From: dap@portal.vpharm.com (David A. Pearlman)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Are Record Club CD's The Same Quality?
Date: 16 Nov 92 18:56:58 GMT
Organization: Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

In article <1992Nov12.194424.6231@kadsma.kodak.com> wb@tornado.kodak.com (wb@tornado.kodak.com) writes:
>In article <1992Nov12.182645.25110@mprgate.mpr.ca>, mcvey@mprgate.mpr.ca (Iain McVey) writes:
>|> In article <1992Nov11.122316.26927@acd4.acd.com>, jwg@sedv1.acd.com ( Jim Grey) writes:
>|> |> In article <1992Nov11.003456.25424@newshub.sdsu.edu> cs108069@pandora.sdsu.edu (John DeRose) writes:
>|> |> >A friend of mine told me he heard somewhere that the CD's sold through
>|> |> >companies such as BMG, etc. are inferior to store-bought ones!
>|> |> >
>|> |> >Support or refutations?
>|> |> >
>|> |>
>|> |> False.     
>|> |>
>|> 
>|> The CD's are often pressed (right term?) by the mail order club, using 
>|> a leased factory.  Often the liner notes from a club CD are different than
>|> those printed by the original recording company.
>|> 
>|> I have ordered CD's from Columbia House and have seen differences, including
>|> slightly different labelling on the CD itself.  I noticed this because I had
>|> to replace my CD's after a theft.
>|> 
>|> So in general, if you think there is a difference in CD's from different 
>|> factories, there may indeed be a difference between club CD's and normal ones.
>|> 
>|> - Iain -  
>|> -- 
>|> Iain McVey (mcvey@mpr.ca)      | "Join the army, they said, see the next
>|> Software Designer              |  world..." - Carry on up the Khyber
>|> MPR Teltech Ltd.               | "This bottle of whisky is awful.  I'll be
>|> 8999 Nelson Way, Burnaby, BC   |  glad when it's done" - One Scot to another
>
>In the case of say, Columbia House, any CD that is NOT a Columbia-owned (that's
>CBS, folks!), the master used to make the disc distributed by Columbia House
>is not the original master. It is a copy most likely an Analog copy! I was told
>this by the owner of a very large Record/CD store in town here. You can see on the
>back ofthe CD's packaging something that indicates whether it is the genuine
>article or a copy. This is why those CD clubs can sell what they are selling
>at a cost that is less than the recording company would sell it for...

Not this spray of disinformation again...

A) Most of the discs sold through the record clubs are manufactured by
   the exact same pressing plants using the exact same masters as the
   commercial store-bought versions. It has sometimes been the case, when
   the master for a disc has been redone after the disc's initial release, 
   that the club is offering a
   disc from a different (older) master than the current commercial release.
   At one time, for example, this was the case with Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours."
   But in the great majority of cases, the record club editions are 
   IDENTICAL to the store-bought discs, except for the special record club
   markings (which ensure that discs bought through the record club
   pipeline don't make their way to retail stores).

B) The reason the clubs can offer to sell their discs so cheaply is that
   they make favorable deals with the record labels. Because the clubs
   can sell so many copies, the labels are willing to wholesale copies
   to them for considerably less than to retail stores. Retailers are
   obviously not happy with this situation, and a little while back a
   couple of labels (EMI and Geffen) agreed to withdraw their product
   from the clubs if the retailers would compensate them by selling more
   product through their stores. But no notable increases at the retail
   end occurred after they withdrew from the record clubs, so both labels
   are once again dealing with the clubs. Note that royalty agreements
   with artists usually offer a separate (lower) rate for discs sold through
   the clubs. An artist with clout can specify in their contract that
   club sales are forbidden, but since the potential sales through clubs
   are so great, they rarely do.

C) Retailers will typically badmouth the club discs for obvious reasons.
   Information gleaned at this level is to be considered unreliable.

>
>Not all CD's are created equal...
>Now the question is... Can anyone notice the difference?
-- 
=============================================================================
    David A. Pearlman

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.                     email: dap@vpharm.com
Newsgroups: rec.audio