It is not unobtainable ... although the cost would hurt. Wait -- my CD edition has 21, but the vinyl on 20. Something's missing. Still, it's not unobtainable.
Not necessarily so. There are several LPs in that are not even in the MFSL. The Dell digital cuts are mostly good.
Matter of opinion of course. But I don’t tow the party line on this one. Maybe we should get back on topic.
The 21st disc in the CD edition, The Rare Sinatra, is an expanded version of an earlier LP. But, as has been discussed here in more appropriate threads, there is little connection between the LP and CD box sets other than the title and the liner notes. They are very different masterings.
Depends on which title. (Wee Small Hours in the CD box is by far the best.) But there are better threads for such comparisons.
However Jim, I have to say, “Thank you!” One of those closed threads we were talking about: FS: Frank Sinatra THE CAPITOL ALBUMS 20 LP box Alan Dell UK
@Bob F Re-reading that thread I again loudly roared when I came across this classic Bob F line: My wife issued an edict: "The records, or me and the kids." I had to think about it, but the records took third place.
See this post in a more suitable open thread: Sinatra / Capitol: General Purpose Sound Quality (and more) Discussion Thread*
Back at that time, I purchased all of the UK albums individually. A local dealer who got that box (after the LPs were harder to find) sold the records by the piece and then tried to sell the empty box for $50. I passed it up.
Under the circumstances I'll stick with the CD set, which has it. I now have a handful of Sinatra's Capitol LP's. I wouldn't mind finding one of those empty boxes to keep them standing straight and stiff in. I plan on getting the MoFi vinyl box in due course, when I find the right one in the right condition at the right price at the right time.
In the vast changeover to CDs, the MOFI Silver box started going for low prices. Most copies are mint (at least the 20 or so I have seen), as I think owners rarely (or never) played them. I got my copy for $100 back then, and saw a number of others at that price in shops (pre-internet crazy days). I avoided it at release time, as I preferred original LPs (still do)
Now, I kind of wish I had that empty box, as I bought extra new copies of all of the UK LPs at $3 each from Chick Wilson when he was clearing out his LPs.
Three: The two This Is Sinatra! volumes and Point of No Return are missing from the MFSL box. Plus the expanded versions of Songs for Young Lovers and Swing Easy!, with four extra songs each.
To be clear, I'm not saying "The Dell 20-LP set is the best complete set." I'm saying that a case could be made that it is, and again, ALL of the compete sets have some or all of these issues: •Missing titles (making some "complete" sets more -- or less -- complete than others, and I use "complete" in quotes, as none of these sets claims to be complete, but I think we colloquially speak of them that way) •Wrong tapes used (mostly "reverb-added" problems) •Defects, big and small (dropouts, channels reversed, sections of songs missing, etc.) •Wrong running order The UK 20 LP set brings a lot of positives to the table, along with a fair number of negatives. The same can be said of the MFSL box, the Walsh Concepts box (never mind the Norberg set), and the UK Dell CD box. I'm glad I have all four; they're all some degree of "mixed bag."
It's a disgrace that there is no complete Capitol box where his tenure there cannot be followed in chronological order; recording session by recording session.
I agree, but in this day and age, you can roll your own. The hard thing is collecting the best existing instance of each track and remastering them all consistently.