Mike Oldfield – Boxed

There are few comments or reviews on discogs about the box sets and being a mike oldfield fan i was curious about how the pressings sound. To be honest i am quite astonished in a very good way. This particular version that i picked up in mint condition this week (for £7.50! ) makes me wonder why i have never purchased it before. I have the original first pressings of the first three albums and more than one pressing/version of tubular bells and Ommadawn. The version in this set is almost a totally different mix to the first two original first pressings that i own. Its almost like listening to a different composition. It certainly has more treble to the sound but i would also say it has better depth. With Hergest ridge there is still some distortion on side 1 but the vocals are much more pronounced and the
“fast organ” part is much more fierce ! As for tubular bells itself, the first minute or so of the introduction is really quite different to my ear and the mix itself is different finishing with the Stanshall intro to the sailor’s hornpipe and then again a slightly different mix. It still doesn’t compete with the ten year anniversary pressing though which i think is superior to the original. Anyway for anybody interested these are my own personal views and I listen using my Linn Sondek LP12

I'd like to share some comments about this German issue of Boxed in CD. Probably I have a first issue of this release with two simple mistakes:

Firstly: CD 1 with Stereo mix of Tubular Bells contains in its first track the original mixing, not Newell's one, of Tubular Bells, Part 1. This CD belongs to first Sonopress variant (SONOPRESS D-1379/CDBOX1-1 B). Second part of this album is, fortunately, the one mixed by Phil Newell for this Boxed compilation.

Secondly: Pages 6, 7, 18 and 19 of inner booklet are in blank.

Is it possible that this first variant or pressing I have here can be a misprinted edition, lately corrected for the second variant of this German release (Made in W. on each disc)? Hope to get some any answer to my inquiry. Thanks!

Great vinyl pressings for this reissue; mastered in quadraphonic but sounds absolutely fabulous in stereo. His first three albums are included in this box (Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn) are prog-folk-new age-ambient classics. The Quad mix of Tubular Bells is different to the stereo mix; there is more Viv Stanshall speech at the end of side 2. This set (at time of writing) is cheap as chips on Discogs so what's not to love?

The CDs are stereo but include SQ encoding, such as Exposed. You can play they with Dolby Prologic II with acceptable results.

Beware, these LP's will not sound all that good on regular stereo equipment. Lots of instruments will disappear in 2 channel stereo. They are hidden in the quadraphonic mix and will only reappear when played on such equipment.