The Super-Duper Cheap Bargains Thread

[Roasted Swan]

 

PD

One of the best is Eugene Thingy conducting Sibelius' thingies - its a really good box!

[Papy Oli]

One of the best is Eugene Thingy conducting Sibelius' thingies - its a really good box!

I forgot to mention the ones like "thingamebob plays thingamejig"   

Joke aside, I'd actually be interested to know which Sony boxes of that series are top picks ?

so, Ormandy conducts Sibelius.

Szell conducts Haydn as well ?

Any others ?

[Roasted Swan]

I forgot to mention the ones like "thingamebob plays thingamejig" 

Joke aside, I'd actually be interested to know which Sony boxes of that series are top picks ?

so, Ormandy conducts Sibelius.

Szell conducts Haydn as well ?

Any others ?

The Arnold box is excellent.  I genuinely like the Sibelius/Ormandy box - he didn't record all the 7 symphonies but it does include both his earlier CBS versions and the RCA remakes.  Ormandy/Strauss and Ormandy/DSCH are fine too.  Slatkin/Elgar & Slatkin/Tchaik Ballets are good.  I was looking for Slatkin's Amercian Composers box but didn't see it - perhaps its there?  Didn't look for Previn/RWV which is famously excellent.  Couldn't see any Szell but didn't look very hard.  There's Bernstein/Tchaik, Bernstein/Sibelius, Leinsdorf/Prokofiev

[Papy Oli]

The Arnold box is excellent.  I genuinely like the Sibelius/Ormandy box - he didn't record all the 7 symphonies but it does include both his earlier CBS versions and the RCA remakes.  Ormandy/Strauss and Ormandy/DSCH are fine too.  Slatkin/Elgar & Slatkin/Tchaik Ballets are good.  I was looking for Slatkin's Amercian Composers box but didn't see it - perhaps its there?  Didn't look for Previn/RWV which is famously excellent.  Couldn't see any Szell but didn't look very hard.  There's Bernstein/Tchaik, Bernstein/Sibelius, Leinsdorf/Prokofiev

Thank you RS. I already own the Arnold, Previn/RVW and the Bernstein (via his Symphony & Concertos editions). I'll make a note of the others 

[Brian]

I had and loooooved the Szell/Haydn and Szell/Casadesus/Mozart piano concertos boxes - they got me through a very difficult time in life - and only gave them to a friend after buying the huge Complete Szell box. Same with the Previn/LSO Vaughan Williams and Walter/everything (got the bigger boxes). Hoping they do a Slatkin Very Big Box some day.

You may enjoy the Muti box of Italian orchestral music (opera overtures, Nino Rota, etc.). Bronfman Prokofiev and the complete Hilary Hahn are excellent. I also enjoy the set with underrated pianist Kathryn Stott.

Quite a few of those are out of print so I am tempted by the Ormandy Shostakovich, the Olli Mustonen, Lili Kraus Mozart, Zinman Beethoven. The John Williams and Julian Bream guitar boxes are incredibly expensive now so this is intriguing. Monteux Stereo. I didn't know they had a Giuliano Carmignola collection either.

All the Sony cheap white "thingy" boxes are listed by Presto here so you can cross reference and find them on the other site:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/series/2126/browse?view=small&page=1&sort=relevance&size=120

[Roasted Swan]

A couple more of the thingumie collections available to download in FLC;

The Janowski Ring cycle (14 discs)
Wand's NDR Bruckner cycle
Bernstein's 1st Mahler cycle
Previn/RVW is there

all around the £7 for the complete download

[steve ridgway]

I'm finding the Discogs FLAC listing helpful. The discs are still in a different order to Supraphon's downloads but it lists the work, composer, performers etc. Then you need the Discogs CD listing for the images of the original albums.

[steve ridgway]

Also the Sony cheap white boxes Gyorgi Ligeti Masterworks (9 CDs) and Masterworks of the 20th Century (10 CDs) which I already have on CD and enjoy.

[Brian]

eClassical will offer 50% off high res downloads from BIS, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, PentaTone, Berlin Philharmonic, Mirare, Chandos, Aparte, and LSO Live for "Black Weekend." Wow!

[T. D.]

Might be too late (inventory already picked over), but Academy Records (NYC) has been running a "Cyber Sale" on discogs, going on through 3 Dec.
I've bought a couple of jazz CDs so far, at good prices IMO, but Academy has a far bigger classical inventory.

[steve ridgway]

Are these any good?

DGs The History Of Classical Music split by Supraphonline into 5 separate sets of 20 CD FLAC downloads at 639 CZK (23 GBP) each -



Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Ives at 199 CZK (7 GBP) for FLAC downloads of the 4 CD box -

[Jo498]

IIRC the MTT Ives was considered state of the art/reference when it was new although there are always some who swear by older more adventurous recordings.

[Roasted Swan]

IIRC the MTT Ives was considered state of the art/reference when it was new although there are always some who swear by older more adventurous recordings.

I must admit I had greater hopes of these recordings than transpired.  MTT and Concertgebouw/Chicago looks like a dream ticket.  Of course they are "good" just perhaps not as good as I'd hope they would be.  But quite a lot of those Sony cheap boxes were remastered along the way and certainly that might have help.  TBH - at that price worth the "risk"!

[steve ridgway]

Thanks both, I have bought it and am stáhnouting it now .

[Spotted Horses]

Are these any good?

DGs The History Of Classical Music split by Supraphonline into 5 separate sets of 20 CD FLAC downloads at 639 CZK (23 GBP) each -

FWIW, I got the Reiner set from Supraphononline (too good to be true price) and I've decided not to purchase further from them.

I listened to a representative track (Brahms Tragic Overture) and found that the FLAC download did not sound identical to the lossless streaming version (it was lower volume). In every other case when I've compared lossless streaming and a FLAC file (ripped or download) have sounded absolutely identical. I conclude the FLAC files supraphoneonline distributes are not bit-identical to the CD. Perhaps generated from mp3 files.

I ended up deleting the Reiner from my hard disk.

[steve ridgway]

FWIW, I got the Reiner set from Supraphononline (too good to be true price) and I've decided not to purchase further from them.

I listened to a representative track (Brahms Tragic Overture) and found that the FLAC download did not sound identical to the lossless streaming version (it was lower volume). In every other case when I've compared lossless streaming and a FLAC file (ripped or download) have sounded absolutely identical. I conclude the FLAC files supraphoneonline distributes are not bit-identical to the CD. Perhaps generated from mp3 files.

I ended up deleting the Reiner from my hard disk.

Oh, that's not good. The volume shouldn't differ if copying bits from a CD, maybe it was an older master? Comparing a few tracks from the Boulez Le Marteau Sans Maître / Livre Pour Cordes with a copy I ripped myself from the Masterworks Of The 20th Century CD box, they sound the same to me and the bit rates and file sizes are very close.

[Spotted Horses]

Oh, that's not good. The volume shouldn't differ if copying bits from a CD, maybe it was an older master? Comparing a few tracks from the Boulez Le Marteau Sans Maître / Livre Pour Cordes with a copy I ripped myself from the Masterworks Of The 20th Century CD box, they sound the same to me and the bit rates and file sizes are very close.

Maybe just an issue with the Reiner set. In any case, when I purchased the downloads I didn't realize that the entire Reiner Box was available lossless on my streaming service, and kicked myself for throwing away the princely sum of $8.

[Papy Oli]

FWIW, I got the Reiner set from Supraphononline (too good to be true price) and I've decided not to purchase further from them.

I listened to a representative track (Brahms Tragic Overture) and found that the FLAC download did not sound identical to the lossless streaming version (it was lower volume). In every other case when I've compared lossless streaming and a FLAC file (ripped or download) have sounded absolutely identical. I conclude the FLAC files supraphoneonline distributes are not bit-identical to the CD. Perhaps generated from mp3 files.

I ended up deleting the Reiner from my hard disk.

Thank you for checking and the heads-up, @Spotted Horses. I have read many reviews complaining that 7Digistal was guilty of "upscaling" MP3 to FLAC but I couldn't find such comments about supraphonline. I'll try and dig further.Not that it had spoiled my enjoyment of Reiner so far though.

[Spotted Horses]

Thank you for checking and the heads-up, @Spotted Horses. I have read many reviews complaining that 7Digistal was guilty of "upscaling" MP3 to FLAC but I couldn't find such comments about supraphonline. I'll try and dig further.Not that it had spoiled my enjoyment of Reiner so far though.

As I recall they charged the same for MP3 and FLAC, so they didn't get you there. The way to tell for sure is to convert the FLAC to an uncompressed wav file and see if the numbers are right, compared with a CD rip or a legit FLAC.

In any case, when I compared the volume of the FLAC files from was lover, but it didn't sound any worse, otherwise.

[Todd]

Six bucks, six discs at Qobuz.