I think JPC have contacts with the major classical labels, they often have pre-release information months before anyone else. The only thing worth noting is I preferred the mastering on the early Japan and US CDs for the Mahler CDs I have heard compared to The Bruno Walter Edition box. I am going to wait to see what the mastering credits look like before I make a blind buy. Judging by the credits in the recent Sony mega boxes they use a combination of older and newer mastering. In some instances when Sony used that "super bit mapping" remastering they felt the need to use mild noise reduction and filter the high end even on recordings to tape. I didn't know about the Firkusny box, I have a couple of Beethoven piano sonatas by him that are fantastic.
That's the depressing aspect of our hobby. When these boxes disappear off the market, prices can jump to astronomical heights. I remember I bought this set here (in one of those x for y sales on amazon [Italy]) for around €36. But, I've also had to "bite into the sour apple", as we say around here, with other sets that I had to pay premium prices for after their "demise".
Here's a list of what I put together on Discogs: Florilegium Series box 1: The Baroque Era. I had ordered the 44th CD (Couperin's Trois leçons de ténèbres) just before my fortuitous* find on US Amazon. (I will complete the list with information from the box set's booklet.) The total cost to me (43 discs + 1 FLAC download + the four Hogwood boxes) was about the same as I paid for the box set. Now, if only Decca had figured out how to put all of the information that is in the individual titles' booklets into the box set's booklet. But I suppose the point of these cubes is cheapness of production and (initially, at least) a low price per disc for the buyer. And yes, I could have bought Bach 333 for what I paid for my duplication and added a couple of Hogwood boxes. But here's the thing. I didn't know that my tastes tended towards the Baroque until I started trying to recreate this set. Bach, sure, but Vivaldi and Handel and Rameau? Tilney's Domenico Scarlatti 12 sonata selection is a delight, obviating the need for me to sample any more of Scarlatti's overflowing, no, overwhelming sonata compositions. *fortuitousness is not necessarily a good thing: zufällig rather than glücklich, according to Google Translate.
Circling back to the QUARTETTO ITALIANO discussion, I received my Ebay copy today. Very fast turnaround time -- the seller was Chinese but the box was shipped from New York. Looking at it...I am pretty sure it's a bootleg, but I would say 9 out of 10 people you might show it to would have no idea. The CDs are legitimately pressed, not CD-Rs. The weight of the box is very strong, like any other Decca release. The printing quality of the booklet and the cardboard slips, though, seems just a little lightweight, and there's some printing "residue" on the outside of the cardboard disc cases. Really though, the only glaring sign to me of a knockoff is that the discs are all housed in "poly sleeves" inside the cardboard slipcovers, which no other box set I've owned has had. (Someone let me know if all copies are like this!) I knew what I was getting into so no great surprise. I'll process an Ebay return, though I have to say if I was absolutely in need of the item, this copy would probably do me fine -- it's damn close to the real thing, so much that it if it weren't for the couple of minor details a lot of people wouldn't notice (or care about I'd imagine), few would recognize the difference in this instance.
When I lived in China about 15 years ago, my brother and I were surprised at the quality of the copying. But there would always be some kind of weird spelling mistake or other. It was one of the economic "wonders" of China for us - we were very curious to know all about the whole production process and distribution. It's still a big puzzle to me.
The big give-away for me with counterfeits is the weird "tire rubber" smell that seems to be a byproduct of the printing process or ink used. It fades with time, but if you open the package and it smells like someone shipped a spare tire with the set, pretty good odds you've got a fake.
I’ve come across this numerous times, but not yet with one of these classical sets. The CDs are generally very well sone, but with occasional spelling errors, cheaper ink, and weird smells as others have posted.
The discs are definitely pressed, with the catalog number in the interior spine and a logo that looks like "Arvato" next to it that I could make out. (Arvato was supposedly some offshoot of BMG or something from a quick internet search). It at least "looks real". (When I said "legitimately pressed" I should have said professionally pressed...just trying to say they're not homemade CD-R burned discs). But yeah, the ink in the booklet, "off" smell and those sleeves aren't indicative of legit product -- even as close as the rest of it is. Just so odd someone would go this far, and surely spend a fair amount of money, making a close facsimile of this particular release. Of course, I noticed this particular seller is now selling the rare 1st volume of Mercury Living Presence, and we know that's not going to be legit!
I've often wondered about that. Why go to the trouble only to get it 97% of the way there? Really throw the market for a loop and make your product indistinguishable from the real thing. Then again, perhaps I shouldn't give these folks ideas. Still, it's weird to consider that their profit margin would, by default, be far higher than the legit release as there are no license fees in the manufacture cost. You buy one copy, press silver disc copies and reproduce the artwork exactly. Seems like easy money even if you are striving to do it right...
I don't think the labels that released these mega boxes (the legit ones ) paid license fees either, since they own the recordings. They probably have to pay royalties, though.
Well, thanks for sharing. I'm glad, in the end, you'll come out of this unscathed. And I have learned a good lesson vicariously.
This is not surprising given that bootlegs are done more quickly with a real CD press than to burn discs individually and in China there's little regulation in many areas about what jobs CD plants can take. However, note that not only is the packaging/printing terrible in those cases, the discs themselves are often made with the lowest graded material.
It makes sense since most of the bootleg copies are sold to Chinese who usually don't have access to or want to pay the high prices for the real things (bootleg sets were being sold next to the Shanghai conservatory a few years back for ~50 cents per disc). However, it's weird that they're being produced at all nowadays given that the vast majority of Chinese seems to rely solely on digital media. But maybe as a Shanghaiese, I'm simply living in a tech bubble.
Yeah, one of the fallacies in my question was in wondering why people who didn't mind counterfeiting goods wouldn't apply a keen eye for quality to their counterfeits.
I'm not trying to tell anyone not to order from Arkivmusic right now, and I am actually interested in buying this Casadesus box set myself (particularly at this current sale price), but if you do order from the site right now, you may well experience some issues. I placed an order with them on the 9th of this month, and it was delivered to the front desk of my apartment building last week (which is where packages are commonly delivered here), but I wasn't even aware that it had been delivered until days later, when the receptionist informed me. I never received any tracking information from Arkivmusic, and as of today, April 19th, the order status on the website still has not changed from "Accepted" to "Shipped," even though the order was delivered almost a week ago. My card has not yet been charged for the order, and I have no idea when it will be charged. I contacted Arkivmusic customer service, and it took two e-mails, over a number of days, before I finally received a reply. Apparently, their warehouse is in the process of being moved, and orders are being delayed, not necessarily in terms of delivery, but in terms of being updated within their computer system.... so whenever my order (which, again, was delivered last week) is finally updated to "Shipped," my card will be charged... but I have no idea when that will be, so I have to be careful about ordering much of anything else from any website in the meantime, so as to keep a certain amount of money in my account to cover this Arkivmusic order. I am still willing to order from them in the future, but I must be honest-- this experience has been (and is) quite frustrating.
It has been this way since January, when I placed an order. When asked they told me they were having problems with their computer system, but I wonder if there's something else going on.
