Best sounding ABBA collection?

I have the latest ABBA Gold Greatest Hits on Polydor, but in my opinion
ALL THE SONGS ARE THIS LOUD AND ARE NEARLY UNLISTENABLE.

Can someone point me to a similar compilation with non-maxed sound? The search functions are behaving strangely.



Dan

 

I've only had a brief listen to it, while puttering around in the kitchen, but the new Number Ones compilation has much more "ease" to the sound than Gold.

 

Who did the mastering on Number Ones?

 

There is no mastering credit in the booklet.

 

If You wanna play safe, get "The Singles - The First Ten Years" collection. It sounds a little dull on some of the songs, but it's a non-annoying mastering.

The "Thank You For The Music" Box-Set is remastered by their engineer, but not over the top. Just a little Smile-EQ.

 

Number Ones is pretty loud, but it's the one I reach for now.

 

That's the one I would go for too. It dates back from their heydays - in 1982 it was their first cd comp with nearly all their biggest hits (albeit not Eagle, one of my favourites). It only has 23 songs on a double cd, so it doesn't use the time limitations of a cd very well. It's long OOP, sadly.
I believe that, at least in the EU, the two Abba Gold cd's have been re-released under various names ('25 years after Waterloo' being one of them) and I have been told that they have been mastered differently as well. The ones that I have date back from 1997 and sound-wise they're not too bad.

 

I like the mastering on the W. German Target pressings of Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Vol. 2 catalog #'s 19114-2 and 16009-2.

 

It may be a bit confusing, but we might be talking about the same mastering. I just checked it - My Abba Gold - Greatest Hits comp dates back from '92 (Polydor 517 007-2) and the second one is called More Abba Gold / More Abba Hits (Polydor 519 353 -2) and was released in 1993. They sound fine to me and are nice additions to each other without overlaps. So these may be the ones to go for. I doubt if they're still in print, though.

 

I don't have the Target pressings of these, but I also highly recommend the Atlantic Greatest Hits cds.

I purchased the Number Ones disc based on comments here that indicated it had the same mastering as the recent "complete albums" box set that many forum members liked. I don't know whether the mastering is the same; if it is I am glad I didn't spring for the new box set. I found Number Ones to be way too loud. I was so turned off by what I heard that I didn't even finish listening to the entire disc. I keep telling myself to try it again (maybe I was just in a bad mood when I played it ) and, particularly, compare it to the Deluxe Edition of "Arrival" that I bought at the same time and still haven't played.

 

Difficult because you'll find the time frame's of Greatest Hits and GH Vol 2 a little restrictive.
I have the 2006 re-release of the original Greatest Hits mastered by Jesson's - it's the same as the CSR box set. I was quite impressed with that and should be quite easy to obtain.
I use it with the Polydor EU Greatest Hits Vol2 which is an early mastering It is OOP but was in production until around the mid 90's and so is easy to find used.
The other alternative is The First 10 years which is OOP but includes the singles from Super Trouper, The Visitors and the 'final' new singles.

The wild card I'd throw in here is Complete Studio Recordings which comprises of the 8 original albums with bonus, a rarities disc 2 DVD's, complete lyrics and nice box.
You can get CSR over here for £65 plus mailing on ebay.
If you can afford that you'll have everything and will save buying individual albums for odd tracks.

Up to you.

 

Having a chance to compare some tracks from Number Ones to Abba Gold last night, I'm now less impressed with the sound of the newer compilation. It's compressed ("louder") and a little more forward sounding than Gold on the tracks I compared.

If buying new then your choices really are Gold and Number Ones. If looking second hand, then any (or all) of Greatest Hits, GH vol2 and The First Ten Years are worth seeking out. All three are short by today's standards, as they based around LP releases. And all three can be hard to find.

 

What about the 2 cd the definate collection i have that and it sounds good to me, i do not have anything to rate against apart from an old late 80's 3 cd boxset?

 

From what I've read in the past, the original Atlantic Greatest Hits volumes have been highly rated. Also highly prized, as they're out of print and have never been reissued.

 

The Atlantic CD of Greatest Hits Volume 2 is identical to the Polydor CD with the same title. I don't think the sound is anything special, and prefer the Polydor album CDs.

 

I agree that the sound is nothing special...just better than the other ABBA cds (though I've never heard the Complete Studio Recordings box which also received some praises here).

 

The best ones are Greatest Hits Vol 2 (Atlantic or Polydor) and Greatest Hits (Atlantic). If you can tolerate some excessive brightness, Thank You For The Music (Polydor 1994) is a good solid career overview with some rare tracks.

The Singles: The First Ten Years is also an interesting one to get, if only as a strange example of an early form of remastering. Basically, all the analogue tracks were copied from the original mixdown masters to 3M digital tape with some equalisation adjustments and compression. You can see from the results why this form of remastering never took off!!

 

I have the original Atlantic Greatest Hits volumes.
What good sounding companion would be good to this for later singles
lot of missing classics like:
Hasta Mañana
Voulez-Vous
I Have a Dream
Super Trouper