ChaosMusic
Web Site: www.chaosmusic.com
Chaos recently released a survey that was conducted on September 21, that claimed Chaos was the cheapest source of music. Comp@re disagrees with this finding and believes that the methedology used in the Chaos survey was bad in some places. Some problems with the Chaos survey were:
- The survey listed too many CDs. Comp@re recommends that a maximum of $US 110 is spent on the physical goods. See Tax for more information.
- One of the items contained on the list was an Australia-only release (Eternal Nightcap by the Whitlams), thus much more expensive from the US sources.
- Amazon.com was not included in the lists. Due to lower postage rates to Australia Amazon is often cheaper than CD-Now on common items.
- A ChaosMusic member discount of $11.03 was included. How this figure was calculated we don't know... It certainly isn't explained in any of ChaosMusic's help pages, the best we could find was a first-time $5 discount. If it is a genuine discount, then CD-Now's frequent buyer scheme should have also been included.
- Also, as a side note the exchange rate used - 0.6414 is about the lowest the exchange rate has been for the last three months, further disadvantaging the US stores.
Comp@re has therefore decided to re-publish the survey, taking into account the above comments by removing the Whitlams albumn (Australian-only), removing the last 3 titles (to get under Customs limit) and ignoring the Chaos discount. Comp@re will also add Amazon to the table. No change will be made to the exchange rate, although recent movements have improved the $US charges. For the current exchange rates see this page.
| ARTIST |
TITLE |
SANITY-PITT |
CHAOS |
AMAZON |
CD-NOW |
| Alice in
Chains |
Nothing
Safe |
$29.95 |
$25.50 |
US$12.58 |
US$13.99 |
|
Mase |
Double Up |
$29.95 |
$25.59 |
US$14.99 |
US$13.99 |
|
Lou Bega |
Little Bit of Mambo |
$29.95 |
$23.34 |
US$11.88 |
US$11.88 |
| Barbra
Streisland |
Love like ours |
$29.95 |
$25.50 |
US$12.58 |
US$12.58 |
|
Cusco |
Best of Cusco |
$29.95 |
$23.34 |
US$13.99 |
US$13.99 |
| |
Freight |
n/a |
Free |
US$9.75 |
US$15.20 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
US$0.6414 =A$1 |
US$0.6414 =A$1 |
| |
Total |
$149.75 |
$123.37 |
A$117.21 |
A$126.63 |
Conclusion
Thus under the above five items, which were the first five items from ChaosMusic's original survey Amazon has worked out $6 cheaper than Chaos, and CD-Now $3 more expensive. However either way the Internet stores are certainly much cheaper than Sanity, undercutting Sanity's prices by $20-$30.
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