I received my Grumiax set from Amazon.uk global store yesterday. Excellent packaging as always from these guys and the price was great ($156). I downloaded the missing disc from Qobuz, so my set is now complete, although it would be nice if Decca/Universal sends us a replacement disc at some point. Unfortunately, I do not see that happening anytime soon.
I'm a happy camper since Andre Previn - The Complete HMV & Teldec Recordings is now in the mail from jpc! It might reach me by Friday if everything goes well.
And of course it's gone from Amazon via the Global Store. Wondering if they "pulled" it similar to Amazon.it after discovering the disc 44/45 debacle. Funny that it's still available via Amazon.fr.
Same here, but I think arrival on Friday might be a bit optimistic, at least in my case; Monday or Tuesday next week seems to be more likely to me. That's three mega boxes within a few weeks, the Grumiaux, Ormandy and now the Previn. I'm getting behind...
I heard something from the Munch and Ida Haendel box sets and the original tapes didn't sound very good to me, then the rest goes accordingly, including the remaster ...
I read elsewhere that Tom Fine, son of Mercury Living Presence producer Wilma Cozart Fine, is responsible for the digital audio versions used in the Eloquence Mercury Kubelik box. If that is true then I believe you can rest assured the Eloquence Mercury box will be As Good As It Gets for those recordings. No wham-bam-thank-you-maam assembly line like productions will be found.
Mine did as well. It's coming with the Ormandy box, so we'll see how long it takes to get here. All the delays are on this side of the Atlantic, but it's been very erratic for the past year.
@cartologist - if that's the case, I have to thank you for cancelling! Ormandy just arrived from ImportCDs (only took one day, even though I'd selected Standard Shipping). Very solidly packed, still in the manufacturer's box, which was as another poster had described - sturdy outside box, with an internal cardboard "cradle" with built in handles. I know this may be the exception rather than typical for ImportCDs, but I'm glad I rolled the dice with them.
Amazon Italy still sells the Grumiaux box, 131.16€ now. I'm most curious about this detail many of you mentioned. Could you post a photo of it? I can't find anything online and I don't plan on buying the box soon (or at all).
Mine's in PA. I'm in NY. It says delivery for Monday but I'm hoping it'll be here in the next couple of days. I picked standard shipping also.
They are made in Australia, but are a worldwide release, as always excluding Japan. They have also just released a second Jochum Philips box, not to your taste at all, being chiefly Masses and Passions and the like. The curious thing about this new box is that is has all been released, mostly in Jochum 2 from DG. Universal hasn’t sold all their Jochum 2 boxes, so this one has me scratching my head.
I too, like other buyers, found the CDs rotated on their side, with the titles unreadable. The worst thing is that the CDs were still in sequence except they had swapped 51 with 93, so when I went from 50 to 93 it took a hit and I thought there was a missing CD and a duplicate one.
Reading these posts has proven expensive. I came into a little unexpected money, so ordered the Isaac Stern box and the Peter Serkin box. They had both been on my "maybe" list, but are being offered at a good price at the moment on amazon (US), and I suspect both are in their last 6 or 7 months of availability. While both are, of course, great musicians, neither is a personal favorite and I hesitated making a buy for something I would mostly use for comparisons to other artists.
The only problem with JPC is their address style, well beyond the fact they call you Herr or Frau. They put the street name first, then the street number. Get the wrong postal worker and who knows where your highly anticipated mega box will end up.
It makes sense in Europe where street numbers don't necessarily follow the same geographic logic as in the US where they are organized. At least in my country numbers are really erratic and unusual: by contrast, in the US, despite a few quirky exceptions, usually each block begins with the same numbers and they go up as they get further from the city's center with odd numbers on one side of the street and even on the other. So the actual address number actually will indicate to the postal worker which part of town it's in, and then it can be organized by , street, street side, then to individual house. In my country I'm not sure how street numbers are assigned but I know it's has nothing to do with the system as described above. My address is 277, my neighor's could be 458...I think it's just numbered in order as they were registered at the kadaster, which of course makes them seem completely random. So it makes sense to put the street first.
In Greece on the right side are the even numbers and on the left the odd. They advance in sequence. I remember a friend of mine was confused in a part of Berlin, where the numbers progress in sequence on one side of the street, and when the street ends, the numbers continue at the other side of the street...