Why are CDs so cheap!!!

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Klapamos, Feb 7, 2019.

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  1. George Blair

    George Blair Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    'cause they made too many of them.
     
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  2. Papi Hipbone323

    Papi Hipbone323 The Stouffer's Lasagna of Audiophiles

    Location:
    Lancaster, Ohio
    I have lost too many files to crashed hard drives/cpu's to fully depend on them. Downloads, save for 1 or 2 songs at a time, make no sense to me. If I got rid of the CD, I would be SOL. Downloads, save for 1 or 2 songs at a time, make no sense to me. I, personally, find tremendous value in CDs, as I play them while commuting, at work, etc. I find CDs give a unique listening experience from my records and from my digital files. No cracks & pops. No inner groove distortion. No real need for cleaning the disc. Same audio playback experience every time. There are many sonic pluses to the medium. For me, each format has a place and can't really totally replace the other. Personally, I can't play digital files very easily in the truck, can't play a CD easily while mowing and don't have the CD for many of the records I have. Back to topic & not bashing any medium nor your view at all, but all that which was uncool can suddenly become cool again and vice versa. Time will tell. I never thought I'd see the day when ripped jeans were back in style!
     
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  3. numanoid

    numanoid Forum Resident

    Location:
    Valparaiso, IN

    I'm not bashing the medium at all. I can even understand why you'd want to keep the CD's. But for me, it's easy enough to load them onto my 500gb iPhone and plug that into the AUX jack in my car or my home stereo, and never use the disc again. I was saying that as a whole, I doubt the masses will move back to CD's ever. They would just download files again. CD's will be a niche market, I can see that. But dominant? No.

    Everything you're saying about vinyl is spot-on and the reasons why I moved away from the format.
     
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  4. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I remember the Sugar thing well. I avoided those albums because they were so bargain bin oriented for awhile, but that was stupid. Copper Blue and Beaster are both great. The Pulp album wasn't a bargain bin thing over here. I didn't "get" that one (in both senses) until a couple years ago. Monster was indeed everywhere.

    RE: Band of Susans, it's funny you should mention them. Years ago there was a cut out specialist I used to order records, tapes, and CDs from. I recall getting a couple BOS albums from them, but never really got into them.

    Pain Teens stuff doesn't seem to be common in the used bins over here either.
     
  5. trusso

    trusso Forum Resident

    Who would be buying cds with any consideration of their resale value?
     
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  6. VinylGuy89

    VinylGuy89 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puyallup, Wa
    Cuz nobody under 25 wants them. I'm 18 and I dont know one person my age who has a CD player. like they are prehistoric to my generation (gen z)
     
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  7. bluesky

    bluesky Senior Member

    Location:
    south florida, usa
    Just today: a M- double CD Van Halen... $1
     
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  8. VinylGuy89

    VinylGuy89 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puyallup, Wa
    Also, my generation (gen z) streams everything. and if we want physical copies, we buy vinyl. Streams for average listeners, Vinyl for music lovers. CDs for wierdos.

    Edit - this is what I believe my generation thinks, not what I personally think
     
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  9. Supply and demand as others have noted. This is affected by competition from downloads and streaming.

    The cost to produce CDs in quantity is about 30¢ each.
     
    ARK likes this.
  10. wallpaperman

    wallpaperman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Edinburgh
    Can you give examples, because I just don't get that at all?

    New release CD's are generally priced £10-£11 in HMV/Fopp/supermarkets/Amazon, unless they are deluxe editions. Granted that back catalogue prices can creep up for lesser known artists if they are produced in smaller quantities

    20 years ago, chart CD's were around £14-£15 and back catalogue could be £17, we're nowhere near that in general.
     
    anorak2 likes this.
  11. eric777

    eric777 Astral Projectionist

    CDs are cheaper then they were in the 90s ;however, I would be reluctant to say they are all cheap. It’s rare that I find anything I want for $2.00 as some have mentioned. On average, I probably spend between $10.00 to $15.00 per CD. The ones I find that are extremely cheap are usually from artists I don’t like or are extremely scratched.
     
    klockwerk likes this.
  12. uncarvedbloke

    uncarvedbloke Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK - SOT
    How come CDs are prehistoric yet an even older format isn't? Am genuinely interested.
     
  13. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    My generation is gen CD. :cool:
     
  14. LitHum05

    LitHum05 El Disco es Cultura

    Location:
    Virginia
    I remember classical CDs in the 1990s. Those were not cheap, going into the $20 plus territory. And much more for opera box sets.
     
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  15. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Here's the history of it, in a nutshell.

    The CD overtook vinyl for convenience purposes. Because most people want their music to be as convenient as possible. It's smaller, more durable, more portable, doesn't require flipping, etc.
    People dumped CDs for downloads for.... CONVENIENCE purposes. They were smaller (took up no physical space), more portable (the whole collection on an Ipod), never required removing the discs, could hold everything you own in one device, etc.

    People dumped downloading/ripping for streaming for... CONVENIENCE purposes! Same size, even more portable (just use the phone), and instead of being confined to your own library, you had instant access to virtually everything that was ever made.

    A small (and it's pretty small, in the overall scheme of things) but growing vinyl niche started around the time of mass streaming, because there were people out there who wanted a physical product, and vinyl records give you more of what people want in a physical medium. It's bigger, more tactile, larger/clearer artwork. Some people prefer the sound, but issues of relative quality notwithstanding, the sound is not replicable by what is streamed/downloaded. Also, in the case of records from the analog era, different mastering than the CD/stream.

    What, exactly, is going to bring the CD back? Not anything that brought vinyl records back, that's for sure. The CD was designed as a replacement for vinyl, based on the state of things in the mid 1980s. If streaming had existed then, there never would have been a mass market for CDs. If CDs were to make a comeback beyond something very small and/or very brief (see: cassette revival), something huge will have to happen to the public's ability to stream. But that's got nothing to do with the pipedream of CDs simply becoming "hip" because "all that is old will be new again someday" or any other arm-chair philosophizing.
     
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  16. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    I was in HMV just before Christmas and they had Prince CDs for £3.99. Others were £5.99 or 2 for £10, including some imported Traffic remasters, which were made in Mexico. I'm not sure back catalog titles were £17 twenty years ago, maybe £12 or £13. Admittedly, that £12 or £13 was for a run of the mill Talking Heads CD that retails now for £5 or less, and be picked up used for £1 or £2.
     
  17. Digital-G

    Digital-G Senior Member

    Location:
    Dayton, OH
    It's sad for me to say but I know very few people of your generation (personally) who have actually purchased music.

    I'm a weirdo by the way - I love CDs. I didn't download or stream any of them. ;)
     
  18. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    The first time I saw new vinyl records in a store was 2003. There was a load of Bob Dylan records (newly remastered) plus others at the end of the aisles. I picked up Tim Buckley's Blue Afternoon, which was OOP on CD at the time. Back in the UK, Reveal Records in Derby started stocking new records in the downstairs part of the shop (there was already record upstairs as that part of the shop was reserved for metal/punk). I bought a few LPs, including a copy of Pixies Doolittle and some Sonic Youth imports (£5 each, including double albums). I ordered the Mnutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime (£13.99). I remember the prices because they are a lot cheaper than today's. It was a great time. Sadly, Reveal Records closed not long afterwards and most of the independent shops/stalls and some chains shuttered. And it was before Spotify.
     
  19. numanoid

    numanoid Forum Resident

    Location:
    Valparaiso, IN
    This has been my experience as well.
     
    VinylGuy89 likes this.
  20. HeavensAbove

    HeavensAbove Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento
    This is a good idea, IMO.
     
  21. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    I'm looking forward to going through the used CD racks tomorrow!:agree:
     
    Dynamic Ranger likes this.
  22. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    Lots of wisdom and good observations in this thread, including the above.

    It's definitely about what you're looking for, what your taste in music is, whether or not you came of age in the prime years of CD (mid'-80s to late '90s, basically), and how large your music collection is.

    If you don't already have a lot of CDs, or if your music collection is (or aspires to be) in the multi-1000s, then it is indeed very easy, at least in the U.S., to scoop up dozens, perhaps 100s of quality titles for $1 to $3 each, sometimes even less, at thrift stores, bargain bins in used record stores, yard sales, and so on.

    If you are not too fussy about specific masterings/pressings, and if you're content with VG+ condition, it's dead-easy to find plenty of albums by '70s and '80s hard-rock acts, '80s and '90s roots-rock artists, virtually every major jazz and blues artist ever, indie-ish singer-songwriter artists who found mainstream success in the late '80s or '90s, and many new wave bands. These artists were either creatures of the CD era, or had all their stuff reissued in plentiful numbers in the CD era.

    You certainly won't find every album by every artist commonly or cheaply in the bins, but if you're interested in picking up any CD you don't already own that you happen to come across by a given artist, you'll have no problem finding super-cheap CDs by Bob Dylan, Talking Heads, Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin, Marshall Crenshaw, AC/DC, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin, the Stones, The Beatles, Floyd, and many others.

    The trouble is, most of us already have either all these artists' albums, or all of their albums that we want. Not a lot of SH forum members are looking (or still looking) for Sheryl Crow's albums, or the George Marino mastering of Led Zeppelin I or II, or Marshall Crenshaw's 4th album, or the 1994 mastering of The Wall or the non-DCC mastering of Bonnie Raitt's late '80s/early '90s albums, or a non-Barry Diament mastering of Back in Black, or a non-target CD of Talking Heads' Little Creatures.

    Similarly, if you're into compiling a complete collection of, for example, '80s CBS red-print-spine CDs, or maybe '80s RCA CDs or some such, then you'll be able to make a huge dent in your quest at very little cost. But of course, to actually complete that collection, you'll have to scour the earth and pay and arm and a leg for the 10% of those issues that are highly collectible.

    So yes, perhaps 70-80% of CDs are really cheap these days. And many of those CDs are desirable and fantastic bargains for those in the market for them. But even with that, nowhere near 80% of CDs that most people actually want are cheap these days. That number is probably more in the 30-50% range at best.
     
  23. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    How old exactly are you? Vinyl has never gone away and certain shops continued to sell it. It was widely available still up till around 1997 and very scarce for a few years. 2003 is pretty much spot on as to when a revival was starting but I was buying new vinyl titles by mail order / online and in shops throughout late 90s and early 00s. For some reason other than sales many independent record shops closed or went completely online around 2005/6. I think this was more to do with leases ending and rising business rates. However oasis for vinyl continued such as Diverse in Newport who always would stock or order anything available and there was still a lot of titles available on vinyl. I think chains selling only CDs suffered the most from falling sales initially due to illegal downloads and later Itunes (this was well before streaming companies appeared). Vinyl was not something that newly arose from nothing in 2003. If you lived near a city even large HMV and Virgin stores continued to sell a small selection of vinyl records. Another factor in the fall of record shops has been Amazon and Ebay. The later becoming the main source for used as well as new vinyl sales. Any decent collectable vinyl (or even common titles) was not likely to be found in shops or fairs this side of the millenium. Used shops appear to have disappeared at an even faster rate than retailers specialising in new product.
     
  24. wallpaperman

    wallpaperman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Edinburgh
    I was recently looking through a bunch of my CD's that I had not been through for a while and came across a live album by Gene, 'Rising for Sunset' and it has a Virgin price sticker of £16.99 still on it. Just a single CD. Can now be had for £6.98 on Amazon (though it might even be cheaper than that :winkgrin:).
     
  25. Dynamic Ranger

    Dynamic Ranger Forum Resident

    Location:
    Old Town, Maine
    Well, I guess I could qualify as a weirdo too, since I'm 26, and have NEVER streamed anything in my entire life, and don't ever plan on it! I've bought, collected, and enjoyed CDs for as long as I can remember. And rest assured, that will never ever change as long as I'm still breathing in and out! I'll still be playing my CDs when I'm an old man, regardless of what new fancy-format trend comes along. CDs are here to stay! (In my life at least.) So if all of that, at my age, makes me a weirdo, then I'm a damn proud weirdo! :D

    Also, I can relate about my peers, none of my (aged 15 to 30 year-old) friends have any interest in physical media at all. Damn trendies! Lol.
     
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