Best online place to buy CDs?
 

There is a Canadian outfit called A&B Sound ( www.absound.ca ). I used to buy virtually all my CDs from this store. It was incomparable; its website was rinky-dink, but it carried just about everything in release and offered far and away the best prices. A couple of years ago the website went down, and stayed out of commission for a long time. It's back now, but the place is not the same. No longer has a great selection, and prices aren't competitive anymore. It's a crying shame to have lost such a source.

Question is, is there a great online music store of which I'm unaware? I'm just not willing to pay much more than $10 for the average new CD.

CDUniverse has great selection, so-so prices. Same for DeepDiscount, CDConnection, CDPlus, CDWow, Amazon, etc.
Yourmusic has fantastic prices, but a pathetic selection, and it isn't available to Canadians.
Some of the Amazon marketplace sellers (notably Caiman and ImportCDs) have terrific prices for new CDs, but they are negated by the ludicrous shipping fees.
Spun, SecondSpin, and Django are good options for used CDs, but they don't always have what I want. GEMM and MusicStack vendors have everything one could want, but I'm not going to buy a CD cheap only to pay six bucks for shipping.

Any ideas? Are the record companies determined to put themselves out of business? I'm not interested in downloading music, but I'm just not buying CDs at the current prices.

CDuniverse is the most reliable and all-around reasonbly priced IMHO. i always price compare with the likes of amazon.com, bestbuy.com and used selections at wherehouse.com/spun.com/secondspin.com

i DO NOT trust deepdiscount as they don't tell you whether and item is in stock, or when they'll ship it. their customer service is shit, too.

I use Amazon, but that's because I have an Amazon credit card that gives me triple points on purchases from Amazon but not Amazon marketplace (I try to buy cd/dvds from Caiman)- go figure. Along wtih 'prime' two day shipping free, and the eventual 25 dollar gift certificate I'm good to go :)

really?!? I've never had probs with them - (hmmm)

ditto that dude.

seriously, stay away from caiman. their customer service is ABYSMAL too. just look at their ratings on ebay/amazon.com.

i've had nightmarish experiences with them.

it appears the only customer service rep they have is a robot with automated responses. or some idiot who ignores everything you say. they list items that are out of stock, and never tell you if or when they'll ship it. they don't care about how poorly they treat you.

i had to get amazon/ebay involved.

on the other hand, they tend to (when they actually have them) carry some pretty rare/hard to find items.

that really upsets me. i actually ordered a ton from tower.com because they'd always have new(er) releases on sale, etc.

BACK ON TOPIC

i use fye.com to find great prices in conjunction with the ones i mentioned above. i can't believe their online store would be so reasonable, with their B&M stores being so out of control expensive.

Thanks for the input, all. I didn't realize Caiman had declined so much (it still has 88% positive at Amazon, though). I checked fye, and its prices are about on a level with the stores I grouped together with CDUniverse; in other words, not good enough for me.

As people suggested, Amazon and CDUniverse are good placed to purchase online.

Buy.com is also good.

I've found importcd.com to have some decent prices; I haven't used their site, but I've ordered from them off Amazon Marketplace several times and delivery is usually pretty quick. Another thumbs down on Caiman; I've never had anything lost from them, but they take forever to delivery items that are supposed to be in stock. Not worth the hassle.

I use the Amazon.com Zshops. Some of the used CD's are only a couple bucks with $3 shipping makes for a decent deal. Worst case scenario is you only save a buck or two on a new release. Never had a problem with new or used from the Zshops.

For example: Dolorean "You Can't Win" is $14.98 .... or from other vendors through Amazon $6.00 + $2.98SH = $9 New delivered.

Used are often even a better deal, especially if you are just gonna rip and toss the CD.

I find that FYE.com usually has some good prices along with a free shipping offer. They sometimes have really good prices on imports as well.

I use Amazon Marketplace most of the time. I've used Deepdiscount.com too a few times. They don't always have everything though, and of course thier shipping is slow.

I buy all my cds used from either Half.com or Amazon most of the time. Half.com sellers seem to have the better prices of the two. Sometimes though sellers have their prices so high on some of their used stuff I will go ahead & buy it new from either Amazon or Deepdiscount (which beats amazon in prices on cds a lot of the time).

If you want something on release day, Best Buy and/or Circuit City still usually beat all of the above options but their back catalog prices suck.

there really isn't any reason a seller should have anything lower than 95% postive when they have a total feedback rating of close to 1 million.