I have the Living Stereo box, and I can tell you that it's worth two or three times what they're charging for it. The sound quality is unsurpassed. It was state of the art then and it still is. The recordings have wonderful soundstage. They're basically binaural recordings. The selection of music cuts a wide swath through the core repertoire of the Romantic era. Even if you've never seriously listened to classical music before, you'll find dozens of recognizable melodies from movie soundtracks and cartoons. Most of the disks run 70 minutes. Tons of stuff here.
But the best thing about the set is the performances. Most of them are by Reiner and Munch at the peak of their careers. I haven't found a single performance in this box that is less than very good, while many are definitive.
This box doesn't cover everything. To put together a fully rounded classical music collection, you'll need to supplement this with some 20th century music, and classical era composers like Bach, Haydn and Mozart. But for a beginner, this box is a goldmine. Heck. Even for someone like me with thousands of classical CDs, this set is great.
Don't hesitate. At two bucks a disk, buy it.
