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CD & cassette & LP costs

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didds
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CD & cassette & LP costs

#244697

Postby didds » August 16th, 2019, 9:48 am

I've investigated a new album that was released today. The cassette and CD are priced at £9. The vinyl LP is £22.

DAK quite what may be the case why vinyl LP is 3 times the prices almost of a CD and cassette? I can presume that the production costs are higher for vinyl ... or rather that CDs can be "burnt" far cheaper than vinyl can be pressed. I can oinly presume also that recording to tape must be incredibly cheap also although I guess a whoile length of tape has to be made each time. Is it also because of the perceived small marklet for vinyl so its costs get shared over a very small production run in comparison?

DAK?

didds

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244706

Postby UncleIan » August 16th, 2019, 10:05 am

Probably more like they think people will pay £22 for the vinyl, so they sell it for that much.

And...cassette? Really? Wow. I thought that was deader than flared trousers?

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244709

Postby Dod101 » August 16th, 2019, 10:16 am

I am amazed that they still produce recordings on cassette nowadays. In fact I expect that some of the cost of the LP is that it will be a relatively small production run because few people will have the means to play an LP never mind a cassette. In fact I have difficulty buying CDs for some stuff since it can all be downloaded now in electronic form.

Dod

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244721

Postby DrFfybes » August 16th, 2019, 10:39 am

I asked this of a band that sells in several formats... they said LPs are expensive because of 3 main reasons...

1) tooling costs - making the stamp for the disc, also detting up the printing for the cases and associated shipping.
2) materials cost - CDs are pennies these days.
3) market forces - people with gramophones tend to have higher end systems and are prepared to pay more.

Didn't explain to me why a download was the same price as a CD though :)

Paul

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244745

Postby Julian » August 16th, 2019, 11:27 am

DrFfybes wrote:I asked this of a band that sells in several formats... they said LPs are expensive because of 3 main reasons...

1) tooling costs - making the stamp for the disc, also detting up the printing for the cases and associated shipping.
2) materials cost - CDs are pennies these days.
3) market forces - people with gramophones tend to have higher end systems and are prepared to pay more.

Didn't explain to me why a download was the same price as a CD though :)

Paul

I note the smiley but on your last point I suspect that market forces, albeit different ones, are at play with downloads too. People have to some extent become conditioned to what they will pay and downloads have the convenience factor for many so the retailers probably feel no need to undercut CD prices. In fact I get the impression that there might still be a slight premium for MP3 downloads vs buying a CD from Amazon or wherever and ripping it yourself to account for that convenience factor.

I've started buying CD-quality downloads now and I've seen those go through a transition where a few years ago I really think they relied on your (3) above and were very premium-priced vs both physical CDs and MP3 downloads on the assumption that anyone insisting on uncompressed CD quality (or above) would have higher-end systems and be willing to pay more, sometimes 2 or 3 times more so similar to today's LP pricing.

For some reason the price premium on CD-quality downloads has come down over the last few years and is now maybe more like a 50% premium. In my case that is now within the threshold where I am willing to pay that premium for the convenience but LP users don't really have a choice to revert to going the cheaper but less convenient route (they can't press their own LPs from master tapes!) so it's a bit of a captive market.

The only thing that I can see driving current LP prices down would be LP sales declining because people aren't willing to pay the asking price or volumes getting high enough such that bigger scale pressing plants open up again and maybe even compete with each other to drive down the costs.

LPs. Porky Prime Cuts. This is all bringing back a few memories.

- Julian

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244758

Postby didds » August 16th, 2019, 12:12 pm

Julian wrote:The only thing that I can see driving current LP prices down would be LP sales declining because people aren't willing to pay the asking price or volumes getting high enough such that bigger scale pressing plants open up again and maybe even compete with each other to drive down the costs.



The former - I perceive the vinyl market is still very small and so any drop in demand may well see LP production just not occur at all rather than prices drop

The latter - this is the rub I think. There just isnt the infrastructure to press LPs and currently not enough of a market for the creation of new resources to warrant the expense etc. Meanwhile the comparative prices and need for equipment etc and the limitation of availability of vinyl generally (plus extended lead in times because of the lack of processing infrasructure - its all a circle really - doesn't help expand the market to enable this.

cheers

didds

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244768

Postby marronier » August 16th, 2019, 12:48 pm

Mug punters will think they save more when they buy the vinyl LP at half price than they will on half priced CD or cassette.

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244777

Postby didds » August 16th, 2019, 1:13 pm

marronier wrote:Mug punters will think they save more when they buy the vinyl LP at half price than they will on half priced CD or cassette.



well I suppose 50% of £20 _is_ more than 50% of £10 !

didds

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244806

Postby Redmires » August 16th, 2019, 2:49 pm

Off topic slightly but buy an LP at £22 and in 20 years time you'll have an LP that may still be worth that much, or maybe worth a lot more if it's a rare or collectable item. Buy a download today and you will still have a download but it will be worth absolutely nothing, zilch ... and nothing to pass on to the kids etc. As for a CD/Cassette, maybe less collectable but you still possess something. Ok, the yoof may not mind not really owning anything that they have paid good money for but for people of a certain age (myself included) it seems like a huge marketing con. Luckily, I never did sell off my LP collection and one bought for a fiver in the 80's now sells for approx £1500. Try that with a download.

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244810

Postby tea42 » August 16th, 2019, 2:57 pm

Signed Vinyls sell for even more. Daughter just signed three massive boxes of new album. The delivery and collection chappie was not amused!

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244883

Postby AF62 » August 16th, 2019, 7:27 pm

DrFfybes wrote:
Didn't explain to me why a download was the same price as a CD though :)



Does anyone actually buy a download these days? I thought most people just rented music through places like Spotify.

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#244888

Postby Julian » August 16th, 2019, 7:48 pm

AF62 wrote:
DrFfybes wrote:
Didn't explain to me why a download was the same price as a CD though :)



Does anyone actually buy a download these days? I thought most people just rented music through places like Spotify.

I do. I also subscribe to a streaming service. I add the streaming versions of newly discovered (by me) albums to my library for a while and if I decide they’re definite keepers I then make an outright purchase, ideally via high-def download or if that’s unavailable via a CD that I then rip.

Why? Well my main reason is that quite a lot of my listening is while travelling and I prefer to have my music locally stored on my phone when doing that to avoid data charges and chewing through the battery charge on my phone. I am aware that it is possible to cache tracks locally with pretty much any streaming service but I don’t want to end up on a 12 hour flight, really fancy playing a certain album, and finding that it is something I don’t have downloaded. I have all of my purchased music stored on my phone (in relatively low quality but that’s OK for me when travelling). I confess that as a sci-fi loving geek I also love the cool factor (at least in my mind) of knowing that I have my entire music collection and ebook collection in my pocket at all times.

I suspect you’re right and I might well be unusual, and my album-centric view of my collection is also probably becoming increasingly unusual as we relative oldies shuffle off the scene (I’m 60), but there (for what it’s worth) is my modus operandi and accompanying personal rationale.

- Julian

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Re: CD & cassette & LP costs

#245446

Postby Gaggsy » August 19th, 2019, 1:42 pm

DrFfybes wrote:I asked this of a band that sells in several formats... they said LPs are expensive because of 3 main reasons...

1) tooling costs - making the stamp for the disc, also detting up the printing for the cases and associated shipping.
2) materials cost - CDs are pennies these days.
3) market forces - people with gramophones tend to have higher end systems and are prepared to pay more.

Didn't explain to me why a download was the same price as a CD though :)

Paul


Straight from the horse's mouth as it were (I have a family member who runs a record label / online store):
CDs cost about 50p to produce, vinyl albums cost up to £3 each. That said these are short runs - so 500 copies of a single disc might be £3 but 1,000 copies of a double album in a gatefold sleeve is £2.75.
By the time it reaches the consumer, with everyone's mark-up along the way, you can see why there's such a price differential.
By the way, I was interested to learn that nobody presses vinyl in the UK any more. All the pressing plants are in Poland, Chechia, Germany.


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