Karaoke Forums

From the SC Safe Harbor Venue Thread......



Incorrect. I have watched eBay and Craigslist almost daily for 3 years now. I feel I have a very good handle on the asking prices for karaoke music on the public free market.

DK only retains this value as a complete set. Even then the average eBay price for a complete 1-99 DK set is running below $1000. That is a mere $10/disc.

Music Maestro and SGB on the other hand..... Of course these brands found on eBay are all of questionable origin.

Chartbuster....also in the dumps, particularly since they went under and the market flooded.

Pioneer discs still sell well, but not at Sound Choice levels except in certain combinations.

Sound Choice runs well over $10/disc for a large portion of their Spotlight series (and it is important to note there are ~1000 discs in the Spotlight series with tons of duplicates and they still command the high price).

Below is a search query for COMPLETED (as in sold and people paid these prices) for Sound Choice discs. Go ahead and remove the top 5 listings which are all for multi-disc sets. In fairness, the query sets a low limit of $9.99 but in my experience, it is very difficult to nab even the most common Spotlight discs for under $10 a pop unless you go to Craigslist.

http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_sadis=2 ... te=1&rt=nc

Still have to do some filtering with the eyes but that still leaves a very large number of single Sound Choice discs that command a selling price of well over $10/disc.

I am really not trying to defend, promote, or cheerlead for Sound Choice with this. I am just pointing out the FACT that no matter what everyone says about Sound Choice being a brand that the karaoke world seems to despise, overall, they still demand the highest prices on the market.

This could be because people think SC is better quality or more desireable.

This could be because KJ's are scrambling to buy up SC material to protect themselves. I find it difficult to believe the scramble has lasted for 3 years, and that SINGLE DISCS command the high price because of this given that KJ's trying to protect themselves need a LOT of Sound Choice discs to do so. But maybe I am wrong.

The fact remains....Sound Choice demands a higher price than other brands. Period.

-Chris

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-Chris

The fact remains....Sound Choice demands a higher price than other brands. Period.

-Chris



Yes they do, and over the years I have had singers request their songs off SC disc only, or they would not sing the song.

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Still love to sing!

I get that as well - quite often. If I don't have it, they won't necessarily NOT sing the song, but do ask if I can get the version - if it's a song that I think warrants it and the singer is a good regular, I will generally consider it.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

no mine would NOT even sing the song. But 80% of my disc are SC, 'cause I DO like them better too.

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Still love to sing!

The fact is, your statement is erroneous- period.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

Really? Where are your facts?

It looks like Chris proved his point quite eloquently with a citation.

You, on the other hand, just have hearsay and your own delusional opinion at best.

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-- Mark

What, the east coast karaoke crowd only sings off of the 1780 songs the DK 1-99 have to offer with no new songs produced since the last century?

Also I guess Expressway Music in NYC liked SC more, not DK, considering Licensed P.I. Larry O'Leary witnessed that east coast host playing SC at their show.

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-- Mark

Don't know if that is fact in itself, I see otherwise here where SC IS highly sought after AND requested - nightly!

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

In all fairness I do remember when Pioneer & DK were the only players - the West Coast used Pioneer more while the East Coast used DK more. When DK first started hitting this side, people were like wth, where is the video. But it's usually the older crowds that even have that kind of dedication to those two brands at all. It is what you broke your teeth on is what you want to use as a rule as far as preference.

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I am guessing you meant to say "The only reason DK even gets the lower prices.....".
Scarcity should push the price up, not down. DK, especially full 1-99 sets, are one of the more rare finds out there. People don't sell them off very often. But the scarcity only pushes the price up if the product is desirable.

The new generation of 21-35 yr old hosts/singers don't have the nostalgic memories of singing DK tracks from when DK was king. DK is a collector's item for long time KJ's and singers in their mid 40's and older. DK is basically a status symbol only to the older KJ's at this point. The young pirates may have DK because the hard drive they bought has it or they downloaded it so they could have "everything", but DK is not the go to manu of choice for the new generation.

THAT is why we are seeing the price of DK falling.

Saying it is SC "scare tactics" is a guess at best and doesn't make it true. But even I called it out as a possibility (even though it was only for the sake of argument. There are plenty of areas around the US that have no clue that SC is filing lawsuits).
Saying it has "Nothing to do with quality" is false by your own admission. (The hosts that pull it from their libraries don't pull it for quality reasons)

JoeChartreuse wrote:

The fact is, your statement is erroneous- period.

I respectfully ask that you do a little research before trying refute claims that can be easily be proven by ANYONE (yes.....even the most luddite can figure out how to do this). It would save you from looking foolish. It took me 30 secs to perform this query and click a couple of obvious filters and another 2-3 minutes to cut and paste.

$20 DK discs just aren't happening.

5 DK Discs $40.99 = $8.19/disc
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-x-DK-Karaoke- ... 539wt_1399

1 Disc (I bought this one) $6.99
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DK-Karaoke-Edit ... 424wt_1399

Full DK set (Brian A's) $1225 = $12.37/disc
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DK-Karaoke-1-99 ... 407wt_1399

1 Disc - $13.51
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DK-29-Karaoke-C ... _25wt_1428

79 discs - $550 = $6.19/disc
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DKKaraoke-Orgin ... 118wt_1428

1 Disc - $9.99
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Karaoke-DK-10-C ... _25wt_1428

1 Disc - $9.99
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Karaoke-DK-08-C ... _25wt_1428

-Chris

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-Chris

Isn't it true Chris that the SC dics were more expensive to begin with? I bought my complete set of 1-99 DK for $1,000.00 and have owned them many years now. That breaks down to $10.10 a piece, weren't most of the SC discs selling for $18.00 to 21.00 apiece? Now if I sell my original set for $1200 to $1500, I have used them and actually will make some money on the sale. The used SC unless they are hard to get are going for around half their original price aren't they? What is the better value? Have a blessed day.

Click the links I provided and you can see what the Sound Choice discs are going for. No need to ask questions that you have the answer to and which prove your statement false.

-Chris

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-Chris

I see sets of 4 discs going for $17.95, that comes to $4.48 per disc that is hardly recouping the original cost of the item. If back in the 70's you bought a Cadie and paid $20,000.00 for it and drove it ten years, put over 100,000 miles on it you might get $2,000 for it if you try to sell it. If you bought the lowly VW bug and paid around $2,000.00 for it and kept it 10 years and put the miles on it you could still sell it for around $2,000.00, now which is the better real value? Have a blessed day.

"going for" and "went for" are apples and oranges.

You will of course find Sound Choice discs that sell for less than $10 each. Those will usually be non-Spotlight discs (outside of the SC8xxx series) because those discs have 8 or less tracks on them (the other ~8 will be w/vocals). You will also find Spotlight series discs that go for less than $10. Usually because the description was poorly worded and it didn't bubble it up in the search results so very few people saw the listing.

No matter..... if you do a search on "dk karaoke" or "dkkaroke" and start looking at the history of DK sales on eBay, you will find that DK rarely sells above the values I linked above. While SC regularly sells at levels higher than DK (which I also linked above).

You can argue this all you want, but the numbers don't lie. I am not finessing them. They are all there for anyone that cares to go looking.

You can make this another opportunity to beat up on Sound Choice, or you can accept that your opinion of Sound Choice is not the many, many, many people that still hold Sound Choice in high regard and are willing to pay a premium for the product.

-Chris

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-Chris

Many, many, many people like DK so what does that prove? You were talking about value weren't you? I have yet to see where a full set of SC will command better the the original price, since they were so expensive to begin with. If you spend $5,000 to license the GEM Series that's five time more than the set of DK I bought way back when. You would have to earn 5 times more to recoup your initial investment. The first year working full time, my gross earnings were more than 40 times what I paid for the set. applying the same math I would have only made 8 times with the SC product. Again what is the better value? The value is not only the initial cost but the cost over a span of time. Also if I choose I can resell my DK, can I do that with GEM? Have a blessed day.

A Mercedes ML350 costs more than an Ford Explorer. Both haul things. Which is the better value? That is in the eye of the beholder.

You can sell your GEM License to anyone you choose, for whatever price you choose. They of course must agree to the license terms, just as someone buying any licensed product would.

No matter what I post, you will twist it to your satisfaction. I am trying to stick to the facts and the fact remains that a single SC Spotlight disc, generally is worth more on the open market than a single DK disc. (oh....and there are no "special" DK discs that command any sort of premium that some SC discs do)

For your other math....

DK 1-99 = ~1782 songs (apples)
SC GEM = 6000 songs. (oranges)

You get more.....a LOT more (and without pan flutes) with GEM. DK also stopped producing many years before SC which means you would spend more money filling in holes after buying that DK set.

I will concede that at least to you, a DK set may be more valuable. If you ever lose yours, let me know and I will happily charge you $3000 for one of mine.

-Chris

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-Chris

Well actually if you go by a 'per song' charge - your DK set cost you more per song. 99 discs with 18 tracks each disc=1782 tracks, at the $1000 you paid for the set, that breaks each song down to $1.78 per track. The full GEM @ $5000 has 6000 tracks. That breaks down to $.83 per track, so even though the GEM is more in comparision, it's a better deal per track! Plus the GEM actually has songs going to approx 2009 or 10 rather than 1999 when the DK 99 series was discontinued.

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I'm having a problem with your math Lon 1782 tracks divided by $1,000.00 comes to about 56 cents per track. To get your price per track it would be 1000 tracks and I would have had to pay $1,780.00 for them. The age of the average song is unimportant to me since I run a golden oldies show. GEM might be a good deal now at .83 per track, what about the hosts that purchased their library on disc? If you take 6,000 tracks and say their are 15 songs per disc that comes to 400 discs. If the average cost per disc were say 19.50 that comes to about 7800.00 dollars or about $1.30 per track, in both cases the SC is more expensive per track, and it will take more host working hours to recover the initial investment. So what is the better value? Especially if I end up selling my set for more than I originally paid for it. Have a blessed day.

It's not apples and oranges you wanted a value comparison between DK and SC if you crunch the numbers value wise DK is the better value, and that is why DK is the core of every hosts library, at least the ones that have been in the business awhile. All my requests of brand are the DK label, if I started getting a huge demand for SC I might have to rethink my boycott, that hasn't happened yet. Have a blessed day.