Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First A+ to Amazon's customer service. I was issued a partial refund for this thing being such a hot mess. The music is spectacular. Anyone who is interested in buying a set like this already knows that. This review addresses the negligent, lackluster quality of the set, itself. On to the product, who in god's name was in charge of quality control here?! The volume drop on Heroes is more of a series of multiple fluctuations. The vocal doesn't really fluctuate throughout, but, if you listen to the instrumental track, the volume has a noticeable drop earlier on, and then, right before the big volume drop, the volume spikes again. Was someone high? Was it bring your toddler to the mastering console day?! Did someone just say, "Oh, it's only the best-known version of the best-known song on the set. Who's going to notice?!" It's really just unbelievable that this was ever released at this quality. I have been listening to these albums for 25 years, since I discovered them at 16. I shelled out $140 for an unopened, new, first US pressing of Low earlier this year. Of all the Bowie boxes, this is the one to which I was most looking forward. It's a real shame that this, the most artistically progressive period of his career, has been treated so poorly in its reissue, when the previous two box sets were not bad. The mastering is a steaming heap of garbage. It's ear-splittingly hot in most places. Why was Hunky Dory released with close to its original dynamics, and yet someone chose to release these with the dynamic range of a Miley Cyrus album?! Not really an appropriate choice, and not at all true to the original sound of the work. Why on earth do record companies continue to infuriate the people who made them piles of money on these releases by screwing up their sound when reissuing them? It's like Star Wars syndrome, over and over again! If something was so beloved in its original form, why tinker with it?! This is an insult to those of us who would actually spend money to own something like this, and the record company should feel ashamed. Shoddy, exploitive reissues like this are why these blatant sheisters are going out of business. If they're going to treat our most beloved music in this manner for posterity, not a single one of them deserves to be employed emptying the garbage in a recording studio. Anyone who loves this music should make sure to write a review here, complain to the record company, and try to get refunds from Amazon. The record company should be forced to recall this mess and give this music the release it properly deserves. Only we, as consumers, can do that. ***AN UPDATE: Amazon UK had this thing unavailable for sale for some time, due to the sheer volume of returns, complaints, and negative reviews. They have now re-listed it, with a description that regurgitates Parlophone's nonsensical explanation that they were staying slavishly true to the sound of the original master tapes, hence the volume fluctuations on "Heroes", yet they still saw fit to remaster nearly half of the dynamics right out of the thing, making even some of the vinyl edition so ear-splittingly, skull-explodingly loud that prolonged listening TO THE RECORDS (not digital files, not CD's) causes headaches and aural pain. Gee, guys, why the double standard?! Apparently, Parlophone are bullying their biggest outlets to accept their officially sanctioned hoodwink of an explanation for this astronomically negligent flub of a fan base exploitation! The gaslighting continues!!!