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.