Best Audio Pressing of ABBA's Greatest Hits?*

Well, it makes me feel good that I'm not the only one that has been obsessed with finding the absolutely best source! I wonder if it was you who recommended this to me? If so, I am very grateful as indeed it is wonderful. I have never heard aa ABBA CD I have been really happy with. I have the box sets and all the reissues. I THREW AWAY all the first CDs issued, along with about 200 others way back when, as I just didn't have the room and figured the remasters would be better. It's amazing how one's mind can be fooled by marketing copy! Remastered...hey, it HAS to be better. Just like digital sound HAS to be better than vinyl. And I do agree CD's can sound very good, but I've heard very few that are imo. Anyway, thank you!

 

Let us know what you think!

 

I ordered the 1992 Reader's Digest version. At least this will not contain the latest remasters from the blue box which to my ears sound horrible.

 

Please let us know what you think. With 80 tracks it certainly is an excellent collection and hopefully sounds more like the Greatest Hits Vol. 2 CD, rather than the Abba Gold CD.

Confusingly there seems to be Canadian and Australian 1992/3 releases with a different black cover to the 2003 sleeve and 1992 white sleeve. I don't know if these are clones of the European release, which is the one I've seen on eBay, but hopefully all are good and unlike the vinyl, play in a CD player!

 

I'm afraid not. The only Reader's Digest set I have is a 1 CD set issued in the UK in 1989. I'd always be cautious while buying a Reader's Digest set - they never seem to provide any mastering information.

 

The comic artwork was only used in Scandinavia, Mexico and Argentina. The rest of the world had the park bench photo or something concocted locally.

They approved it. They part-owned the record label which issued it.

 

Hard to imagine anyone in the Readers Digest demo caring! I think all of us are only interested in it because somebody else stumbled upon it and discovered gold! Otherwise, it would be wise to heed your suggestion amd proceed with caution. Can't wait to hear back from people that just ordered the cd. It's kind of sad that their own record label didn't put out anything of this quality.

 

Here's the Ultimate Collection, from 2003:
ABBA - The Ultimate Collection

More pictures:
www.getabba.com - ABBA CD Collection

Here's the back cover (the artwork is copyright 2004). The disc times are different from the 1992 release:



These two are both from 1992:
Black Cover:
ABBA - The ABBA Collection

More pictures:
The ABBA Collection (Canada – 1992)

Here's the back:



White Cover:
ABBA - The ABBA Collection

More pictures:
The ABBA Collection (Germany – 1992) – Verlag Das Beste

Here's the back:

 

Thanks for those - it makes things much clearer! I notice that they have slightly different running times. Now, has anyone actually heard any of them!!

More seriously, thanks for the images, they are very useful.

 

I just noticed the disc times were different too.

 

Thanks for these. I couldn't read the track listing on the Amazon.UK site. I'm not quite sure which one of these I ordered. Guess I'll find out when it gets here. For $8 US, I'm not going to quibble over which version I get. Tinnitus in both my ears has pretty much made worrying about having the "very best" sounding edition of everything useless, especially if the differences aren't that great. Anyway, I'm looking forward to having this in the library. Doesn't leave much left to worry about as far as ABBA's output. It'll be nice to have so much of their catalog in one place.

 

Bobby....I checked and don't have the park bench ABBA anymore on CD. I did a purge a while back and literally threw away hundreds of first run CD's as I replaced them with what we now know were inferior remastered discs as I didn't have a lot of space to be storing hundreds of dups. Since I bought CD's back when there were only 15 titles (from Warners) to select from, I had a huge collection as I just bought them as they were initially released. A lot of that stuff should have been tossed, but since then I know now that I also threw a way a lot of gold! The other thing is that I would play them in my car cd changer and then just toss them in the back of the car (hey, the labels told us you could put peanut butter on them and they would still pay, right?)so they were pretty scratched up, but they did still play fine. I even have a Beatles black triangle but I won't sell it here because people seem to be concerned about the way the CD looks and it has a few little scratches. Anyway, sorry. I do have the ABBA fat boy Ten Years cd. That seems to be well regarded, but I assume you have that already. Also have the box set that I will never play, it's the one with the white cover that people like here. It was put out by a company like K-tel, but I'm not sure that's actually the company but someone else here will know. I only spin vinyl now.

 

It is going to completely be based on what mastering they used. You would think it would be the same as the vinyl, but I wouldn't assume anything! I've never seen the CD version recommended around here though, but it's a very obscure release and I never would have known about it if it had not been brought up here. Maybe a good reason to get into vinyl?? A lot of great stuff from that era floating around on vinyl, but you do still have the same issue of having to know you are getting the right LP.

 

Yes, the problem here is the year 1992, when PolyGram took over the rights to the back catalogue and Abba Gold came out. Were all the tapes "fixed" for Readers Digest CD release in 92, as for Gold, and not the vinyl? Someone must know!

 

Fixed? You mean the distortion on The Name Of The Game? Not to my knowledge - it was ever only released without distortion on CD on the 1997 and 2001 remasters but those sort of have their own problems with dynamic range and equalizing.

 

I was wondering if those 1992 Readers Digest sets came from sources before or after the Tetrow remastering.

 

Before the Tetrow remasters. I recently bought a copy, it sounds ok for casual listening but it's not great, not that bad either, sounds a bit like a compact cassette to my ears. Someone else said they are from the German Polydor masters, they could easily be right. I've found the best sound quality on CD is on GH1 Atlantic, CBS Absolute ABBA, Discomate GH2, a few tracks from ABBA Gold. For the over bright ABBA gold tracks cut around 8KHz (by coincidence the mixing desks at work have the HF trim also centred around 8K) . The Music Still Goes on isn't too bad but lacks some bass on some tracks. For the CD albums Arrival to Super Trouper albums the Japanese Polydors before 1997 remasters. Ring Ring the latest Deluxe CD, ABBA I used the SHM CD and slightly boosted the bass. Vinyl for Waterloo A1/B1 UK Epic and The Album Japanese Discomate. The Deluxe Waterloo CD has too much bass and lacks energy, Waterloo on the ABBA Gold CD sounds very similar to my vinyl.

 

That selection has been burned into my DNA. I got that and Arrival Christmas '77.

 

Didn’t we all.

There’s a copy of the Abba GH CD on eBay, but he wants £80 for it..

 

One on Discogs for the same price (maybe same seller).

 

Possibly. The guy on eBay has lots of rare stuff. He isn’t afraid to charge either...

 

Mines on there for under £40. I'm tempted to keep it if no one is interested. Most of my music is now on a server but this is a great CD and I love the photo.

 

There's one of ebay for £37. I've seen it sell on ebay for as little as the high £20s (a forum member bought it). I got my US Sanyo copy from a stall at St. Austell market (in Cornwall). It cost £5, which I now realise was a bargain. Still looking for the target.

 

Yes, I think the guy who put the £37 one on eBay posted directly above you.

 

I thought he was selling on discogs. Anyhow, it seems an expensive CD. I prefer GH2 myself. I wonder why GH wasn't released in Europe.