The Box Set Hobby

[Stompin at the Savoy]

Over the years I've taken to buying a lot of box sets.  I have individual cds too but somehow I seem to have plunged for the big sets quite often.  In the beginning I would just play the disks one by one and maybe look at the discography a bit.  Later I decided to rip everything to hard drives and other storage and play everything on computers and other devices.  I used to be an IT database and systems guy so I just treat my music the way I used to handle data and have backup scripts etc. This arrangement means I can break up the box sets into digital playlists.  Whenever a set has lp size albums on it, I break them out into single album playlists.  I usually add a number in the playlist name (and sometimes a set abbreviation) so that the playlists for the albums in each set sort and show up in chronological order.  There is a significant amount of curating work in doing all this and some might ask wouldn't it be easier to just buy the individual albums?  No answer for that.  I guess I just like the completeness of having the sets.  Mosaics and some others have good sound, I suppose...

How do you approach listening to these box sets and what do you think of the whole box set thing?

[Big Beat Steve]

There would be a lot to say ... 

In brief, I find them convenient for exploring an artist or a musical area in a comprehensive manner (provided the box sets are compiled thoughtfully), and those that come with just as comprehensive liner notes (often not just booklets but BOOKS) are not just an audible but also a visual treat. Though the investments sometimes are heavy ... if bought new. When found secondhand, anything is possible, either they soar in price or they can be found dirt cheap (such as about a year ago when I came across the 4-CD box set of "Sidney Bechet in Switzerland" in mint condition for a measly 10 Euros at our local record shop - but in the music BOOKS section because they clearly had taken it to be a BOOK ).  

And FWIW, I still like or even love my VINYL box sets too. There were some nice ones there too.  But of course you cannot reshuffle their contents the way you do with yours. 

OTOH, sometimes these box sets even turn out to be the most economical way of purchasing a chunk of music (and I am not at all talking about Public Domain label multi-CD compilations, though some of these "XX classic albums by YY" are convenient too). Way more affordable than buying the individual CDs or LPs that made up the box set. Both new or secondhand. So sometimes it pays if you did not (or were unable to) snap up certain items right after they were released but quite a while later when they had progressed from several individual records to all in one box set. 

 

[Pim]

I love my boxed sets but must say I never listen to a complete boxed set: mostly individual discs. Boxed sets must be pieces of art to me that really distinct in artwork or liners. If it's just music only in chronological order I prefer the seperate sessions. I also like if if they compile music that's pretty hard to obtain. The Byard Lancaster set by Souffle Continu is an example of an essential boxed set I must say.

I havent ripped a cd since streaming is avaible. The places where I stream I don't play much jazz: in the gym and in the car. Jazz doesn't work in the gym for me and my car has awful sound for jazz music. I play jazz at home and i'd prefer to pick out a cd or an lp instead of playing digital files from my computer. 

[jlhoots]

I used to buy a fairly large number of box sets, now not so many.

[felser]

I often find them prohibitive in terms of both space and cost.  I tend to do cost/benefit analysis as far as buying them and keeping them.  I only kept a handful of the big Mosaic sets  in my collection as the music became available in other CD configurations(though I've kept a lot Selects). Yet things like the 90's Atlantic boxes on Trane, Ornette, and Mingus and the Prestige boxes on Trane, Rollins, Miles, and Dolphy, and the Milestone Joe Henderson box are perfect for my needs.  I tend to work straight through a box set when I listen to it, regardless of size.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

5 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

There would be a lot to say ... 

In brief, I find them convenient for exploring an artist or a musical area in a comprehensive manner (provided the box sets are compiled thoughtfully), and those that come with just as comprehensive liner notes (often not just booklets but BOOKS) are not just an audible but also a visual treat. Though the investments sometimes are heavy ... if bought new. When found secondhand, anything is possible, either they soar in price or they can be found dirt cheap (such as about a year ago when I came across the 4-CD box set of "Sidney Bechet in Switzerland" in mint condition for a measly 10 Euros at our local record shop - but in the music BOOKS section because they clearly had taken it to be a BOOK ).  

And FWIW, I still like or even love my VINYL box sets too. There were some nice ones there too.  But of course you cannot reshuffle their contents the way you do with yours. 

OTOH, sometimes these box sets even turn out to be the most economical way of purchasing a chunk of music (and I am not at all talking about Public Domain label multi-CD compilations, though some of these "XX classic albums by YY" are convenient too). Way more affordable than buying the individual CDs or LPs that made up the box set. Both new or secondhand. So sometimes it pays if you did not (or were unable to) snap up certain items right after they were released but quite a while later when they had progressed from several individual records to all in one box set. 

 

Yeah, that's true.  Oftentimes the individual cds would be more expensive.  And in some cases the box set is the only practical way to get the music.