Hi Frank:
This is completely a matter of personal taste, but I really like box sets like the RCA, Decca,
Philips and MLP because they offer a wide variety of artists and music styles. I never liked the
single-conductor or single-artist boxes, which started back in the early days of CDs. Rhino and Bear
Family were early in with multi-artist boxes themed around record labels or around a style of music,
this was an extension of what they had been doing in the LP era. In the classical world, LP-era
boxes from the major companies usually involved a single conductor or artist. Philips kind of broke
the mold with the Mozart Edition boxes, which were single-composer but multiple artists.
In modern times, these label-centric boxes probably all spring from Japan, where Sony started their
"original jackets" boxes. That was a new form-factor for the major labels, and a clever way to get
old Columbia reissues back in print. The idea took off because it turns out there's demand for
collections of what used to be single-CD reissues, and few people miss the jewel cases.
You mention about worn out LPs, that made me laugh because last weekend I had the opportunity to
cherry-pick a nice collection of jazz and classical LPs bought in a storage-locker auction. I ended
up taking home LPs of a bunch of albums I have on CD, just to have the original artifacts. I know,
it's a bad habit!
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Strauss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] New MLP box set promo video now on YouTube
> On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 6:48 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Like I said in my previous post, it's a business, so there has to be a
>> viable market to make a profit. As learned the hard way by everyone in the
>> single-CD reissue days, one enthusiastic reissue producer and a few loud
>> collectors do not make a viable market, and much money was lost on some
>> reissues (to be fair, in other cases money was lost due to cutbacks which
>> took titles out of print long before they were projected to be in the
>> black).
>>
>
> As usual, I appreciate Tom's insight. I am listening to the incredibly
> famous Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 while writing this, from the
> recently received Living Stereo box set, that I paid $126.99 plus $2.98
> shipping for. Seller was M and L in Germany. The set arrived in less than
> two weeks. I have a number of the LP's in this set, but I have played the
> hell out of them; it's a real pleasure to listen again like new. I noticed
> that the set is still available from Amazon partners from $95.40 to $447.
> I also bought the first MLP set, directly from Amazon, and will get on the
> pre-order list for set 2 as soon as it's possible. I really like the
> ability to get these remastered CD's at a reasonable price. I have so many
> on LP, but they've all been played. How else could you get such quality at
> a reasonable price?
> --
> Frank B Strauss, DMD
>
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