Why on earth do high quality music always cost more?
I am the only one tired of this bullshit? Say I want a track in wave I often have to pay twice the price than if I were to buy a crappy 192kbps mp3 version. Where is the logic in this? It probably takes more processing power to actually make the 192kbps mp3 file than just releasing the raw wave file!
Because the server space and the bandwidth used by larger files costs more.
i want to understand this more can someone please elaborate on the difference in quality for a mp3 and wav
Wav is uncompressed, it’s essentially all the data for the file available. MP3 is compressed at different rates, 320 kps being the highest available. The act of compressing the data can make the file lose some quality. In my opinion the larger file size, extra cost in purchasing and extra cost in storing are not worth the better sound that in most cases are not perceivable.
Maybe long time ago but disk space is cheap and bandwidth nowadays is also pretty cheap so it’s just an excuse for the companies to make more money. Maybe one could pay $0.10 more for a WAV release, that might reflect reality, not $.50.
And then you have companies like frugal Amazon that figured out that they could save pennies by going away from 320k fixed MP3 to VBR 260 and below formats. Now, Amazon is targeting consumers who would not know the difference.
PS: I purchase critical files for my ‘digital create’ in WAV as I think whatever system I use, it is important to always provide the best possible quality. But I can’t avoid the case of good SoundCloud material that is mostly in 320k…
PS: I requested Beatport in the early days to start selling uncompressed long time ago (you should have seen the private email thread going back and forth where they said DJs don’t care about WAV files…) , but my request was to use FLAC and charge a tiny amount extra. However they went with full WAV and much higher pricing, oh well.
It’s basically all been mentioned above..
But i don’t see why people complain about the price of music now a days, you can download and DJ with music for free from soundcloud etc or buy releases from beatport for £1+ compared to in the 80/90’s when you had to buy records.
Yep. And in many cases when you had to special order records you didn’t even know how they sounded until they arrived.
mostly because its higher quality…
why does a porsche cost more then a cobalt…
although i see where your coming from… they both are digital files so its not like it cost more to make a 320K vs a 192k (may cost more to make a 192k if you make a 320k first) but a 320 is a bigger file so it takes more room and bandwidth when peeps download…
And if they were warped to shit it was your problem to sort it out..
ok so how would one check the quality of a mp3 simply by the size?
Is it really that much of a mystery?
you can’t. you can guess that a big file is going to be higher quality but in all reality it could always just be some shitty transcode. best way to tell the quality of a file is to analyze the spectrals in audacity or a similar program… i had another program that did it a;l by itself but i forgot the name 
In the early days, WAV and MP3 files from some labels on Beatport were done by ripping the vinyl and re-packaging it as digital. You could sometimes here the needle doing its work and I think I once got one where the needle was skipping. Those were the days…
Tell me about it. Just be glad you’re not bitching about spending $20 on a record with four songs on it and you only want one.
it’s good question.
do you remember some Audiophile rants on theese boards? The pattern is actualy the same. Companies knows that some marginal community of DJs wants highest possible quality whatever it means. So if you make general rule that golden usb stick has for some reason better “shit” which leads to better reproduction some crazies out there are gonna spend a lot just to get 0.00001% difference…
ok.. i know, i’m bit extreme. But as Photojojo and many more (included me) said you don’t really need to go above 320kbps mp3 on your typical setup and typical club soundsystem.
Much different question is, when you regularly play on large venues or on a top quality soundsystem (funktion-one for example) where the quality actualy does start to matter.
so taking above into consideration, companies and distributors sees profit in this demand. i would do the same if i was them.. also if i was to beat my competition i would launch huuuuge campaign that hypes the uncompressed files for proffesional use and sell those at same price as other’s do mp3 
Well if you really need wave and your into edm music check this site track it down Account Suspended. you can become a member for 10 dollars a month and you pay 99 dollar cents per wave file and 79 cents for 320 kbs.
My headphones sound better than the Function One systems I’ve heard. Most of the time, they’re still run by idiots…and by that, I mean DJs who don’t know how to read level meters.
In general, you’re right…and I don’t think the OP should ever buy WAV files. I do…but I occasionally have access to really nice sound systems and know how to run a board…and I like my headphones.
Besides…a WAV of a popular, new track at beatport costs, what, $3.50? CHEAP!!!
habve u heard of “u get what u pay for”?
Trackitdown is costly for anyone not dealing with pounds, i.e the US market.