Buying music online, will you?

[theliverevolution]

i don't think they will charge that much. you wouldn't need to spend $$ in pressing the CD art. Presuming that the Jewel case will also be much smaller, there would be no necesity to print out much album art. Then, you can ship more SD cards then comapread to CDs in one box. AND they want to compete with downloads

I'm anticipating the price to be competing with online downloads, not with CDs so much

 

[optisailor2002]

i believe that the album art will not be printed on the "cover" of these microSDs, but rather they will be included as a soft copy inside the SD card itself.

these microSDs retail for 15 USD on the official website (http://www.sansa.com/slotmusic_cards), which is about the same price of a CD.. so i think its still not really worth it. maybe once these become the trend, the price might reduce, but whatever it is im still sticking with cds.

perhaps the only good things about these microSDs is that you can plug and play instantly as long as you have a phone/mp3 player/laptop that is able to read memory cards, and that you can add on a few more songs in addition to whatever is already provided on the cards itself.

 

[mockingbird]

Yeah, if it retails at the same price of a CD, then no doubt people would still get their hands on a CD. If they however, retailed the SlotMusic cards here for maybe half the price of a full album CD, well maybe then you can see CDs fade away like casette tapes did about a decade ago (i guess?), given our kiasu nature. Like some said before, the excitement of opening the shrink-wrap, flipping 'thru the album art, and the "oh-so-new-smell" of the CD, haha. Nothing beats that.

Personally, I'd sure hate to see the death of the CD.

 

[kongwee]

FYI,Hamasaki Ayumi will release world first USB memory album. First 7k Limited edition album being wipe out. Other bunches can only be preordered and made to that quantity with a deadline. Price 6500yen~S$125.

Hope that it is a good sign that music media is going flash base.

 

[theliverevolution]

So expensive! $125 for a memory card with her songs?!

 

[AEnimic]

Haha! Quite creative marketing, but lame if you think about the practicality. But how big is this thumbdrive? Are there photos and a printed cover of her face on the thumb drive?

 

[kongwee]

Ha ha, we are not getting used to pay S$125. But this is the price of getting a new media in Japan. The first launch of Blu-ray,SACD and DVDs were around 6000 yen in Japan.

Japan pressed CD is about 2800 yen ~S$50 for top-tie artist. With DVD MVs~ 4800 yen. Concert DVD~5800 yen.

As for Ayumi USB thumbdrive, I preorder one for Limited Edition. In ebay it is fetching US$150 for this edition. It is not even release yet. It will have song,videos and lyric . It will have it own Jewel case size of CD I think. In the youtube, there is a clip about this USB drive.

 

[optisailor2002]

i think such items, if its for collection sake is perhaps worth the money (if you are a big fan, just like how i often own 2 different versions of different albums, one regular and one limited edition, just for collection purposes, e.g. opeth's ghost reveries and watershed).

but if we are talking about buying music for the sole purpose of listening to the stuff that the artist/band puts out, spending 125 bucks is definitely impractical. imagine a band like iron maiden or black sabbath with extensive discographies releasing every one of their album for >100 bucks, wouldnt that be too expensive to collect lol.

 

[AEnimic]

[=kongwee

Haha, I still remember the days of Year Zero for Nine Inch Nails when they spread their music through thumbdrives left in public toilets at their concert areas. Pretty cool marketing.

I never listened to Ayumi, don't know how good her music is, but that's quite an awesome thumbdrive. So it deserves a purchase from hardcore fans as it's limited edition. How large is the capacity of the thumbdrive?

 

[kongwee]

[=kongwee


I never listened to Ayumi, don't know how good her music is, but that's quite an awesome thumbdrive. So it deserves a purchase from hardcore fans as it's limited edition. How large is the capacity of the thumbdrive?

2 gig. 0.8 for non-write data. 1.2 free space. Audio in 320K mp3 and mpeg4 for video. For audiophile and videophile, this is bad. But for me it is just collectable. Normally, I will not touch CDs if she perform in her concerts.
Every album release and there is a related concert tour after that. I will sought after the concert DVDs.

How good is her music? She is well known for deep and personal lyric in Japan. An artist producer that head the best production crew in Avex group. Work much like an top notch western artist. But people piss off by her image before listen to her music.