CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER OLD TIME RADIO 1399 Episodes plus 84 rebroadcasts with Himan Brown as host Includes

Great Job on Behalf of compositor. These shows are culled from what must be various sources. Unfortunately, CBS does not see fit to collect all of these themselves and market them. Probably due to royalties for the multitude of actors found in these performances as well as other factors. Same reason we will never see the Beatles cartoons legitimately released. Pity we must resort to gathering these and selling them in such a manner as they are very much worthy of listening to. Given that circumstance, we are stuck with varying format and quality which is what we have here. The makers of this product must have gone to great lengths to painstakingly assemble all 1399 shows. I think that is amazing. If you are a great fan of this show, you probably know many are available free at various websites. By many, I mean as many as 150 in one place. Guess what?, even the biggest collection online of about 150 is still only about 10% of all that exist! Just break down and buy this. The price is amazing and the efforts of the maker will be greatly appreciated by any fan of CBSRMT. The files are consistently named with broadcast date and title of the show. This will be immensely important for managing the number of files you will get. Sound level varies, some include commercials and news reports (but that adds to the charm and dating of the show - one talks about President Nixon and Watergate!). You can still edit those out with software programs if you really want to. For the price they charge for this, you can't complain about these factors though. Purchase and enjoy. Read more

Fantastic collection. I play these on my PS3. And I can even save them on it. Read more

Considering how impossible it would be to find all 1,399 free episodes on the Internet, this 4-DVD mp3 collection is really an EXCELLENT deal! Before discovering this DVD set here on Amazon, I had spent countless hours searching for downloadable episodes, and after literally weeks of searching, I managed to find only about 350 episodes. I really had no idea there were nearly 1,400 episodes available! Though as others have pointed out, the audio quality varies widely (from poor to very good). But hey, your getting SO MANY episodes here, that you can simply skip an episode that is not up to your audio standards and not miss is whatsoever. Now as far as the actual episodes are concerned, I have determined the following statistics. Keep in mind however, I of course have not "listened" to all 1,399 episodes, but I am merely making a general assessment from listening to about 100 of the episodes so far. For even if I listened to one episode per day, it would still take me close to 4 YEARS to listen to them all! (Quite the bargain when you consider the price). Anyway, I transferred all 1,399 episodes onto my computer and then arranged them by "duration" (track length). (This can be done on a Windows computer by: Right-clicking within the folder containing the mp3 tracks, then selecting "View" then "Details", then right-clicking on the displayed "details menu bar" and adding "Duration" as an additional column). I immediately noticed that the tracks varied in length from about 40-60 minutes. I later learned that this is because some shows have had all the newsbreaks & commercials edited out, and others have left some, or evan ALL of them in (which would be the full/original 1-hour show). So, if you enjoy the "nostalgic factor" of listening to the old-time news briefs (at the beginning of the show), plus the 3-5 commercial breaks, then you will want to load your MP3 player with the tracks that are only 47 MINUTES AND LONGER. But, if you want to listen to the SHOW ONLY, (with NO interruptions), then you will want to load your MP3 player with the tracks that are only 46 MINUTES AND SHORTER. Again, this is just a general assessment, for it would take a lot of listening to determine an "exact" dividing line. Therefore, according to the above figures, there are 'around' 271 shows that CONTAIN a varied mixture of news and/or commercials... and around 1,128 shows that are FREE from all news/commercial breaks. I honestly can't imagine someone editing out all the news/commercial breaks from over 1,100 episodes, but to whomever did this, THANK YOU!! I say this because even though the nostalgic factor of listening to the mid-70's news briefs & commercials is initially very interesting, I must admit that after awhile, it becomes more of a minor annoyance than anything, especially the long commercial interruptions between each of the "3 acts" of a great suspense story. But that is just my own opinion, for I can definitely still appreciate the nostalgic value of a mid-70's news break. Plus, a previous reviewer mentioned that the volume level differs between shows, in some cases quite dramatically...this is true. But there is a free program available that can solve this problem. This program will "level-out" all the tracks to a customizable db level (listening volume). Mind you, the program does NOT alter the original track's frequency data/code whatsoever, but merely analyzes and levels-out the entire track to a specific volume (db) level. (This is a great program for your MP3 music collection as well, in which it will level-out your large mp3 collections to a equal listening volume). Just do a Google search for: "Soundforge mp3 Gain"...it should be the first hit, located at "soundforge. net". I've been using the program for over 4 years now, and even sent a $5 PayPal donation to the programmer, for it has been a great mp3 tool for an audio enthusiast like myself. I have found that adjusting these 1,399 old tracks to 95.5db works well, and about 92.5db seems to be a nice "non-aggressive" "sweet spot" for all your other mp3 music. The difference being is that these old-time radio tracks are sometimes "muffled" recordings, so they are better heard at a higher db level. You can pretty much ignore the "clipping" warning at these suggested db levels, for it is a VERY "sensitive" warning, and would be extremely difficult for the human ear to detect any difference in the sound quality. The clipping warning could simply mean that 1/100th of a second of a single frequency spike got slightly clipped...which is not a big deal, even for an hard-core audiophile like myself. With all that said about this program, if you use it, I would humbly suggest processing only about 150 of these very long radio tracks at a time between computer reboots. For to batch-process all 1,399 tracks at once (which is a whopping 14GB of total data) would be a MASSIVE project for a computer's limited RAM to handle all at once. But, every computer is different, so it's just a suggestion. ;) Anyway, I hope this information was helpful. *insert long creaking-door sound here* Plea--sent Dreams... :o Bill in Denver Read more

For those of you who remember ... this was a huge hit back in the day and continues to entertain today. Hundreds of mysteries: some gruesome some humorous all entertaining. And they easily download to an iPod for listening in flight, at bedtime, etc. Read more

This set takes me back to when I was a kid listening to radio programs. All 1399 episodes are here with some bonus material. Some of the episodes have the commercials and news edited out, others have them included. Some of the commercials are telling of the time - asking for American books to be sent overseas to counteract the Russians sending books with their communist agenda - and some of the commercials are timeless - stay tuned for a new weight loss program. The news takes you back to the time of the oil crisis and Watergate. The content of the mysteries are interesting, especially when you consider that typically it is 3 - 6 people sitting around microphones painting a story with their words. Business executives have affairs with their secretaries as if by simply agreeing to work for an older married executive the young lady was also resigned to sleeping with him and then falling in love, or vice versa. I will contend that very little of that actually took place but because of the popular promotion of such, intraoffice adulterous romances between the powerful married man and the powerless female underling became accepted as common, happens every day. It opens your eyes to what is being pushed today in popular culture. How much gay sex is actually taking place now, for instance? Other common content includes romances where the lady falls in love with the man for his money. Still there are twists and you need to pay attention, unlike television. All the files are MP3. The discs play well on my computer but the format does not work on the CD player in my car. I think I just have to copy them onto an MP3 disc to play on the road. I have loaded several on my phone and listened to them that way too. I should have limitless entertainment for a very cheap price. It shipped quickly and even had a personal hand written note from the seller. Thank you for putting this together. Read more