Customer Reviews

Bob Dylan - Limited Edition Catalog Box Set

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The music is well worth it. Listening to these SACDs will make you aware of how incredibly desolate the current musical landscape is. I find myself REALLY appreciating Dylan, the Dead, the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors.... Senility? Surely you jest. The music and songwriting of these groups ages well and endures.

That said, here come the caveats. First, the cardboard packaging is not up to SACD standards. Yes, I realize the Stones used the same, but Columbia should have learned from history, instead of repeating it. If you look at Classical SACDs, you will find them packaged in very sturdy, classy, plastic jewel boxes, NOT cardboard!

To remove the Dylan SACDs from the spindles requires considerable effort and flexing of the SACD. Bad Karma! Three of the SACDs in my Box Set were actually damaged. They had fine cracks around the hole, no doubt caused by their extremely tight fit on the plastic spindles. If you own this Box Set, I encourage you to carefully check each SACD for hairline cracks. If you mailorder this set, make sure the return policies are something you can live with. The design of this Box Set makes it very prone to shipping damage.

Will there be subsequent Dylan SACD Stereo, 5.1, and 6.1 remasterings? You bet. They will always push the envelope, as technology evolves. These SACDs eclipse all previous versions and represent the current state of the art. The music and remastering are superb. Listen and you will hear.......

Kudos to Columbia for finally giving Dylan's catalog the sonic upgrade it deserves! The sound quality of each disc is a vast improvement over the old cds - and I'm talking about only the remastered conventional CD layer, not the SACD layer (as I don't yet have an SACD player).
The detail and clarity in Dylan's voice and musical accompaniment is absolutely stunning. You will hear things in the songs that you never heard before - for instance, the dramatic intake of breath before he sings the first line of All I Really Want to Do to kick off Another Side of Bob Dylan.
Thankfully, the remastering was done with the utmost respect for the original recordings. Nothing has been remixed (aside from the 5.1 remix of the SACD layer, of course); the glorious sound of these reissues was acheived through careful mastering of the original source tapes.
As an added bonus, the packaging for each album has also been restored so if you never owned the original vinyl, you'll have Dylan's own Planet Waves liner notes for the first time, Allen Ginsberg's Desire notes for the first time, etc. etc.
As for bonus tracks, who needs 'em? I say, save those for future installments of the Bootleg Series. These albums deserve to be heard the way they sounded when they were originally released - including the exact track listings!
Now bring on the next batch of remasters. I need a good sounding copy of New Morning!

In other words, this is by far the best sounding set available right now (although the packaging lacks in the usual "We don't try hardest" American sub-standard spirit).

The good things about this set are:

1. For regular CD listeners, the DSD mastering is brilliant and pristine. To use the worn out cliché; it is like hearing them again for the first time.
2. The SACD multi-track remixes are beyond expectation. If you do not already own one, this set is a major selling point for finding a SACD player.
3. The packaging is almost good. Thank goodness no plastic jewel cases. I particularly dislike them because they break and use up too much shelf space. Better than the Digipacks would have been Mini-LP format (see below).
4. The price amortizes out to a reasonable cost per CD (not great, just reasonable).

The bad things about this set are:

1. I swear this box is only made to hold 14 CDs and not the 15 that are stuffed into it.
2. They should have packaged all the CDs in Mini-LP format packages, precisely duplicating the original, historic LP designs via the all-the-rage Japanese special editions.
3. Some seriously necessary titles are still needed (Box 2?) such as Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A Changin', Self Portrait, Before The Flood, Pat Garrett, The Basement Tapes, Budokan, Shot Of Love, Time Out Of Mind, etc.

After all, it is mainly about the music. For that reason this set is very highly recommended. Now The Beatles? Eno? Springsteen?

To all those who are distraught over the Justin Timberlake fan's review: I hate to ruin your incensed rants, but I think you have been had. It sounds like a joke to me.

Long time listeners and first-timers both should add these discs as a 'must have' to your collection...The clarity and depth of Dylan's voice, the immediacy of the sound is revelatory...I've been listening to Freewheelin' since it was released and hear things I never noticed before...Planet Waves, Bringing It All Back Home and Oh Mercy are startling, each nuance clearly evident for the first time on CD...and Dylan's voice, that voice singing those songs, especially on the early acoustic albums, is a reminder of why his entry onto the music scene changed everything that followed...Even the recent Love and Theft benefits from the remastering and sonic upgrade...

You can't go wrong buying this collection...it's just too bad they left out New Morning and Time Out of Mind with this release...

Why the heck ate there people out there who buy this who do not own an SACD player or even know what it is.
The only logical reason is they DO NOT own other Dylan releases on standard CD.
SACD is the ULTIMATE listening experience!!!! YOu may hear of DVD Audio discs or Dual Disc. I own all of these types of discs and none hold a candle to the DSD technology that is found on SACD releases.

For the fellow audiophilles out there the majority of the disc in this collection are SACD stereo mixes, with I beleive 5 or 6 being in multichannel. Not really sure why companies release discs on SACD if they are not using them to their full multichannel ability. Nonetheless is you own an SACD player GET THIS SET. If you do not have an SACD player and do not have a Dylan collection GET THIS SET!! Then go out an buy an SACD player an hear what you have been missing so we can keep this dying format alive.
However if you have a nice set of Dylan recordings and no SACD player this set really is not an upgrade to what you already have, unless you are litening to tapes or 8 tracks. The CD layer is basically the same listening experience as other regular CD releases.

This set is worth the money at double the price anyone with an SACD player knows what I am talking about!!

Will the SACD format survive? I doubt it, as I see more and more dual-layer issues fall by the wayside. So now that I have an SACD player, what's a poor boy to do? When I found out that the Dylan SACDs had been discontinued, I was bummed. I'd only bought Blood On The Tracks in the format, and I was impressed. Then, I find out that they're also discontinuing the Rolling Stones dual-layer as well. Well, I got serious. I looked for this box until I found it at a reasonable price. I've started to collect the digi-pak dual layer Stones albums, but they're already getting harder to find and pricey.

If you're like me, in that you bought an SACD player but have been lax about getting the classics that are, or have been, available on SACD, I advise getting this collection while you can. It's got all 15 Dylan albums that Sony released in the dual layer format, and if you look around you can find it for about $10 an album. Someday soon, that will look like the bargain of the century.

My initial reaction upon observing the new Dylan remasters in the store was... we waited all this time for this? Where is the long-rumored expanded version of _Blood On The Tracks_ with the original, rejected, versions of the songs? What's so spiffy here that they couldn't have done five years ago? As far as SACD goes, the higher resolution may be wonderful, but I continue to have very little interest in hearing a 35-year-old recording that was made on 3 or 4-track tape get remixed into 5 or 6 tracks by someone who wasn't involved in the making of the original recording. Pricewise, at fifteen dollars per disc, the box that the set comes in would have to be awfully nice to make it worth considering. And as far as the titles selected for inclusion here... well, let's just say that including _Street Legal_ and _Slow Train..._ over _The Times They Are A-Changin_ is a decision that could only have been made by the artist himself.

Although I'm not quite sure if I agree completly with the album choice, this is still a very nice set. Unlike many other box sets, this only includes the original album material, sticking fairly accurately to the original lp packaging, alongwith exact track listings. No bonus tracks (In my opinion this is a good thing). The cd's are held in digipacks, with a glossy finish. They look nice, but are more likely to become blemished than a matte finish. The 15 lps, blonde on blonde being a double album, are contained in a nice box which is covered in pictures of some of Dylan's master tapes. The fit is tight, but not too tight. It's nice that the albums don't fall out accidentlly.

The remastering job is amazing. The music really jumps out of the record. I don't own an SACD player, but the cd layer sounds great in my car. I've played many of the albums in my 5.1 surround sound system, and the sound there is magnificent. Freewheelin' sounds the best here. It seems like Dylan is paying a different instrument in each speaker, even though I know that he's only playing guitar and harmonica.

Obviously, you know the music is superb. I don't know if I'd have included infidels over time out of mind, the times they are a changin', or even Saved for that matter, but obviously many people disagree with me there. Most people who are insterested in this set probably want every Dylan album (even if they don't like them all), so the set remains a convenient way to pick up most of the great Dylan albums alongwith some of the less consequential ones.

Fortunately Under the Red Sky referenced above is not included in this set. What is included is simply great - the only negative comments I have are the sound on John Wesley Harding isn't what it should be and Planet Waves just isn't one of his greatest albums. (I'm not a big Slow Train fan either, but I understand that many are).
The sonic upgrade of most of the titles compared to the original Columbia releases is easily heard, especially on the SACD layer. If you're a Dylan fan, it's worth upgrading your system just for this one set.
Now we can only hope that another wave will eventually appear that includes Bob Dylan, World Gone Wrong, and all of the Bootleg Series releases. The chances seem slim as you can already see the "regular" cd remasters replacing the SACDs in stores.

I have this set, having gotten it from BMG (sorry, Amazondear, it happens), for a
substantial discount. I have to say that it is wonderful and long overdue. I am
not a techhead or sound maven, so the technicalities of remastering are way
over my head. And I do not have a SACD player, whatever that is. The remastering
sounds wonderful on my 1990-vintage CD player, though, and that is good enough
for me.

Only thing I can think to complain about is why in the world did they not include
his first, eponymous, album, and The Times They Are A'Changing? Makes no sense at all.
Are they planning a second set to make up for it? I hope so.