Tom Petty vinyl box set 1994-2014

Not sure yet, just ordered. I would assume not until next week. I think it said delivery in 5-7 days, i will check.

 

You East Coasters have had ample opportunity to report on Wildflowers by now. What's up?!?

 

just blasted Full Moon Fever and it blew me away. Really really good sounding. Nice, clean thick pressing. Covers are all perfect and look great. Just want Echo and Wildflowers so dang bad.

 

I'm curious if Echo was also AAA for this box. I always felt that Echo could stand to be remixed and remastered. Some tracks on my original vinyl release seem pretty digital, but others sound more all-analog.

 

ok, i got mine through Popmarket. The set shipped bare in a box which ends Popmarket usually awesome shipping of boxsets. Mine arrived in A- condition. A couple scuffs and minor dings. Nothing to raise the pitchforks over but its there.

Here's the thing, to me on my setup, ALL Tom Petty albums sound good, most great! So, not expecting any revelations here. Wildflowers was my first spin. I had the original pressing up until a couple year ago when I flipped it for close to $350. Hey everything has a price and you knew this was coming back in print. I remember my original sounding A/A+. Apparently it was from a digital file, whereas the new one says "Mastered for vinyl from the analog master tapes by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, LA 2014." Sounds the bomb to me, but so did the original. Smooth, punchy, and at times sounds like Tom Petty is playing in my living room. Good stuff. If it sounds better than the original, I would not be surprised, but its a game of inches at that point.

She's the One (aka Wildflowers B-Sides) is my next spin. I've never had this on vinyl before, but it sounds killer. The wording on this is a bit different and states: "Mastered for Vinyl by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering , LA 2016". Was this mastered from the Wildflowers session tapes like that album, or were these digital transfers? Don't know, but if I had to give Wildflowers an A+, this is an A.

Those are my two cents.

 

Mine From CC came in the same box. That's the box they come in from the label. Worked fine. That's how most labels ship a box of records.

 

Pressed by Record Industry in the Netherlands, except for the last two albums.

 

some 5-cent styrofoam spacers wouldn't kill anyone. Just saying. Half of me was also hoping that a 7inch for You Don't Know How it Feels/Girl on LSD was hiding in here somewhere!

 

My Vol. 2 arrived from Popmarket today as well, I will have to get into this weekend after giving some titles a proper cleaning.

 

I get it.

Was thinking back to my record store days when we'd get deliveries of stacks of those sized boxes holding 25 copies of a particular title.

Hardly ever get based up and they shipped from label to distributor to retail store.

 

Haha not stupid at all, I wound up doing just that tonight. Amazon said out of stock until the 20th and luckily my local store had one copy of Vol 2 left. It was $10 more than Amazon but they run a loyalty program at my local shop where they punch a card for every $20 you spend. He punched a full card for me on the spot for buying the boxset and took the $20 off right there. Can't beat that

Working on getting She's The One, Echo, and Wildflowers wet cleaned right now, back soon with listening impressions.

 

Amen!

 

I finally finished cleaning these (basically for good measure, as they came out of the poly-lined inners as shiny and clean as I've ever seen).

I'll be reviewing Wildflowers and She's The One. I'm full of Founder's Breakfast stout and I'm excited as hell, so bear with me as I ramble.

Both albums' outer sleeves are very well done.

Heavy weight, rough card stock for Wildflowers, just like the original. Basically indistinguishable aside from some details I'm sure I've missed (dates/codes etc in small print). The overall look and feel is dead on though. Lyric sheet included, just like the originals.

Having never owned She's The One on vinyl ($$$$$), I can't say how close they got to the original sleeve but it's very nice standard weight smooth cardboard with great printing quality.

No seam splits on either album, inner or outer.

Wildflowers:

I used to have the 1994 German pressing and while it sounded incredible for the most part, it was warped from new and had a little more surface noise than I can tolerate on albums that I love this dearly. I sold it as VG vinyl for $100 to a happy buyer and waited for the reissue I hoped would come.

I played the whole album through twice in a row and I'm ecstatic to report that overall it's absurdly good. It has a tiny warp on disc 1 that I hesitate to even mention, but for full disclosure, it's not dead flat. The tracks 'Wildflowers' and 'You Don't Know How It Feels' both have a touch of sibilance that I find hard to ignore if I'm sitting dead center in front of my speakers with the volume cranked. If I'm listening somewhere else in the room or listening dead center at a normal level, I can deal with it much better. I'm using a low hour but broken-in Audio-Technica AT33EV LOMC cart into a Signet step-up transformer, with a custom full tube phono pre with very nice RCA Command Series tubes. The rest of the chain is Parasound P5 preamp > Parasound HCA-1500A amp > Polk SDA-2 speakers with rebuilt crossovers and updated silk dome tweeters from Polk. Full setup information is in my profile but that's the overview. It could be an alignment issue (although I have very meticulously dialed in the alignment and I have maybe 3 records where sibilance is an issue at this point) or it could be a dirty stylus. I use an Onzow Zerodust before every side but I'm going to get some Magic Eraser this weekend to see if I can get it a bit cleaner with a few dips in that.

Disc 2 of Wildflowers is dead flat with zero sibilance on all tracks. There is zero surface noise present on either disc.

With the exception of the disc 1 sibilance that may or may not be an issue with my system, this is as good as vinyl playback gets. It sounds incredible. Huge dynamic range, full, powerful bass, super clarity, wide wide soundstage. System demo material on the level of the Mofi pressing of Beck's Sea Change or the Music Matters jazz series. Really, seriously good.

She's The One:

I didn't even know this album existed until a couple years ago when I spotted it while browsing the cassettes at my local Half Price Books. I picked it up since it appeared brand new and for $0.25 it was a no-brainer. A new Petty album to dig into for a quarter? Absolutely. Long story short, I fell in love with it and have been dying to own the vinyl ever since.

It's dead flat and centered, with those razor-sharp edges some pressings have. I'm shocked it didn't cut through the inner and blow right out of the outer sleeve during shipping. You could cut tomatoes electron microscope thin with this thing.

Side 1 starts with a bit of surface noise, no loud pops but some static noise for sure in the lead-in. It quickly disappears when the music starts and does not come back during silent passages or song gaps through the rest of the side. I can live with this for sure. The sound is a bit thinner and decidedly digital sounding compared to the AAA powerhouse that Wildflowers was just minutes ago. On its own though, it stands up very nicely.

Side 2 is completely noise free in the lead-in and continues like this throughout. I'm starting to forget how incredible Wildflowers was at this point and side 2 is sounding really really good. If I was reviewing this completely on its own, I'd be hard pressed to give it less than a 9/10 for sound & pressing quality. It continues noise free and the album just gets better and better as it goes. By the time I get to Angel Dream (No. 2) I'm wondering if I'm going to play Echo or start She's The One over from the beginning.

 

Someone on discogs is saying that these are runs of 3k each. Can anyone verify?

 

Sibilance on Wildflowers???? I don't want to be hearing that, especially on the first 2 tracks.

 

Got my shipping notice from ccmusic - should be arriving Wednesday.

 

Where are you seeing that? I can't believe WBR would only do a run of 3,000 of these and leave a lot of potential money on the table but hey...Bowie's Five Years Vinyl box is OOP and that's a WBR title as well.

 

This forum strikes again! Ordered from AMAZON, I had great packaging experiences with them when I purchased the ZEP and Beatles Vinyl boxes. Used my amex points which softened the blow a bit. Had to do it, I have a sentimental connection to FMF . My daughter was born the same year and WF's contains some of the best music Petty has ever done. Thanks Santa!

 

From Amazon's listing
" The following titles have been re-mastered for this release: Wildflowers, Echo, The Last DJ, She's the One, and Highway Companion. Mojo and Hypnotic Eye both feature their original mastering.
Many titles have not been in print for a number of years.
This is a limited edition box set of 3,000.There will not be any additional made."

 

It just says delivery in 3-7 business days so I am counting on next weekend if I am lucky. Anyone know where Popmarket usually ships from?

 

Wednesday for me too. I won't listen until next weekend.

 

That's crazy, if it is true these will spike in value. I think it is pretty obvious that all titles will be individually released though. They will make a ton of money on that. What are the single Lp's in this set? She's The One and Echo? Nevermind, I see that it is She's The One and Hypnotic Eye. It's too bad they didn't spread out She's The One over two Lp's but I know Petty hates that one.

 

I believe Mojo and Hypnotic Eye are the only digital masters. So yes, Echo is AAA!

 

Thanks for getting a number for these sets.

 

I can totally see limiting to 3000 if they then do individual releases too. Lots of folks don't go the big box route.