Hmm, so I was about to download Green Day’s new album, Saviors, when I was compelled to do a doubletake on the price - £17.79 in CD res’. That was enough to send me over to Amazon where I found the CD priced at £10.99, delivered tomorrow. I get Prime so there are no delivery costs. A cd also means I can play it on my cd-sourced office system. I’ve noticed Qobuz Downloads are often a bit more than a CD - but not usually 60% more. It becomes more academic when you want hi res, of course. Anyhow, food for thought…
Yep, it always pays to shop around… Amazon is not always the cheapest for new CDs, but their marketplace is a good source for rare or used CDs.
My only reservation about new releases is that they are often mastered in 24 bit, and they need to be decimated down for CD with its 16 bits, and get sometimes remastered as a consequence with increased LUFS.
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Yea Qobuz prices can be steep and I always check other sites.
Generally I try not to use that major online retailer. I try to buy direct from some artists.
As an example Thea Gilmores latest is £10 from her, was £10.99 on A. Sadly postage can be quite high.
Having said all that Qobuz can sometimes be much cheaper. The 11 disc Be Bop Deluxe Live in the Air Age set was less than £10 and the next Erasure is less than £8.
Shop around pays and can be good for us and the artist.
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I think if you consider buying from Qobuz the best price option is when you buy highres and then it helps even more when you have Qobuz Sublime. The price is then on average unmatched. For non high res one needs to really shop to find the best price.
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Thanks BB - I’ll look into Sublime.
I’m a Sublime member and found that Qobuz is usually competitive especially with the Sublime discount. I do however buy the odd cd from Amazon but always feel guilty afterwards.
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You don’t need to feel guilty, Pete, Jeff really appreciates you business. 
But really tho, there’s so many things that enthusiasts make one feel guilty for these days. You do above code in the respecting others department.
He might appreciate my business but he doesn’t appreciate his workers.
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I’ve heard that, but he has to pay the minimum wage here. I think the real problem is the min wage isn’t high enough. Many Canadain employers, especially the small businesses just pay the minimum. Many of them just get temps, which is min wage. Almost all employers here are cheap, and I wonder if Jeff is any worse than the rest of 'em.
His business model is amazingly helpful for purchasers. I really don’t know all the facts tho.
They now operate here and there’s no way he’ll get away with treating workers the same way as he (apparently) does in the States.
@BertBird and @Pete_the_painter
Even with the sublime discount on Hi Res / I have noticed they have hiked up the prices in this area considerably in the last few months.
A year or so ago the sublime discount price was on average in the £7 region now it is up at £10.
Also, there used to be same great £7 prices around on the non-Hi Res stuff now these have gone up to £9
It’s life but I do feel sorry for the artist as I am more likely to pass on a purchase when the price for a download is more than £10.
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I’ve only ever bought hi res downloads but I’ll check cd prices next time. Downloads are so much easier and you get them instantly.
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You are right Andy, the prices went up…, while the story is a bit mixed….
Example still a lot of the high resolution jazz albums are still for me in the 7,90 or sometimes even 6.90 euros range. Then you have a lot which is now 10ish euros or 11 euros and then it sometimes goes up to 16 to 20 euros for specific album (mostly longer ones).
Conclusion - still quite a bit of material is priced closer to original prices - the 6/7/8 euros bucket.
A lot went up to the 10/11 bucket but for example an example album on amazon is 17,99 while Qobuz asks for the high res version 11,09….
The very high buckets have sometimes good competition in the other platforms like highresaudio, classical or prostudiomasters.
And finally if you pace buys on Qobuz you van generate an additional discount on a specific album (Between 20-40%) and sometimes like now an additional volume voucher which can be used for future buys (right now they have this again till 19th of Feb).
So overall Best Buy…., bucket till 12 euros looks to be Qobuz, high buckets compare. And if you can wait, wait till Qobuz organizes action.
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I’m not really sure how A interacts with their employees in the states, so my opinion isn’t worth much on that.
But the one thing I will add is that if the employees do feel that A threats them really poorly, financially and maybe otherwise, then go work somewhere else or quit complaining. If their skill level, or the way they conduct their lives doesn’t make them attractive as an employee to any other company that pays higher wages, then just possibly, that’s what they are worth as a worker.
Australia is excellent that way tho. Your minmum wage is very high and that’s excellent. It should be. If Canada and the US would just follow suit, all this sh*t would go away and Bezos would be paying all their drivers and warehouse people $60k a year, like he really should. And all the cheap Canadian small business owners would have to as well. They’re all the fking same greedy employers, they just don’t get the air time that Bezos gets.
That’s so true, he’s certainly not the only one. Just his a pretty big target and the stories of his treatment of his workers make good click bait.
I’m baffled that workers in the US (unskilled) are so poorly paid, the rest of the world have at least 4 weeks annual paid holidays with decent sick days. The US its 2 and the general working conditions wouldn’t fly in most of the first world.
Vacation is also 2 weeks in Canada and wages are similar to US wages. But a house here costs $1M, and the same house in the US would cost $400k. Plus almost everything here is 50% to 100% more than in the US. Really, Canada is ridiculous. I’m just glad I don’t nave those worries.
When I was running my office furniture manufacturing business, I was paying my employes a full 50% more than my competitors. The businesses can afford to do this and still make good profits … a little less yes … but still acceptable profits. They’re just too bloody greedy.
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You may need to dig a trench and separate from the States. 
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Well, they are looking after the Mexico wall, so yeah, I guess we’ll have to do the trench … 
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Who is this person A - like my mum discovered text abbreviations and you haven’t got a clue what the subject is. Just type the word! I’m guessing Aardvark maybe?