There are some drawbacks. You REALLY have to know exactly what you're looking for if you're going to bother at all. And it's a crapshoot if you don't know what you're looking for or are just experimenting because I've gotten some snoozer CDs through them. And you have to order a minimum amount before they'll let you buy anything.
But it's worth it to have them around because if you're looking for stuff that's out-of-print or overstocked you can save an INCREDIBLE amount of money getting stuff that just slipped off the regular market. What do I mean? Well, I mean that you can (right now at least) get the COMPLETE keyboard works of William Byrd and the COMPLETE piano music of Olivier Messiaen through BRO for about $74 counting shipping and handling and tax. That's FOURTEEN CDs! Wanna know how much it would cost to get the same stuff new through Amazon.com? Try $200. Even getting the lowest prices through third-party vendors you'll pay at least $110 not counting shipping and handling, which means that the savings you get for getting the two box-sets through Berkshire are pretty incredible.
Yeah, I know, it's pretty nerdy to make a sales pitch for a website that sells cut-out, overstock, and out-of-print classical CDs on a blog. Oh well, that's what blogs are for and if no one else reads this, big deal.
Of course I don't get most of my CDs from here. Most of what I've picked up is new stuff sold either through huge vendors who need not be named or stuff I have to order directly through tiny labels or even some of the artists themselves. But as the Preacher put it, to everything there is a season and when you want to get box sets of the complete keyboard works of a great English Renaissance composer and a great avant gardist from 20th century France Berkshire Record Outlet is at least worth checking out. By the way, be willing to wait at least a month for delivery. They can deliver things much faster than that but they can't guarantee that they can deliver much faster than that. Comes with the territory of selling what they sell. By the way, their selection of Heinrich Schutz is a bit less than awe-inspiring, though they have a couple of discs that are cool.
Now that I've got so much Messiaen and Byrd I hope to listen to the stuff. THAT will take a while. Since I'm trudging through Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone's book on Messiaen (which I honestly hoped would be more of a page-turner than I had any reason to expect) I figure I can listen to a bunch of the composer's music, too.
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