Shady scams and other silly business ideas to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors

180 gram, dude!

Dig a little and you find it's not a real record store, but astroturf e-commerce for the Warner Music Group.

Good looking out.

$31.98 LPs are the new $17.98 CDs

looooooooooooool

Vinyls are BIGGER so they are worth MORE MONEY, amirite?

how long until 180 gram CDs?

the thirty dollar bin

lol

there was 'gold' cds for a time iirc

Indeed there were, and I think there still are. Most of them were made by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab(s?), purveyors of the half-speed master LPs popular with audiophiles in the 70s and early 80s. I remember those gold CDs cost around $30 (which was INSANE in the late 80s), and Sony soon started peddling their own gold MasterSound series. I assumed those gold dealies were all audiophile snake oil, but apparently some audiophiles swear by them.

tbf some audiophiles will swear that special cables can rutn dirty electrons into clean ones to improve signal flow or some shit

i took the bait once and bought a gold cd by the jam and it sounded like shit.

amazing fidelity then i guess?

i am happy that someone took advantage of that awesome set-up for a punch line.

a friend's dad had some gold Pink Floyd CDs that impressed us because we were ignorant children audiophiles

i should have held on to the jam one. people pay a ton for that crap now on discogs.

yeah, apparently those are worth $$$:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ELTON-JOHN-MADMAN-ACROSS-WATER-Rare-MFSL-Sealed-Gold-CD-/390032087955?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5acfb95b93

(I mean, for that, you can buy a new CD player WITHOUT an Elton John CD. Win-win!)

one of the rarest vinyl box sets prized by audiophiles also happens to be one of the rarest CD sets prized by audiophiles:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GOLD-CD-ROYAL-BALLET-Ansermet-Classic-Records-ULTRA-RARE-LDSCD-6065-/191576007112?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c9ad1e1c8

all those Classic Records CDs sell for insane amounts.

Holy heck!

wow, that's only a 2-CD set

Dan Hartman
Instant Replay (180 Gram Audiophile RED Vinyl/Limited...
$29.98

WTF

Gonna blame all these $30 records for the $45 they are charging for new LPs these days.

man maybe i'm just a total sucker but i really thought those vnyl tools were going to have guilt-ridden mental breakdowns, or would be audited by kickstarter, or something. this suggs

So what was supposed to be better about these "gold" CDs? Did they use a gold foil for reflecting the laser, or what?

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/12/09/iconbg_vinyl2_dec10,0.jpg

yeah, they thought a gold covering made things sound better because people love gold. basically.

dvd audio should be the standard for any decent record company. sounds great. when made well. by people who know what they're doing.

the VNYL people have redone their "curated" membership, they now send out three NEW records. but it can't be for $25 a month anymore.

I still see VNYL ads. So clearly they are either doing well or got some kind of cash infusion.

yeah lots of dollar bin reisues blah blah blah but Friday Music reissues sound really AWESOME, no lie.

And MFSL Nevermind is one of the greatest sounding CDs ever.

MFSL wasn't just about the "gold", they were mastered differently

the only decent cd issue of deep purple in rock is the Audio Fidelity gold cd, fwiw.

I knew a guy who bought the DSOTM gold disc, and I remember something in the liner notes about how the CD laser was able to read gold better/easier or something.

That's true about the mastering, though (at least for MSFL -- dunno about the Sony/CBS gold stuff).

When I first saw this in a store, I assumed it was a joke. But it makes sense: if you're gonna dig through the murk, get the best engineers to do the digging:
http://www.24-karat.de/mfsl/udcd-724.gif

yeah, the (supposed) improvement on those CDs is not the gold layer but the mastering. Some are better than others.

you've never really heard sister ray til you've heard it in 24kt

The STEVE HOFFMAN mastering, you guys.

"It's like you're Waldo Jeffers and Sheila Klein is actually in the room with you running that sheet metal cutter through your head!"

you can really hear the tiny red arcs pulsating

you'd think there wouldn't be much you could do with sister ray, but something like for instance the "swan mix" sounds significantly different from the standard version...

i took the bait once and bought a gold cd by the jam and it sounded like shit.

Was that the MFSL twofer of Sound Effects and (iirc) Setting Sons? I used to see that one and their Marianne Faithfull Broken English/Strange Weather edition all the time when I was first buying CDs. They were like $25 at Best Buy, and usually the only titles they had for those artists.

If I ever see unopened classical CDs I'm going to have to pick them up from now on.

MFSLs are generally regarded as superior by even novice ears.

i think the thing with the gold was better reflectivity/fewer dropped bits.

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gonna miss the twitter-shade for shitty VNYL hauls.

or are they giving out shitty new rekkidz? it'd be funny if now the new sealed vinyl was shit like, uhh, some local lounge singer's giveaway promo copy

lol andrew