Sony/RCA will release a 24CD Jascha Heifetz set, The Complete Stereo Collection, in July in Europe. I wish they'd reissue the big Heifetz set for a reasonable price instead...
52-disc set from the Emerson String Quartet coming in June from DG. I have them in Bartok and they are superb in that repertoire ... I may have to consider this set.
Isn't it sad that even a company as big as Amazon had not bothered to include Classical Music properly in it's system. Being told that the contents of the Emerson set are: Disc: 1 1. 1. Allegrois not very useful!
Yes, but on the other hand it can make a nice puzzle to work out the works from their movement titles and performers alone. I did check last night and found that I already have the Emerson Quartet"s Shostakovich cycle (which is my go-to for those works), and I don't really need another Beethoven cycle, so I probably have too many of these discs to make the set worth my while even at £2 a disc.
Maybe a bit off-topic, but does anybody else have serious quality issues with these mega box sets by UMG? In all the sets I purchased recently, there was at least one faulty disk. I'm now trying to make a list and e-mail it to them. Unfortunately, amazon customer service is pretty pointless in this case, because they are always offering to replace the entire set. That makes no sense if disk 20 is faulty and they replace the entire set to get a working disk 20 - and then disk 25 is unplayable...
All your sets were problematic? Could you please post which sets exactly you have had problems with and what kind of problems?
Right now I have in front of me: Il Barbiere di Siviglia from the Philips box set Cavalleria Rusticana from the Karajan opera set David and Igor Oistrach: Bach - Händen - Tartini from the DG mono set Some disks in both of the Bernstein sets were problematic as well, but I think I could handle them by trying different drives. In the past, this was no big deal for me, because if one track in a box set out of fifty disks or something is faulty, I could still re-purchase that disk or download the track from qobuz. Unfortunately, many of the disks are not available separately. Also, I don't understand why I have to pay again for it - it's the supplier's fault! I'll make a CUETools test on all the sets I have and will let you know which disks were faulty...
And yes: in most of the cases the disks look brand new - there are no scratches from putting the disks into the sleeves during the production. I sure hope for them, that these issues are only with my copies and do not stem from faulty stampers...
Not to criticize your system, but are you sure your CD-player is up to the task so to speak? Have you tried another player to check? Sometimes older players are having difficulties playing "modern" CDs with extended playing times. You haven't listed any equipment in your profile, so I have no idea what you're playing the CDs on. One of my older players didn't play some discs, but my current player has no problem whatsoever.
J.A.W. is right. I bought a DG set (I think it was the Bach set, it's been a couple of years since this happened) and one disc would not play towards the end. I thought it might be a bad disc, or maybe I had not handled this disc properly and there was a smudge. I cleaned it, and there was a slight discoloration where I cleaned it. Still no luck. Took it to my other, older CD player, no luck. Finally took it to my laptop, which has a Blue-Ray drive. Played like a charm. So I ripped it and burned it to 2 CDs that I could play in the other players. The first player was a 10 year old Panasonic DVD player and the second was a 15 year old Yamaha CD player. The disc in question was about 82 minutes long, I think it was overburned. I have purchased several DG boxes since with no problem, but when I look at the running time of the discs in box the longest has usually been 79 minutes.
I think we're going way off-topic here (yes, guilty as charged). We'd better get back to discussing the mega boxes before a moderator puts a stop to it
Mega boxes: let me ask this question once again:Has anyone heard any news of Decca continuing its Pavarotti Edition series.? So far only release is the first decade. They were supposed to keep releasing the entire series in 2014. So far-nothing. Curious. It is not like Decca has withdrawn-they are busy with many excellent boxes.
Maybe a problem with the rights or the production, or the series is not selling well. I haven't a clue, just speculating.
A few belated impressions — I know this set is a few years old, but I just bought it at a price of around 1.30 Euros per CD. Having become such a Deutsche Grammophon fan over the last months (I love their catalogue, their artists, their elegant cover designs, and yes, their sound) I decided to get the DG Originals 50-CD set. The value of this set is great if you think that you almost always get 2 LPs on 1 CD, so this amounts to roughly 100 LPs worth of DG catalogue. So it's perfect in terms of selection and the sound is almost always fuller and more present than on the 1980s CD transfers. Therefore I'll focus more on the packaging. The discs are well-pressed, and I like the revised CD label design more than the one on the original Originals CDs: they managed to make the "vinyl grooves" design look and feel better and not as cheap looking as on the old ones. However, I am not a fan of the design in general. It mocks a vinyl LP, with a tiny yellow label in the centre and "grooves" around that. It might have looked cool in the '90s, but I do think they should have gone back to the classic silverface DG CD design. The booklet is okay, but not of really great value except for the tracklisting. The liner notes are practically just an ad for the "Originals" series written in overenthusiastic language, but not much interesting info. You don't get any of the copious liner notes that accompanied the individual CD releases, as expected. The CDs themselves are in the usual flimsy cardboard sleeves, with 2-CD sets being in gatefold sleeves. The quality of the cover reproductions is actually quite terrible: they just scanned the original CD covers instead of digitally re-creating the artwork, which results in a lot of interpolation due to the printing process. The text and images on the front are therefore fuzzy. The back just contains a tracklisting, copied over from the booklet. This is all not very surprising given the low price, but I thought some of the people visiting this thread who have not yet bought any of these sets would be interested. If you are a lover of great, lovingly put together packaging, this set is probably not for you. I also held the Decca MONO YEARS and ANALOGUE YEARS sets in my hands, and much of what I said of the packaging quality applies to that one. I guess I'll eventually re-sell the set after I get familiar with the catalogue and try to find the individual CDs either online or in thrift stores, in order to get the original liner notes.
I'll second that. I'm also waiting for the "promised" L'Oiseau Lyre box of medieval and renaissance music.
ArkivMusic is running a sale on Archiv Produktion: The Analogue Stereo Recordings. $79.99 with free standard shipping. I've had reasonable success with their packaging and delivery (no, not affiliated in any way).
Sorry to read this, crispi. Thanks for an informative post which pretty much describes the box I have except, fwiw I don't seem to have the issue with the CD covers at all! The pictures are far from fuzzy, actually I'd say sharp even, especially the text. I compared about 10 of these with the original CD releases I still have and they are very close - except perhaps, the Kleiber/Beethoven whose original reflective silver colour is now replaced by a dull grey - but still very good otherwise. Is there any way you can look at another box? I bought mine (used) soon after it's release, so it's an earlier issue (printing?). Perhaps there's a difference? Mine is "Made in the EU" - let me know if you need any other information from my box (barcodes, etc). I just assume they're all the same. I also have "The MONO YEARS" and it's also as good.
Maybe I used the wrong word there. It's not exactly "fuzzy" per se, it's subtler than that. My father used to work in the printing industry, so I know a little bit about these things. When you scan a printed cover and re-print it at the same size you have to run some filters in order to get rid of the dot pattern, otherwise it'll look messy. That always leads to a loss in resolution. I'm nitpicking, I know. And I know that not everybody can have printing skills like the Japanese. But it does detract from my enjoyment of a set when I see that the job was done witht the skill of a dedicated, but unexperienced, intern. Still, I cherish the box. It's probably the best introduction in classical music that there is out there.
New member, classical novice and my first post here! This forum has been very helpful in selecting what boxes to purchase. So far, Piano 111, Mozart 111, Mercury Living Presence Vol. 1, Living Stereo Collection Vol. 2 and Decca Sound. I am slowly working my way through them. Also, thought I would like to pass on a good deal that I found earlier today. Living Stereo Vol. 2 for $67.62 with free shipping in USA CD Living Stereo Collection, Vol. 2 (CD 17238665), »
In receipt and playing disc 1 of the "Decca Sound 55 Great Vocal Recitals" set as I post this. I can not even imagine what it would cost to put together this collection before the advent of the mega box. I'm interested in many other genres of music but at this point I think available funds will go to the classical mega box category for the foreseeable future. Except for all the SACDs. And Blu Rays.. And all that other stuff. This is incredible though. Seriously.
Can't believe the "Decca Sound 55 Great Vocal Recitals" is out already. It's been a hectic year for music buying. Hopefully my set will arrive soon!
