i was wonderring if there's any difference (possibly commissioning a test) between albums that you can get from BMG direct (or any other service where you get a cd for a penny) and the ones that say you get out at Best Buy or wherever you shop?

has any tests been done?

just a little curious. thanks for any feedback.

So far as I know or can hear there is absolutely no difference in the data on the CD, which would make a whole lot of sense given that BMG owns the rights to the vast majority of the music they distribute through the club that has their name, and actually making the data different would require a substantial amount of effort on their behalf.
The packaging on the other hand, does differ somewhat because there is usually a small corner on the back label of the CD case and often on the CD label itself which mentions that the CD was manufactured for BMG direct. This is only relevant if you sell CD's back to used CD stores - some such stores might be tempted to pay you less, but this has not been my experience.

No CD club actually sells CD's for a penny. That offer was the Sony music club promotion I believe, BMG is the "12 for 1 with nothing more to buy ever!" people, though both are run by the same distribution company.
Since all the music clubs charge $3 or more shipping on every singly-packaged CD, even the "free" ones, there is no such thing as a free or $0.01 CD

BMG can be a very good deal if you wait until $2.99 CD month (plus shipping) or "3 for 1" month.

Let me add this to the discussion: I understand that the artist receives no royalties from music distributed through company record clubs. If I am wrong, someone please correct me. But I am pretty sure I read that in AUDIO some years back.

Does anyone have recent, valid knowledge on this??

That is incorrect; the royalties are still paid, but at a reduced rate:

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties6.htm

Unfortunately the record labels still make a fixed percentage, using "packaging" as an excuse

is it just the tag on the the back that says it was manufactured for bmg direct, then. i don't understand how some store at the mall charge you $20 for a cd, best buy charges you $10 (having worked at best buy i know all about there margin system though, so actually lose on each sale), and bmg gives 'em away for free.

that makes no sense, there's got to be more to it than that. but if their identical, i think i'll rejoin .

That's the rub though, they're not really free since shipping is $2.79 per CD plus any applicable taxes and you have to buy one at normal price (MSRP+S&H+Tax for that one) to get like 8 "free" or whatnot.

It's a good deal if you buy during the right month, or buy a large number of CD's at one time. Right now for instance, is "Buy one at normal price, get unlimited for $1.99" month. Given a $17.98 MSRP on the first disc, plus $2.79 shipping for each disc (plus tax), this means for 5 discs total you pay:

$17.98 +
$1.99*4 + (7.96)
$2.79*5 (13.95)
-----
$39.89 for 5 CD's or $7.98 each plus applicable taxes, with delivery in about 10 days.
Not bad, but it's a better deal if you buy 10 or more at a time

Additionally you either have to tell BMG not to send you their monthly "feature" or return their postcard or logon to their site once a month. And the selection is limited in some ways (better now that they sell a lot of Columbia/Sony discs through BMG).


Oh and as for your question: music stores in malls undoubtedly pay a substantial amount of money for rent every month, whereas Best Buy or a similar retailer usually has a much larger store which does not pay mall level rents per square foot and sells a wide variety of other products. The music clubs have no retail presence at all to pay for.

I have bought a number of discs from BMG Music Club and ColumbiaHouse. I am pretty sure that these CDs contain the same data as the catalog number is the same as those CDs available in stores. However, I a concerned about the physical quality of the discs. Are these discs in any way inferior to those available in stores when it comes to quality of material used and quality of workmanship? In other words, under identical storage and handling conditions, will these CDs last just as long as those bought in regular stores?
This is a major concern for me. If these discs are inferior, then I may have to buy CDs from stores and replace those that I bought from BMG and CH. I am not willing to do this. That will be such a waste of money!! . Please let me know what your experieces are with CDs bought from BMG. Thanks.

I haven't noticed a shorter life-time on the BMG club discs, no. In fact the only "rotten" CDs I own are normal retail CDs that either were exposed to water or an acidic liquid, or simply failed on their own accord.

I would certainly believe that it could be the case that BMG club discs are more cheaply manufactured and so more prone to failure, but I don't have any evidence to suggest that's true...at least not yet. It's possible their Quality Control is less stringent.

I was under the impression that most recording artists only got pennies on the CD, anyway. Is that true?

As I finish up ripping my CDs to a lossless format for archiving, I get a really good feeling when I see EAC struggle with a disk that is obviously going bad because I know that as long as EAC manages to get a good read for me now, when the disk finally goes all the way bad sometime in the future I can simply make a new one that is exactly like the old one. Except for the label, of course...

That would be my suggestion to you. Instead of buying another copy of the disks, rip a disk-image and cue sheet and compress the image with flac and archive it off to DVD...

Judging from the howstuffworks article, it certainly sounds like it's somewhere thereabouts, depending on their contract.





But it's not that simple...before the artist gets a dime:
Promos/freebies are deducted
Reserves (returns) are deducted
Advances are recouped
Managers/directors/producers are paid

All told, a million plus in royalties can turn into a quarter of that after expenses are deducted.

I'd recommend anyone interested read the article. It certainly sheds some light on the byzantine processes involved, and demonstrates why so many artists are keen on starting their own labels.

It also suggests to me that in order to really support an artist you should go to their concerts and possibly buy their mechandise (T-shirts, etc.),

Well, just because the catalog number is the same, it does not absolutely mean that the disc pressings are identical.. I was suspicious, so I did a little test today with EAC ripping two CDs: the first was a BMG music service CD of Weezer The blue album, and the second was a CD bought from amazon.com of Weezer the blue album..

My test revealed that the discs are not identical.. First reason why, when I inserted the BMG one, I collected the track titles, then ejected the disc.. The track titles went away.. I reinserted the disc and the titles showed up since the disc had already once been recognized. Then I took that BMG disc out and put the one in that I got from amazon... The disc was not recognized automatically like the BMG one was the second time.

Another reason they were not identical-- I ripped both of the CDs, and I got different accuraterip results for both discs even though both of my rips were "ok". My confidence level for the BMG disc was 3 and the amazon was 10. That means that the accurate rip database has different info stored for both the BMG pressing and the store pressing..

I did make a point of noting the max amplitude listed for the tracks on both discs, and it was 100 on both, so I do think there is a possibility that even thought the discs are not identical, they might have the same audio.

I am hoping that there is no difference between BMG discs and the ones you can buy in stores, but unfortunately, this test has made me suspicious that the sound might be compromised on the BMG ones (since they are the cheaper).

If anyone has any info or thoughts, it would be appreciated. I wish I could do a better analysis-- maybe if I had cool edit pro I could take a look at the waveforms and try to notice some differences.

For anyone interested, here are the logs for the BMG disc:


EAC extraction logfile from 17. December 2006, 16:31 for CD
Weezer / Weezer (Blue Album)

Used drive : TSSTcorpCD/DVDW TS-L532R Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000


Track 1
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 01 - My Name Is Jonas.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 36C761CE
Copy OK

Track 2
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 02 - No One Else.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Copy CRC BE9E8671
Copy OK

Track 3
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 03 - The World Has Turned And Left Me Here.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC F0EC824B
Copy OK

Track 4
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 04 - Buddy Holly.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC FAD741B4
Copy OK

Track 5
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 05 - Undone - The Sweater Song.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 48A3C343
Copy OK

Track 6
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 06 - Surf Wax America.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC CF74CD24
Copy OK

Track 7
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 07 - Say It Ain't So.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 86E28C54
Copy OK

Track 8
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 08 - In The Garage.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC E57D7D96
Copy OK

Track 9
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 09 - Holiday.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 0456612D
Copy OK

Track 10
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer (Blue Album)\Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) - 10 - Only In Dreams.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Copy CRC 835D2A3A
Copy OK

No errors occured


End of status report












And here is the log for the one I bought from amazon:


EAC extraction logfile from 17. December 2006, 16:46 for CD
Weezer / Weezer

Used drive : TSSTcorpCD/DVDW TS-L532R Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000


Track 1
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 01 - My name is Jonas.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 0203929A
Copy OK

Track 2
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 02 - No one else.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 9310AA01
Copy OK

Track 3
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 03 - The World has turned and left me here.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 2FDD7E9D
Copy OK

Track 4
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 04 - Buddy Holly.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 78473499
Copy OK

Track 5
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 05 - Undone - the Sweater song.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC ACCC498B
Copy OK

Track 6
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 06 - Surf Wax America.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Copy CRC 62D681F4
Copy OK

Track 7
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 07 - Say it ain't so.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC D3331E4F
Copy OK

Track 8
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 08 - In the garage.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 4FF4C5BD
Copy OK

Track 9
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 09 - Holiday.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC AB431730
Copy OK

Track 10
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\user 1\My Documents\My Music\EAC Rips\Weezer\Weezer\Weezer - Weezer - 10 - Only in dreams.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 612D1AD4
Copy OK

No errors occured


End of status report

@treeninja, I have experienced the same thing with BMG music store CDs. They show up as different discs on the AccurateRip database. However, I think that there is no difference in audio data when compared to CDs bought in stores as this would mean that BMG will have to re-master the disks in a bad way which involves additional cost and effort towards nothing else but the ruining of their brand image. Hence, I think that the data on CDs bought in stores is identical to that found on a BMG disk. All this is pure speculation, of course.

Also, the last time I checked (about a couple of months ago), the BMG CDs I was talking about in this thread (bought in 2004) have not showed any signs of rotting or any physical damage. I will test them once again in about a couple of months and update this thread.

Yeah, I hope you're right, but I don't think that it would take much extra effort, time, or money to make a PCM file sound bad at the final mixing stage-- just after finalizing the "good" master that would be sold in stores, they could simply do a second master for music club discs with a "poo poo" plugin running on every tack to make it sound like crap, and then you'd have two copies, one that may be a little better than the other to deter people from buying the cheaper one. I wouldn’t put it past the major labels to do something sneaky like that. They don’t care nearly as much about preserving good sound for their artists as they care about making money.

I really don't care if the BMG music service discs themselves last as long, in terms of years, than store bought ones. As long as I can rip he disc when I first get it, then that's all that matter to me (and probably most people on HA). As long as it rips fine the first time, that's all that matters to me.

My real issue is with the PCM files on the CD-- if they are obviously not identical, which my test has proven, then that opens up the possibility that there could be some sound quality discrepancies (and I'm not talking about sound quality problems resulting from manufacturing flaws on the disc--that’s not as important at this stage of speculation).

You can also find such differences in two CDs from regular stores. Different disc pressings (from different sources of manufacturing) can introduce different disc offsets, which causes the audio data to be shifted by a fraction of a second. A shift of a single sample (1/44100 of a second) will cause software like AccurateRip to (correctly) recognize them as different discs.

This evidence alone is no reason to suspect inferior audio quality. And there are other explanations for BMG's prices being lower than a typical store's.


edit - consider putting those unnecessarily lengthy EAC logs inside of [ codebox ] tags...?

IMHO, I suspect the differences are primarily do to the different pressing plants useds, their differing offsets and whatever minimal processing one or both may have applied as part of their standard prep before cutting the glass master (e.g. normalization).

The above assumes the same DAT/CD-R/whatever (or a perfect clone) was used when submitting the audio to the plants from whoever is controlling the final mixes. If a non-clone digital copy were used, the most likely difference would be in the timecode, which would lead to a significant offset shift (I would suspect much larger on average than the range seen in optical drives and hence would possibly fall outside the offset-resistance range built into AccurateRip).

I'd be *very* surprised if BMG were purposefully processing the sound themselves.

-brendan

EDIT: added missing word "above"

treeninja - out of interest, what does EACs Compare WAVs tell you? Perhaps only the offsets have changed between the CDs, although there may be other small differences.

Treeninja has sent me 2 samples for verification. It turns out that the audio of the wav files is not identical.
The levels match within 0.01 dB but there are still minor differences. The "BMG" version occasionally shows overloads where the "shop" version doesn't. Speculation about the cause of the difference is not very useful right now. It would be nice if someone else could do the test (rip and compare) as well and confirm the differences.
Interesting discovery, treeninja.

Here are the results from EAC Compare WAVs:

Error Type Position Error type Position
different samples 0:00:00.000 - 0:03:55:099 different samples 0:00:00.000 - 0:03:55:099
2351 missing samples 0:03:55.103
515 missing samples 0:03:55.111
291 missing samples 0:03:55.130
0:00:00.120 longer

Both the BMG music service CD and the one from amazon.com have the exact same catalog number-- there should be no differences other than possibly an offset difference.. There should not be any other differences-- but Kees de Visser's examinations have revealed that, unfortunately, there are differences.

I hope that this one album is not just a fluke, and I hope more people will contrubute to this testing so we can be more sure..

You know, audiophiles have been saying that there is an audible difference between retail store CDs and BMG music service (music club) CDs, but I always figured that they were imagining a diffrence... But with this news, maybe there really is a difference.

Sorry to be picky, but I've only confirmed differences between the two wav files
It's still a bit early to say that the cd's are different too. It has to be proven that the ripping process didn't introduce differences.

I have been using YourMusic.com for nearly two years. They are a division of BMG so they offer the same titles. All their titles are $6.99 per disc with free shipping and no limit. You have to agree to purchase at least one title per month, but those are discs that you choose from a Netflix-like queue. Most of the discs don't have those stupid security stickers on the spine, and sometimes they are identical to the ones sold at retail with a regular barcode.

Out of the 4 BMG cds I got last week, 2 showed matching accuraterip results (blink-182 - Greatest Hits, Jimmy Eat World - Futures). The other 2 cds (Fort Minor - The Rising Tied, J.E.W. - J.E.W.) showed up as being different pressings. I should also mention that all 4 cds had the "BMG direct" marking on the back by the barcode.

My experiences with BMG club cds are just like the above situation. Some of them match accuraterip and some don't (because they are different pressings).

Presence or absence in accuraterip probably doesn't mean much, since plenty of accuraterip users get their CDs from BMG (myself included).

true, but in my situation I had confidence numbers in the 20s. This makes me doubt that all 20 some submissions were from BMG issued cds.

I have almost 100 BMG discs from when I was in high school (late 80's / early 90's) and they are still in perfect condition.

That's very encouraging news!