UMG To Price New CDs Under $10

marmoset writes "Perhaps a decade late, Universal Music Group has decided to try out sub-$10 CD pricing in the US. 'Beginning in the second quarter and continuing through most of the year, the company's Velocity program will test lower CD prices. Single CDs will have the suggested list prices of $10, $9, $8, $7 and $6.'" CD retailers are not convinced the price cuts will work out. For one thing it depends on whether other major labels follow suit, but the article notes that "executives at the other majors were nervous about the UMG move" and "privately, some appeared annoyed."

Comments

Re:I Am Shocked!

[Bobb Sledd]

I produce MP3's for mass distribution, and also support them when they don't function correctly (encoding/corruption issues).

In my opinion, VBR is not supported well-enough for mass consumption. Too many players out there still dork up when VBR is used. Granted, it's typically older players, but they are still out there.

The majority of people cannot tell the difference between (get this) 32kbps and 128kbps. I'm talking about the general population, not music enthusiasts. Most engineers cannot tell the difference between 162kbps and 192kbs, and certainly less of them can distinguish 192kbps and 256kbps -- and even I have doubts that most of those can in a true blind test.

But consider this: I put forth that the reason the you don't need full 44khz 16-bit audio is that you'll never hear the music as originally intended, and that is because of the following factors:

1) You usually listen in your car, and road-noise alone will destroy your ability to discern slight volume changes and perception of frequencies anywhere near 12khz and above

2) If you don't listen in a car, you often use your cheap speakers on your laptop

3) Most headphones people use are either cheap (under $50), or they are biased on the lower-end, and most are not equalized correctly, or not equalized to your ear physiology (different sizes ear canals can cause resonance/standing waves that cause a different perception in frequency for different people -- each set must be tuned individually if you are a true audiophile).

4) If you're older than 21, you probably can't hear above 16Khz at all

5) Your ears are not perfect (many people's frequency response is different from one ear to the other)

6) Your player is not perfect

7) Your speakers are not perfect, and you most likely haven't calibrated them with an RTA for the room they sit in or for where people are actually positioned.

8) The humidity, temperature, air pressure, and even the air pressure on the other side of your ear-drum changes frequently causing a difference in frequency response.

And if I'm completely wrong on points 1-8, then you are now in the .01% of all listeners, and you are not the target audience for mass-produced and distributed MP3s anyway.