Thread: New SA-CD buyer.

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Post by hiredfox May 4, 2009 (51 of 61)
MCH is a funding issue for me. I imagine it is better than two-channel but low-fi MCH cannot be better than high-end stereo. I just cannot afford to add three more channels of equivalent quality and would rather not downgrade to compromise.

Heard a friend's very low-fi MCH and I agree it was spooky, on the other hand he was palying a Blue-Ray promo DVD so the effects were clearly exaggerated for effect. In the concert hall, reflections from walls and the like are not overtly distinguishable so rear effects in MCH should not be over-emphasised just to achieve spectacular sound

Post by metalking61 May 4, 2009 (52 of 61)
lowdbrent said:

You may not remember this but Yamaha had players that used a clear cartridges for the CDs to stay in. There was almost no way to deface the disc. Who do you suppose thought that was a bad idea? The labels. They want people to keep buying. Greed kills good ideas just like greed keeps MS in business.

You're right about the labels killing good ideas out of greed. Which also proves one of the points that audioholic made in one of his replies to you, that being that even if you put the music on removable hard drive, you still have to depend on those same record labels making their catalogues for a particular artist available in such a format. And they are not going to do that when they can sell the individual titles seperately. Or, if they do make an artists entire catalog available on one hard drive, they will charge such an exorbitant price for it that you would have to take out a second mortgage on your home to afford it. It's a good idea, but like so many good ideas it will probably never see the light of day.

Post by Michelten May 4, 2009 (53 of 61)
hiredfox said:

1. MCH is a funding issue for me. I imagine it is better than two-channel but low-fi MCH cannot be better than high-end stereo....
2 ...reflections from walls and the like are not overtly distinguishable so rear effects in MCH should not be over-emphasised just to achieve spectacular sound

Hiredfox,

Looking at the equipment you have I would add a Sony STR-DA5400ES to link to your SCD-XA5400ES and benefit of the HDMI DSD multi-ch interface (I understand it produces splendid quality). Then I would add any three available extra speakers (yours old, or e-baye'd) to then upgrade them over time to your desired standard.... you surely deserve it.

Your second point that reflection/acoustics "shouldn't be overemphasized"?? are you going to tell me that your stereo room has comparable acoustics to the Windsor Hall ?? ... come on !

As I told to HV ... once you get into multi-ch "you will regret all the past years that you missed it !"

Post by canonical May 4, 2009 (54 of 61)
Michelten said:

once you get into multi-ch "you will regret all the past years that you missed it !"

that's what she said

Post by Englitrob May 11, 2009 (55 of 61)
I paid MFSL $4.00 per tape for the tape, duplication and cases. I spent another dollar on the printing the cassette labels and the J-card with the liner notes. The retail price was set at $17.95 and I paid $1.795 royalty on each sale plus a one time fee of $80 for the 2 Track 15 IPS Master copy and shipping from England. Which put my raw costs at around $7.00 each tape, that did not include my labor or advertising. My wholesale cost was $10.77 and I sold to customers who received my quarterly mailer at a discount price of $14.95. The reason I am telling you all this is because I do not believe the $3.00 price you quoted that the record label must sell to the wholesaler for a full price $17.99-$18.99 CD. I had a good friend who had a CD store before he retired and he paid $10.00 to $11.00 depending on the label and at that time CDs retailed for $14.99-$15.99. So a record label selling directly to a wholesaler would likely get closer to $8.00 per disc. Perhaps a typo?

Actually the industry did try to kill LP, they were unsuccessful, every major label and nearly all the independents release LPs. The industry will be unsuccessful a keeping SACD a secret forever, eventually the truth will get out, and people will demand SACDs. And then they will have no choice but to spend the extra money to include an SACD layer.

The Supreme Court, in the anti-trust and price fixing lawsuit against the record companies, computed all of the costs across the supply chain for CD, and determined that CD's should have retailed for $8-10, when they were more often retailing for $18.

I am 28, and I stopped buying CD's at 18. I, ah, "downloaded" (Shhhh!) music exclusively, until I tired of the very low quality of mp3 audio. I moved to LP and now SACD (an hoping for Blu Ray Master Audio in the future). I am now willing to pay for music that is of higher quality than CD.

I personally would like to see every major record company go out of buisness, and see small lables that actually care about music fill the gap. The majors have strangled music for years, forcing higher prices, controling whats played on the radio, and concentrating on disposable music aimed at 12 year olds. Mp3 downloading eliminated the only actual product they sold, which was control over the market. Now maybe someone can come along and actuly sell music for a change.

Post by lowdbrent May 11, 2009 (56 of 61)
All of this talk about the majors going out of business scares me. And when does the government have any common sense about how much things should cost? Name one thing the government does and does it right, on budget, competitively, without incident?

The price was not established by the labels. The price was established by what the market could bare by the retailers. The retailers have been setting the costs that they will pay for music. The labels are selling to the distributors at $2-3 or so. The retailers want to lower prices now only because sales dropped off. But all along the cost had to be low enough that they could make 100% profit in the bargain bin.

The labels are not always the bad guys. They were the ones investing millions of dollars in musicians, hoping to recover it. They are loan sharks. The artists havent been paying off, so they have been losing money. Anyone that says labels are all evil is just bitter because they couldn't get a record deal, they didn't want to pay their advancd money back, they suck and have no hope selling anything, etc.

Indie labels are the same thing as a big label, except they have less money, aren't as well respected in the retail market, and do not have the industry pull (for now). There is nothing magical about an indie. There is just less money, less artists, and less hope for sucess.

Post by DSD May 11, 2009 (57 of 61)
lowdbrent said:

The labels are selling to the distributors at $2-3 or so.

This number is wrong, in your last post on this subject I gave you the benefit of the doubt saying it might have been a typo on your part.

The wholesale price for a full price CD / SACD at $16.99 - $18.99 retail directly from record label to store is: $10 - $12 depending on the label.

The wholesale price for a full price CD / SACD to a wholesale/distributor is closer to $8.

The $2-$3 you keep wrongfully quoting is for cutouts and overstocks from a distributor for items either removed from catalogs or left over stock from the bulk purchase of record store inventory who have went out of business.

Having owned my own recording company "Aesthetic Audio" I can tell you a record company cannot afford to give away any product for $2-$3 except for budget reissue recordings which have almost no costs except for pressing and printing.

This is just one more reason I cannot trust a single thing that "lowdbrent" says.

Post by Englitrob May 12, 2009 (58 of 61)
lowdbrent said:

All of this talk about the majors going out of business scares me. And when does the government have any common sense about how much things should cost? Name one thing the government does and does it right, on budget, competitively, without incident?

The price was not established by the labels. The price was established by what the market could bare by the retailers.

Thats what anti-trust and price-fixing means. It means that an industry operates illegally to keep prices artificially high. The government was not bidding out a record contract, the Supreme Court was confirming a finding of industry wide price fixing, and that's the most recent in a long line of wonderful behavior from the music industry, from paying radio stations to play certain music or keep other music off the air to taking music away from black artists and having it recorded by white artists.

Minor labels can take more risk with artists because the can target niche markets and fanbases, the way current SACD makers do. The major's economies of scale require every album to sell a million copies in a week or fail. This strangles interesting music which requires time to find listeners. People forget that there were once regional record and radio markets, which allowed for the development of regional music like blues. It only took sales of a few thousand singles for an artist to get recognized (imagine jukebox plays as an important sales indicator).
Major labels did their best to strangle these markets, and unfortunately for them they succeeded. There is an interesting parallel to GM, where a company gets what it wants for so long that it kills itself. No industry can actively block innovation and expect to survive.

lowdbrent said:

You may not remember this but Yamaha had players that used a clear cartridges for the CDs to stay in. There was almost no way to deface the disc. Who do you suppose thought that was a bad idea? The labels. They want people to keep buying. Greed kills good ideas just like greed keeps MS in business.

You hinted to this in your last post. And btw, this is what a lot of radio stations use. You can use any CD in a cartridge loaded player, they just never caught on in the consumer market because people don't handle their disks as much as radio stations, and those that were concerned with handling just loaded them into 5-100 CD changers and could remotely use their entire collection.

Post by lowdbrent May 12, 2009 (59 of 61)
DSD said:

This number is wrong, in your last post on this subject I gave you the benefit of the doubt saying it might have been a typo on your part.

The wholesale price for a full price CD / SACD at $16.99 - $18.99 retail directly from record label to store is: $10 - $12 depending on the label.

The wholesale price for a full price CD / SACD to a wholesale/distributor is closer to $8.

The $2-$3 you keep wrongfully quoting is for cutouts and overstocks from a distributor for items either removed from catalogs or left over stock from the bulk purchase of record store inventory who have went out of business.

Having owned my own recording company "Aesthetic Audio" I can tell you a record company cannot afford to give away any product for $2-$3 except for budget reissue recordings which have almost no costs except for pressing and printing.

This is just one more reason I cannot trust a single thing that "lowdbrent" says.

I am sorry to tell you this but that is not the standard deal. I can tell you for a fact that the big three retailers only pay about $3. per disc. They pay even less and in some cases only royalties on discs sold on the new $5.00 discs. They ARE making atleast 100% on the blowout items.

I have distribution deal with KOCH, the largets indie distributor in the USA. They sell discs for around $6 on the high side.

The point I was making is that the label is not the bad guy here. They ARE selling to the distributors for $3 +/- and the rest is handler fee and retailer related. You want copies of contracts? I can certainly give proof.

Post by Ear May 12, 2009 (60 of 61)
What interests me is: who are the distributors? Aren't those the labels themselves? A lot of artists have their own label but distribution deals with the major ones. I am really asking I do not want to sound snide. As far as I heard it the distribution is handled by the Majors themselves.
Does anybody know? And how come there has not been any rush of independent distributors as it has been by the labels?

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