The Beatles and Digital Audio

While not quite iTunes, it was announced that 320kbps MP3s and FLAC files of the Beatles’ discography would be available for purchase on a 16GB apple shaped USB drive, limited to 30,000.

For $279.99.

Now let’s do the math here:  14 albums for US$13.99 apiece plus let’s add three dollars apiece for the white album and Past Masters since they’re double.  So that’s $201.86.  That’s a fair amount cheaper, plus - for me at least - I would rather have the physical CDs and rip them than to purchase this.

Now I’ll admit the apple thing is really nice looking.  When I originally saw this I was hoping that you could get one of these for a single album which I would do in a heartbeat.  It’s just strange to me that this thing that is presumably cheaper than manufacturing 14 CDs is more expensive than them.  I’m sure part of it is just me.  Despite working in technology I still have a problem buying things in a digital format.  I guess I’ve seen enough hardware failures that I don’t have any faith in how they’re stored.  I don’t even like buying software that’s in a digital format only - I would much prefer to have it shipped to me on a physical CD/DVD so I have more confidence that I still have it.  Like I said, I’m sure it’s just me.

Let’s face it though, considering the demand for the mono box set, there’s more than enough Beatles fans to sell all 30,000 of these things in no time.