ACK I curse you as I looked at Ebay and there was still 2 from that seller at around $73 shipped from the UK...I have bought from this seller before so I feel confident I'll get the real thing and not a counterfeit as another member mentioned earlier upthread. For anyone else interested here's the link Quartetto Italiano-Quartetto Italiano - Complete Philips, De (UK IMPORT) CD NEW 28947888246 | eBay
His set of Beethoven symphonies is good as are some of his recordings of French music. However, I have those and a few others so can't justify buying this set.
I broke down and ordered from them as well. I've bought from them in Amazon in the past and I've been satisfied.
Eh, I don't know. The way I look at it, the big record companies have mostly exhausted their rereleases of the big, A-list conductors. Here in the States, that included Munch, Bernstein, Reiner, Solti, and a few others (Szell and Ormandy were certainly on that list, but haven't had sets released here in the US). The major European* conductors had their sets released, some in big boxes (Karajan), others in smaller collections (Bohm, Beecham, Klemperer). So now they are putting together sets of conductors like Cluytens. As I stated before, I'm not real familiar with him. That he had 65 or more records released on a major label like EMI leads me to suspect he's probably pretty good. But at the same time my shelves are groaning with collections of other conductors with whom I am much more familiar. This makes it much less likely that I would purchase the set. But let's wait and see how they do. I also suspect the major market for most of these sets is Europe, Japan, and Korea--preferences of consumers in the US probably don't count for much. *And I realize that with the exception of Bernstein and Ozawa and a couple of others, the vast majority of leading "American" conductors are indeed European).
Mine arrived with a dent in the bottom edge, with no damage to the discs fortunately. They don't look like CDRs to me. Each disc has a long string of numbers on the inner ring. In the middle of the number is the catalog number listed on the sleeve for that disc.
Mine came with a dent on all 4 top corners. The imbecile just shipped it in the factory carton without any bubble wrap.
You mean they just slapped some postage on the box set? Incompetent rubes wanted to save a few bucks on shipping did they? I'd say this is worthy of negative feedback and a chargeback. I'm sorry I called attention to this seeming deal and now sort of dreading the arrival of mine.
As much complaining as there is about Amazon's packaging, especially some of the European divisions, I've never really had anything damaged from them, and I have ordered hundreds of items over the year. Their packaging may seem slapdash to me, but it seems to work so no complaints. I have had several E-Bay purchases, however, arrive in pieces. I think I am less fussy about the condition of boxes than some, but when you can see the damage from across the room or the discs are damaged, it is an issue. It's always something to think about.
No, what I meant was they shipped it in the soft brown carton that they ship the sets from the factory with. It's too flimsy to offer any kind of protection when 1 set is being shipped on its own. Any kind of impact on the corners will dent the display box inside so that's why all the top corners of mine are smashed. Anyways, I still appreciate the heads up on the deal and at least it's not counterfeit.
Every time I see my Karajan 1960s box with one corner mangled I want to choke the guy that packaged that order.
That's exactly how my Quartetto Italiano box came. The middle of one edge was crushed, which crushed the edge of the boxed set and the corner of 5 or so sleeves. Fortunately no damage to the discs. The damage was bad enough to the box that I couldn't get the discs back in without taking them all out and pushing out the dent.
Well, I just got a box (Philips Classics: The Stereo Years) which I ordered from Amazon UK but which actually came from Amazon Italy and one corner was badly damaged - it looks really ugly because it's a top front corner and it's all chewed up so the raw cardboard underneath the coloured surface is exposed. First damaged box I've received, out of about eight, and first to have come from Italy.
Actually it came today from Switzerland. What a crappy packaging job-basically a piece of paper on one side of the box set. Somehow the box is in perfect condition, thank goodness.
Yep, that's the Amazon Europe packaging standard these days. I count myself lucky that most of my purchases from the various European Amazon stores arrived undamaged.
I'd be upset if it was damaged. Even though I rip all my CDs to my computer and listen through a DAC, I still like to display the boxes on a shelf.