 Kbps even though it's a lower bitrate. The vorbis algorithm is quite a bit better. But I can tell mp3 at 256 Kbps 9 times out of 10 and even 320 Kbps mp3 some of the time as inferior to 16 bit 44.1 Khz .wav/.aiff CD audio.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 28, 2008 @ 2:05 PM I've heard DVD-A and it sounded great. 24 bit audio is very cool, 14 bit 96 Khz in 5.1 surround can be awesome, especially if the source recording was mixed specifically for the format (and not just an old recording which was upsampled from 16 bit 44.1) compared to Pity that that genre hasn't really caught on. People are too into visuals with DVD and encode the audio as Dolby DIgital or DTS to minimize the audio element and free up more bandwidth for the video component, very sad. SACD has never caught on although it sounds amazing. A sampling rate of 2.8 Mhz might be a bit over the top. Neither killed the original CD, it's the compressed lofi formats designed for computers that did it, I think too many people just don't enjoy music enough anymore. It's all about computers, video games and HDTV with a gazillion channels and smoking weed these days. Many young people only have a passing interest in music and that;s mostly to keep up with their peers, rather than a passion for it - with so much music out there on radio, satellite radio, internet radio, internet streaming music, myspace, soundclick, DM and whatever, their is a saturation of music and nowhere near that level of demand from googly eyed, stoned video game freaking youngsters.
Thaspian	Date: August 28, 2008 @ 8:13 PM what is the point of a 2.8 MHz sampling rate when 99.9% of all consumer AND PROFESSIONAL gear doesn't work up there? most stuff isn't recorded DSD. and there's a whole lot of filtering that has to be done with DSD for it to not sound like shit. a 20 A/D D/A loop with a DSD system vs a good ol' set of lavry or weiss converters @ 96K might surprise a lot of people! some of the best converter designers agree 60 KHz would be optimum. Higher sampling rate doesn't matter if the converter is working faster instead of smarter to get things converted. 88.1, 96, 176, and 192, weren't chosen for being ideal values. but rather because 44.1 meant audio could be edited on cheap consumer tape decks at the time and that using multiples such as 88.2/96/176.4/192 meant they could use the same ICs as the old gear instead of designing from scratch for a more optimal sample rate. It's all about being cheap.
zedsalt	Date: August 29, 2008 @ 3:47 AM I'm more than a little offended at the way you lumped in getting high with playing video games, lqm, but you raised an important point: the less people do to entertain themselves, the less they create. A modicum of television viewing can be inspiring, but when we catch ourselves watching something that we really don't care for, just because it's the best thing that happens to be on t.v. at the moment, it's time for some re-evaluation. As more and more of my friends start families, I'm asked what it is that makes me so freakishly creative and prolific...seriously! I DO get that question a lot. O.k., admittedly, I get the impression that they'd like to inspire a more modest amount of that personality trait, for fear that it might be tied in to other aspects which they find less desirable, but they DO ask and often. I point out that I had very, very few toys as a child (the few I had were broken bits of toys that were pretty crappy to begin with, which makes imagination pretty important), and the only time I saw other children was at school or 4H activities. It all boils down to the fact that I was responsible for my own entertainment.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 29, 2008 @ 8:17 AM Just reporting what I see Zed. Getting high and playing videogames aren't always attached, but working in education (elementary), I see more and more students, especially high school age, who are openly smoking weed en masse on or near school grounds and the law enforcement does nothing, and the majority of people watching endless hours of TV aren't watching news and educational fare as their main priority, 90% of it is junk TV, 10% useful. If that. A typical 8th grader can tell me all about The Hills, or all about the weed culture but most of them can't handle time management, complete work, or take any pride in the presentation of their work. Then when you fail them, their parents come in screaming that you 'hate' their kid (or often call you racist if they are of an ethnic minority) and the principal caves and allows them more time, a rewrite, or I've even been told to change the mark from a fail to a 'D' so they can pass the student on to the high school and get shut of them. A big part of the whole issue, as you have pointed out, is that people don't think for themselves. The herd mentality, a couple of popular kids think x,y,z, so I THINK x,y,z. This is nothing new, but seems to be at epidemic proportions. Thaspian - I'm aware of the information you posted, but thank you for posting as there are plenty who are not
Veracohr	Date: August 29, 2008 @ 9:30 AM On 28th Aug 2012, Thaspian said: what is the point of a 2.8 MHz sampling rate when 99.9% of all consumer AND PROFESSIONAL gear doesn't work up there? DSD is 1-bit sigma-delta modulation, it requires a sampling rate that high. It DOESN'T mean it has a theoretical bandwidth of 1.4MHz, as if one referred to a 2.8MHz sampling rate in relation to pulse-code modulation.
zedsalt	Date: August 30, 2008 @ 4:01 AM I really need to start punctuating my less serious babblings with JKs and winking emoticons. With the notable exception of bigotry, sexism, etc., I find most antiquated notions kind of charming. Reefer madness: seventy-five years and going strong. In all seriousness, I do think people that create music tend to have a greater appreciation for sound quality, and relying on others to entertain us cuts down on the percentage of people actively engaged in creative pursuits. Early in our artistic development, we tend to emulate those we admire, and if kids are listening to nothing but 44.1@128, that's what they're aspiring to. Teach your children well. Hey, somebody ought to write a song about that!
kingo	Date: August 30, 2008 @ 8:04 AM You, listening to an iPod must have a serious hearing problem, that you need help with. And so take out the buds Nevermind, I'm only 17% here today.
GeneHilbert	Date: August 30, 2008 @ 9:04 AM My CD are 100% hand made - every single one is a piece of art created by me. And By "Hand Made" I mean - I buy bulk CD blanks. Which by the way are of better quality material than commercial releases, and jewel cases. I perform or create every instrumental part, sing every vocal, record, mix, master, burn, create the graphics and text, print, package, inspect, and mail or deliver every damn one. My price @ Dmusic and CDBaby is $14.00 they get their cut and add S&H. If you buy direct from my site through PayPal it's $15.95 total, which includes S&H, even to Europe. Or at my gigs for $12.00. My new CD "Larger Prey" (12 original compositions) will be out shortly, Ghostie is working on the cover art for this one. So that's different this time around. There is also a forum post here somewhere - where you can submit your original art work for consideration. So - support indie music. Advanced orders are now being excepted. You're going to like it.........
Fraser	Date: August 31, 2008 @ 3:04 AM What is the highest quality in an mp3 now? Didn't it recently increase to 340 kbps or something?
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 31, 2008 @ 7:09 AM 320 Kbps is the maximum. Most of the time you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between this and CD Audio, however, it obviously effects the track count in your mp3 player, you would have only half the number of tracks compared to 160 Kbps. Vorbis goes up to 350 Kbps in Q10.
Thaspian	Date: August 31, 2008 @ 8:02 AM If you pay close attention to hydrogenaudio listening tests, the latest versions of LAME have surpassed AAC in transparency. but vorbis still beats 'em both. LAME was once thought to not get any better, but has made leaps and bounds in the past five years.
Thaspian	Date: August 31, 2008 @ 8:03 AM ..and vorbis goes up to 500 kbps, with q10, I believe, but after -q6 most developers believe you're wasting bandwidth, as even on test clips that fuck up the codec you're not getting much difference.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 31, 2008 @ 8:08 AM Yeah you're right, Q9 is 350 or so Kbps (in VBR it can push a bit further). My bad !
GTOriginal	Date: August 31, 2008 @ 8:57 AM On 29th Aug 2012, leedsquietman said: I see more and more students, especially high school age, who are openly smoking weed en masse on or near school grounds and the law enforcement does nothing... Could it be that we are getting more enlightened as a society? Naaah probably not. Law enforcement is likely just too lazy to persecute pot smokers anymore, especially after a few rounds at the local pub or a few too many free donuts. Meanwhile I'm jealous of you guys with supersonic hearing. My ears are like a pair of blown out Chevy speakers, and I can still enjoy a scratchy old LP (long as there's something good spinning on it).
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: August 31, 2008 @ 10:31 AM There used to be that old adage - 'save it for college'. Now it's 'do it before high school' Law enforcement - they arrest them as minors have to do lots of paperwork, just for the offenders to get a warning, and these kids are smart enough to know that the cops are understaffed, overworked and only (vaguely) interested in dealers, so they bear no consequences. I'm not some kind of angel and not innocent in regard to this stuff, but I don't like to see 13 and 14 year olds blowing out their minds. 'Save it for college' is definately preferable.
Thaspian	Date: September 5, 2008 @ 1:50 PM the amount of people in my high school cafeteria smoking weed out of apples proves to me 'save it for college' is far behind us!
Thaspian	Date: September 5, 2008 @ 1:51 PM ... and wtf with law enforcement being lazy? are you a member of the police in a big city? that's what I thought. STFU before you criticize.
zedsalt	Date: September 6, 2008 @ 3:36 AM I think there's a pretty big difference between doing what's best for the health and safety of those one has vowed to "protect and serve" and being lazy, understaffed, overworked, etc. Every time law enforcement cracks down on illegal drug use, the profitability of the illegal drug trade increases. Every time the profitability of the illegal drug trade increases, the instances of theft and violent crime increase. Can anyone think of an exception? With hemp in particular, very nearly every bit of risk and harm stems from the prohibition, rather than the drug itself. Repealing the hemp prohibition has always resulted in sharp decreases in reported drug use (according to survey data), drug-related crime, "hard drug" and alcohol offenses, and negative public health impact, and a sharp INCREASE in the age at which children first try illegal drugs and the average age (again, according to survey data). It's an uneviable position to be in- to be expected to enforce a law which is so completely contrary to the public good.
Thaspian	Date: September 6, 2008 @ 6:37 PM The end of the movie Traffic kind of puts that last sentence in good context, where the lead character who is some drug enforcement politician kind of says "fuck it" on his final speech of the movie and goes home. I wouldn't want to be in that position either.
Distilled1	Date: September 6, 2008 @ 7:09 PM they still smoke out of apples in the cafe? I did that in 84!
Thaspian	Date: September 6, 2008 @ 11:55 PM this was in 2004, and 2005. I thought it was new, as this was the first guy to do it in the five years I watched people smoke weed in school.
monaray3	Date: September 25, 2008 @ 1:37 PM hahahah.
zedsalt	Date: September 26, 2008 @ 3:48 AM Someone passed a joint around during my Junior year English class, in the classroom, with the teacher at her desk. I just didn't have the guts to join the circle, myself.
Cryxan	Date: September 27, 2008 @ 1:02 PM At my school, every time people got caught smoking in the bathroom, they closed that bathroom down for a week to punish us all. It sucked.
zedsalt	Date: September 27, 2008 @ 1:06 PM I did a visitation for my Ed. Psych. class at a school where the student bathrooms had no toilet paper, because they kept using it to intentionally flood the floor. It had been that way for years, and the last I heard, they were sticking to that policy.
zedsalt	Date: September 27, 2008 @ 1:07 PM In hindsight, I probably could've made a better choice of phrase than "sticking to"...
zedsalt	Date: September 27, 2008 @ 1:07 PM In retrospect, I could've made a better word choice than "hindsight"...
Cryxan	Date: September 27, 2008 @ 1:19 PM
victorsskull	Date: September 29, 2008 @ 1:38 PM compared to gas no
magictrax541	Date: May 26, 2009 @ 10:00 PM I think mp3 albums are in a way over priced. Most mpc albums still go for the price of the cd counter part. I for one would rather spend the $10 or so on the cd copy and rip it to my computer in mp3 form instead.
victorsskull	Date: May 27, 2009 @ 7:44 AM 10$ is ok
zedsalt	Date: May 27, 2009 @ 10:19 AM Sure it is, but I get what mt541 is saying. Files that one burns to a CD and prints labels from should cost less than the prepackaged, um, package.

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