ABBA - Not Mixed To Audiophile Standard?

Hi guys,

I've recently upgraded my hi-fi from Meridian equipment to Naim and I have to say that the my jaw has been hitting the floor on listening to most of the cds in my collection.

It's cost me a lot of money, but the new equipment delivers a stunning sound. I sit there listening and I'm just in awe of the detail that is being dug up by the cd player and how and where it places each instrument across the stereo soundstage. It's literally like I could close my eyes and pick out exactly where everything is from left to right, forwards and behind, up and below. It's made me realize just how mediocre my previous system was.

However, I'm loathed to say this, but as an ABBA fan I'm solely disappointed by much of ABBA's material. There are some tracks which sound great, but much of it has almost all of the instruments coming at you from one place - the centre! Vocals sound fab, but instrumentally many ABBA songs just seem to lack that "audiophile" sound where everything has a propper place across the stereo spectrum. The Voulez-Vous album (my fave) is especially disappointing, and there are two tracks in particular that have pretty bad mixes; Angeleyes and Summer Night City. The latter has always been one of my faves (and still is), being a power house of a song, but after listening to it on great equipment I finally know what Benny and Bjorn mean when they say it's a "really lousy recording", because in all honesty it's an utter mess!! Clumsy and sloppy! After I listened to SNC it put on Tragedy by the Bee Gees (my fave BG track) and it sounded utterly STUNNING! THAT is how SNC should have sounded!!

But anyway, do other fans of ABBA on here think that ABBA's material lacks that Audiophile sound?

 

On the earliest albums, the non-hits sound quite spacious, but many of the hits were mixed, IIRC, to emulate Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. So audiophile quality was not a priority.

 

No one ever claimed that ABBA can fit any audiophile criteria. Actually what their engineer did is very similar to the "wall of sound", so they have this very distinctive and powerfull presence when you listen to them on a radio or cheap to average equipment, but the audiophile is the last word you can say about ABBA...anyway, it's a great music after all.
Actually very good example regarding the Bee Gees - they somewhow managed to achieve perfect sonics, audiophile and radiophile at the same time - not an easy task, IMO (many audiophile recordings sounds just awfull on a cheap equipment or radio).

 

I absolutely love how they managed to create their version of Wall of Sound. This is not the music to be analyzed in audiophile terms with soundstage, instrument layers and separation etc. This is the music meant to be enjoyed, danced to etc.

 

agree.

 

There is nothing in your profile so I have no clue as to what you have now. I'd like to know more about the change please, so let's hear a rundown on what you had and what you upgraded to.

 

It's sound that I'm sure mated perfectly in a typical 1970's European discotheque, too. Not audiophiles listening on their vacuum tube gear in 2011. Probably wasn't even thought of.

 

Their cd's have not been mastered to an audiophile standard either.

 

Yes, and this too:

To make a fundamental assumption that stereo is audiophile standard isn't necessarily a correct assumption.

Good stereo and a good sound aren't interchangeable terms, and a soundfield spread - good, bad or indifferent - can very often work against a competent producer's goal.

Perhaps OP needs to seek out those budget orchestral collections of Abba songs for a listening experience more to his tastes.

 

The latest compilation, "Abba Collected" seems to better than the latest remasters of "Gold".

I own the original "Gold" and "More Gold" (92 or 93) + japan shm-cd (complete gold) and none of them sound perfect.

The recent Deluxe Editions are sounding better than previous releases. But not audiophile stuff.

 

I own various generations of reissues on CD and yes all leave a lot to be desired. There is also truth in the statement that the ABBA music will rarely have audiophile quality. BUT, I have to add that it got very close when I started to buy original 70's (and 80's) vinyl pressings from Japan. They sound smooth! The music seems to have more depth and lacks the shrillness that most Euro and US vinyl pressings have, and most CD's too.

Just my 2c.

 

One exception to their usual recording techniques is the song "I Wonder (Departure)". Get the Greatest Hits Volume 2 CD, and sit back and listen to that song. That song is a WONDERFUL recording!

 

Thinking about it now, I Let The Music Speak is rather similar in recording-style as well.

Rudolf

 

I think the American LP's sound best - still not terrific but the best EQ.

 

waldo1, which voulez vous cd do you have? i think the 2011 deluxe edition is just fine. all cds other than this and the 1980s cds SUCK.

 

Totally agree. I was shocked while listening to ABBA on headphones at the really bad mixing. Everything was mono except for some percussion like a shaker. Possibly, the engineers knew this was mono AM radio fare so stereo mixing didn't matter. Gotta be the case since nothing else makes sense except for blatant incompetence at the mixing board.

 

ABBA's material does lack audiophile quality sound, but they the engineers knew it was for radio, and the unique version of the Wall of Sound implemented into their recordings suits the music perfectly.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Interesting comments regarding their "wall of sound" technique of recording. As I'm not expert on such matter it never dawned on me that this could be the reason for a lack of soundstaging on some of ABBA's recordings.

I listened to the Deluxe Super Trouper last night and loved it. It had such a warm and spacious sound to it, and while still not as I'd like ABBA's material to sound on higher end equipment, it's nevertheless a huge improvement over Voulez-Vous (still my fave ABBA album!)

>waldo1, which voulez vous cd do you have? i think the 2011 deluxe edition is just fine. >all cds other than this and the 1980s cds SUCK.

I have the new deluxe as stated above, the CSR and the 2001 remaster.

>There is nothing in your profile so I have no clue as to what you have now. I'd like to >know more about the change please, so let's hear a rundown on what you had and >what you upgraded to.

My old stuff was a Meridian 596 DVD with a 502 Analogue Controller and 557 power amp. Also B&W 804s speakers, which I'm still using.

The new stuff is Naim CDX2, NAC 202 amp with a NAP 200 power amp. Also using Naim's speaker cable.

Cheers,

Waldo1.

 

Any opinions on the sound quality of the deep album tracks on the Ring Ring and Waterloo albums? I think they sound very good. However, She's My Kind of Girl from Ring Ring is mono, as it was a 1969 Bjorn and Benny single.

 

That was kind of my intial reaction as well. Plus, they don't seem like the type of act that would have a significant portion of audiophiles in their fan base. Pure speculation on my part, of course.

 

Here is the thread discussing Voulez-Vous DE:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=209073

You may wanna check some of the sound quality reviews/comparisons.

 

At least not in their heyday...

 

For someone from Sweden It was pretty obvious from the start that ABBA's genius manager "Stickan" Andersson designed ABBA to be "Music for the masses" but with, as it turned out, exceptional musical, songwriting and performance quality.

One of the reasons for the "wall of sound" productions was that Benny Andersson always came up with new and additional keyboard layers and demanded engineer Tretow to stack those upon one and other.

Resulting in a huge sound indeed.

 

I'm surprised you haven't yet realized that most of the ABBA material, mostly the stuff from 1974-1976, was made to sound good on AM radio speakers. That means they used a considerable amount of compression and EQ in the mixes.

 

From recollection, their music was geared toward transistor AM radios. It'd stand to reason that it was mastered accordingly.