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.......

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.

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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.