If that’s what’s happening, I think it’s far more likely that it’s just a dumb screwup due to the fact that the sampler doesn’t seem to have a unique title (perhaps with the word “Sampler” in there somewhere). That seems... suboptimal.
Thanks albelTW I understand that and saw the listing for the sampler. It's just that Bruckner13 used that EAN number to refer to the items most of us have been buying when you look at all the listings they all seem to have the correct 0694 EAN number hence my confusion.
He was propbably pointing out a way to determine whether we actually bought, officially at least, the complete set or the sampler. In my opinion, it's either an error in pricing/object listing or a trick to get some advertising like "Look at how good are how prices!" Needless to say, if it's the latter (the trick), they've already lost me as a customer if the sampler is what shows up in my mailbox, because for every order I could think of placing with them, I'd ask myself if they're gonna send the right one. The problem is, there's no way to determine what they're thinking. Realistically speaking, they're sending the full box (whether the price is an error or not), or they're convinced that they've correctly listed the sampler and that's what they're gonna send. They're in for a harsh time either way, I'd say.
My fingers are crossed that the full set is what's being sent out. Maybe it's been in their warehouses for long enough that they're willing to "loss" them out while nominally "selling" each copy. I could see this happening if it's not something they can return to the label for a refund. If that's the case though, they must have ordered a RAFT of these boxes to have that many left over. It was released in, what? 2016? Five years is a long time to still have unsold copies of a classical mega-box based on current trends. Full disclosure: I did take the plunge on this with a lot of you. My order definitely shows the item number for the box and not the sampler, so unless it's a clerical error and they listed the sampler under the wrong entry, I know where my expectations (and hopes) lie.
Looks like it will be another box of missed opportunities. First, no Decca recordings and some of the finest Gardiner recordings (e.g. Mozart Mass or Requiem) have been recorded for Decca. Second, why not make the box like that of Karl Richter with a large format booklet? The design looks exactly like Kempff box. I hope it will have at least original covers. If not, I will skip this one.
Would you believe this box design (Gardiner, Karajan Remastered, Jasha Heifetz, etc) happens to be exactly my favorite design, as far as the distribution of the dimensions is concerned? We can easily lay the box in the same narrow shelves designed for single CD´s.
Best of luck from me to all Perlman orderer, $ 12 would really be awesome! I paid € 149 at the time, and it was worth it, the box is absolutly great.
Quoting my own posting here... I have been sampling these two small 10-CD box-sets, and I felt that, contrary to Karajan 1976 Beethoven symphonies cycle, for which the Eloquence AMSI remastering resulted in a major improvement in the sound quality, the same did not happen with Karl Richer recordings on Bach´s sacred works. To my ears (they are far from being a good reference anyway), I felt the sound of the Eloquence AMSI 2010 release to be more compressed at a large degree, "less alive" (in the absence of a better technical expression) with previous 2000 release (Collectors Edition) much more involving and overall satisfying.
I worked out the URL for the tracking from an old package that also used an RRD tracking code. So far it's only been scanned into the system. I'm hoping once it gets going there will be package info like weight and dimensions, so I can work out if it's the real Perlman box set or not.
Looks like pop market took down all the listings for Perlman. Guessing they figured it out and it was a mistake of some sort.
Interesting, might be the real deal then. My tracking had an update, hopefully it's already on the way.
Last thing I heard from them was "Payment received" two days ago, nothing since then. The box has too much stuff I don't care for, so I didn't get it at full price, but I couldn't pass on this bargain - if it turns out to be the real thing. If not, I'll ask PayPal for a refund.
Doesn't seem to be the case, a quick jump to some German reviews didn't mention anything of that matter. So a repackaged deal of the earlier CD box is my best guess. These might have been remastered originally though, as the 1970s LPs might not have been able to convey as wide of a frequency range without the needle skipping (see: The Beatles remastered).
People seem to have gotten more paranoid in recent years. I remember that back in the Szeryng days, there was mostly excitement about a deal that may or may not have worked out. As stated before, I chose to be excited about this and not going into 24-hour question mode. If it's a sampler, hey, then I have a Christmas present for someone already.
Only major difference is that, with the Szeryng box, we all knew what we were getting. It was mostly a question of waiting to see if those ludicrously under-priced boxes would ship or if the orders would be canceled. In this case, they've been happy to take our money and we all know what we INTENDED to purchase. Question is, did they bung up their listings or not? I looked at my updated tracking and saw that the the shipping "product" is supposedly First Class for expedited shipping. That downgrades my expectations a bit because nothing as heavy as a box set can ship First Class unless they've changed the rules. Might be an error on USPS' part, but worth noting in the meanwhile. I'd rather take a pessimistic turn and wind up pleasantly surprised than get my hopes up in spite of everything and wind up annoyed more than the situation merits on delivery day if it doesn't go my way.
I don't know, I'm pretty excited by the possibility of getting the whole thing with what little I paid but I won't be let down if something else shows up. Maybe the listing got taken down because they realised their mistake or maybe simply because they sold all of them My order wasn't yet updated from payment accepted. It was written that they would ship in two business days and only one passed so I'm giving them another one, also considering the time zone difference. That said, they sure were quick to take my money, 50 minutes after my order my payment was accepted.
Just a heads up. I analysed the AMSI "remaster" and found it copied the 1980s transfers and slapped 2-3 dB of loudness on top of them. In that process some of the peaks of the waveform have been shaved off. If you actually open the files side by side in an audio editor, you'll see that they align perfectly. That's hardly a remaster, since no new transfer has been done. I think the more appropriate word for it would be "fraud", especially given the brickwall mastering. So what tricks you into thinking it sounds better is actually just the fact that they are louder. I recommend to anyone to stick to the 1986 transfers, which first appeared on individual Galleria discs. Those glass masters were re-used on the 1990 CD box (I was able to confirm that myself: the CD matrices are the same). The Symphony Edition also re-uses these transfers unchanged. I wasn't able to check the Bluray set, but from reading reviews it appears that only the Blurays were remastered, and the CDs re-used the same old transfers (which are great, in my opinion, more punchy sounding than the LPs).
Thank you @crispi, for taking your time to add this insightful information, Just to make sure I understood correctly, the side-by-side comparison analizys you performed, was only on the Karajan/Beethoven, or also on the Richter/Bach? While in the case of Karajan/Beethoven the AMSI may have made it louder (thus affecting or deceiving my perception of quality), in the case of Richter/Bach the AMSI version seems to be, to my ears, quieter, with less punchy, less alive. Wondering if you would have both to analyse also this one. regards, DB
So glad I finally got my Plex music library sorted out and finished ripping a few of the giant boxes. Very handy for listening at work and in the car.
Amazon Poland (amazon.pl) has started operating But the prices do not seem particularly enticing... But the good side is that shipment to Poland is either free or very cheap
My Perlman box, or my Perlman-whatever-it-is, just shipped. From what I read in the feedbacks, it should take a couple of weeks at least. Interestingly, the mail ends in Thanks Collectors' Choice @jɑmbo I have the same RRD tracking number, is this the website you tracked yours? HomePageTracker If it is, mine says the same as yours. @J.A.W. Any news on your part? By the way, in a week or so Amazon should also ship the Grumiaux box.
That is a thing of beauty! Must have been quite the undertaking, too. Gathering you use the "artist" field to cover performers and soloists? Also, I've been having some weirdness with Plex lately. Curious if you've had the same experience. Seems like every time an update is applied, random albums under seemingly random artists will shed all or some of the song title data and just show "Untitled" in that field. I have to force it to refresh all metadata to correct this. Much as I enjoy some of the bios and things it pulls in, I'm half tempted to completely disable anything but pulling in from the file tags at this point.
Very impressive indeed. Just a general question for y’all on album cover art. Looking at this beautiful photograph what’s appealing to me is that all of the images look crisp and clear, and because I’m a visual person, that tends to be how I find favorite works. Have you been scanning the album cover art in? I have found a couple websites where some industrious folks are scanning covers for certain box sets and posting them, which helps. But the vast majority of the discs that I rip I have to do an image search on Google or scan them myself. Of course you can read the subtext here; I’m looking for a faster way because I’m lazy.
