Dutton Vocalion SACD's Great Price At Grooves, INC*

While they're usually about 4 months behind releease date, Grooves usually prices all the Vocalian SACD's from $12-$14 USD + free ship at $22.20 USD. I've used them before, & always had good luck. Earlier this week, I ordered the 2 Guess Who's they're carrying + the Rick Derringer. No idea how they sell them cheaper than Dutton!

Grooves Inc.

122 titles in stock at the time of posting.

 

This really should be moved to the Coupons, Discounts and Sales sub-forum. Great deal, as you said. I believe Grooves is the retail arm of a European media distributor. They've always been cheap on EU items.

 

Sorry if I posted in the wrong place. Still learning how things work here. I really wanted to share this, though. All I know about Grooves is they say their physical presence is in Germany, & I BELIEVE (lol) they also have some sort of presence in Switzerland.

 

Thanks for posting this ! I've ordered from Grooves Inc. a few times in the past and never had any issues.

 

Bought from them once , no problem.
At the time they had Pure Prairie League in stock when DV was out which is why I used them.

 

I plan to buy American Woman/Share The Land when they stock it. They seem to get the Dutton New Releases a few months after release.

 

It's an awfully cheap pre-order at the moment @ $11.98. These things are a steal...

The Guess Who - American Woman & Share The Land - Dutton Lab SACD+CD Grooves Inc.

 

They must have just added it in the last day or 2. THANKS! Ordered along with Poco for free ship. The Rick Derringer that I ordered a couple weeks back has dropped in price from $14 to $11.75 if anyone needs that!

 

Five of the recent Dutton Vocalion releases (Donald Byrd, the two Guess Who titles, MFSB, Paul Revere & The Raiders) were shipped to myself from Grooves Inc., today. Thanks for the notice.

 

My 2nd order shipped today. The German postal system is notoriously slow, I still haven't received my first order, but I expect it will arrive eventually.

 

You'd just know.............. 1 day after I bitched (above) order #1 arrived. 1 broken jewelcase, otherwise perfect.

 

I am unfamiliar with this label so please bear with me. Do they usually do a unique mastering for the redbook layer or is that audio just the same as the common in print major label release? If it is a unique mastering, how good are these? I should mention I don't have any interest in the MCH SACD layer, just the 2CH Redbook audio portion of the disc.

Thanks.

 

All audio on Dutton label releases is mastered by namesake Michael Dutton. For stereo content, you get the same mastering on the Redbook layer as on the SACD layer. In my experience and opinion, Dutton's mastering is top notch.

 

I've never played the Redbook layer, so can't comment.

 

As inexpensive as these discs are, your surest path to answer your question is to buy one Vocalion SACD of a title you already have on CD in "the common in print major label release," then do a comparison between the two.

What's great about doing that with one SACD is -- all Vocalion SACDs are mastered by the same person. So if you like what you hear on that first one you try, you can proceed with confidence to buy more SACDs. If you aren't impressed, you can sell the SACD here on the forums for probably about what you paid for it.

 

Good point. And Grooves $22.13 USD minimum for free international shipping is pretty special when combined with their low prices. The only other EEC retailer I know of with free ship to the USA is film company Eureka/MOC.

 

Playing Guess Who Rockin/GH #2 SACD layer in 2.0. I'm a bit surprised, so far Rockin' is significantly on the bright side in the upper mids. Hopefully the Best Of #2, will be mastered differently.............

 

Last comment on SQ: Considering both albums were mastered by the same person on 1 disc, they couldn't sound much more different then they do. I would not consider either audiophile, but I do prefer Best Of 2. I had to turn it up about 2 notches louder to get the same subjective volume, it doesn't have the brightness of Rockin', but it's a little grainy & neither album has much depth or detail on my system. Still better than most cd's, but that isn't saying a lot!

 

I've had good luck with Dutton in the past & do want to state that Road Food which I'm playing now sounds much better than Rockin'/BO2. I haven't made it to #10 so no comment there. Weird that all 3 albums mastered by the same person & recorded in the same basic time period by the same company (RCA) sound so different from each other. Best of also got better as it went on, though none of these are quite in APO territory. They are less than 505 the price of APO, though.

I want all the music that I love to sound perfect, D@@n it!

 

Yes, Best of vol 2 sounds much much better in two channel than Rockin'. I don't have surround. And Rockin' sounds thin and simply disappointing. The Iconoclassic reissue vs the SACD is an example of, it's the mastering not the medium. But I read in other threads that the quad mixes sound much better than the 2 channel. BTW, the Paul Revere SACD sounds much better than Rockin'.

But I'm chiming in to say, I received my small order from Grooves Inc in about 2 weeks to the US. And none of the 3 jewel cases were broken. And they answered an email question in a day. Just wanted so share the positive feedback.

 

My most recent DV order from Grooves Inc. arrived safely in 15 days much faster than previous shipments.
It was 8 discs, maybe the larger order triggered first class shipping?

 

My last 2 were fast also, & they were small.

 

I'm currently having my first frustrating experience with Grooves. No sign of an order that was placed on 1/17 & shipped 1/22. A UK order from Rarewaves shipped 1/27 & arrived 2 days ago. Grooves has informed me they will take no action until 58 days have passed from shipping.

If it doesn't arrive very soon, Grooves has lost a customer & an advocate.

 

I wouldn't get worried until the package doesn't show up for a month. Grooves often ships from Germany, so a package from the UK wouldn't really be relevant.

 

Germany is slower; I've just never run into this long of a delay with Grooves. They sent an interesting form letter that basically stated they are having issues with unspecified carriers.