Reply To: Recommendations of online vendors?
US CDs are not more expensive than EU CDs, it’s the shipping back and forth that costs, if you look at the actual prices, they are roughly the same.
I have some actual prices that are comparable:
I bought a Deutsche Grammophon release of Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and Dutilleux in 1997 for 34,95DM, which is 17,90€. That was a normal price then for a new “premium” CD. I bought a Mahler recording via Amazon in 2020 for 8,99€:
That was a steal (which is why I bough it), but there were many “steals” like that. And it’s very comparable because they belong to the same “line” and label.
I have found that especially classical recordings have become remarkably cheap within the last ten years, with many labels and outlets obviously reducing prices or offering ridiculously stuffed boxed set that sell for a lot less than they would have 20 years ago.
That’s probably as a result of streaming. And that’s for new CDs.
The used market has obviously shrunk as well, but differently. The used market went berserk 10-15 years ago or so. That’s when streaming, Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, etc, all became mainstream and people were dumping their CD collections right and left. So that’s when you got an avalanche of used CDs cheap. Stores had to be careful to even take on more inventory, because everybody was selling their collections, far more than were buying it. It was a buyers market for sure, if you were in the market for used CDs. Now that market has incredibly shrunk since then, and far, far fewer CDs end up on the used market. Makes sense. CDs used to be mass products and mainstream, people bought maybe lots of CDs (including soundtracks), listened to it a few times, found they don’t care for it (anymore), and it was sold again. That’s happening a lot less these times. The few people who buy the CDs usually know what they buy and why and they keep them. Everyone can listen to anything streaming anyway, so far fewer people buy CDs to later sell them again. Fewer “new” CDs end up on the used market. (And far fewer CDs get produced to begin with.)