Nier and Automata Vinyl box set

The title already spoiled it but I did get one of these, a Christmas gift from me
to me, always the best ones after all:

A set with not only one, not two but FOUR vinyls of Nier AND Automata tracks!
I dare say amazing. I love the drastic increase in the number of games that
get a vinyl soundtrack these days, quite limited and expensive runs sure
but still cool.

Beautiful “sleeves” to hold the four records and a booklet with song lyrics
for each game, really nice. All of them are of course double-sided with
about 4-5 tracks on each side, I would say that they have manage to choose
my favorite tracks from both games, what luck!

This is where the good news end sadly. Firstly, this is exactly how the
inside of the package looked when I opened it:

Most likely the last time I ever buy anything from the Square-Enix store,
a giant box with a small piece of paper in one corner is NOT how you send
something like this… or anything for that matter.
I can’t believe how bad this is, especially considering
the 25 Euro shipping cost!

I am mad but the damage on the box was miraculously small and not
something I need to get replaced.

Time for the good old setup and enjoy some Nier music:

Or so I thought, the next bad news was the horrible sound quality, I feared
that my old amplifier had finally decided to give up but after a while the
speed of the record player started to get very unstable and I decided to plug
in a CD player instead, the amplifier still sounded godly so “luckily” I only
need to replace the player, I could of course restore it with a new pick-up
and fix the motor problem but at this point I don’t feel like it’s worth it
even if it looks good and match the amplifier.

A picture can’t do it justice, it’s just so gorgeous, one of my absolute
favorite items. One of the first Surround/ 4 channel amplifiers ever made
and the control and balance you can get with it is just ridiculous.
Playing around with this, and some CD soundtracks also reminded me of what
a futile hobby the quest for the perfect sound is, you just end up fiddling
with the levels, placements of speakers and all kinds of variables,
different settings for different songs etc. it never ends and like so many
other things it’s very personal what you consider good sound.

I didn’t plan on going into detail today since I might come back to it but
the speakers I use are two relatively cheap smaller “surround” speakers and
the bigger ones built by me years ago, in fact they are not 100% finished
and both the smaller speakers and my home-built ones are quite mediocre on
their own but for some reason they really complete each other and with the
sound quality of the old amplifier combined with the level of balance it
provides it just blows me away (the quality), the volume could also blow me
and the games away but that would be a bad idea, hehe.

Oh well, I will get back to this when I have a new record player but so far,
an amazing set of amazing music!