Finally! Iron Maiden BLACK VINYL reissues coming in September... (Part 2)

Even in the UK, it's still hard. Yes, there are loads that are in good nick visually but most of them were played to death over the years so have groove damage and/or tons of surface noise. Good copies do exist though but sometimes it's luck of the draw and perseverance. I've managed to find near mint copies up to Powerslave but have struggled to find anything decent for 7th Son and SIT.

 

Agree, some of the albums seems impossible to find in good condidition.
They all look EX but are still shot due to being played to many times or played on faulty equipment.

Same goes with the 1st cd-releases. Also very hard to find in good playable condition. Will be very expensive in the future i predict.

 

Got the full set and the box delivered yesterday.. As others have stated, it's a very tight fit in the box. I can get all of them in however. I have't listened yet but I plan to listen to all of them in order this weekend

 

They made supposely 5000 boxes and amazon.co.uk still have them in stock. Does this make any sense to you guys?

Maiden probably have over 1 million active fans. I reckon 50.000 or so must be fanatical collectors who wil buy just anything the band put out
Are they making more boxes than they should?

 

Got the last two in the set, SIT and SSOASS, in last night and finally got around to cleaning and playing them. SIT is playing now, I started with side 2 to check for the issue with The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner and sure as hell its there. The rest so far is really good though, the record is flat and pretty much silent. All 8 also fit into the case with little effort, and that's with each in a 2 mil outside cover. The covers also make sliding them in and getting them pretty damn easy. I'm still going to get the US SIT to check it out and replace the EU with if all is good and the issue with The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner is not present.

 

Is yours an EU box?

 

No, it's the US box. I had an EU box set, but sent it back and opened the US set I bought as a present for a nephew.

Here's a picture of the two I took side by side, the US box on the left.

 

I'm curious about this as well.

 

Life permitting, I'm going to try and get it this weekend. I'll chime in if no one else has before I get the chance. Maybe it's just me, but the 2'nd side of SIT had what I would call a warbling / side to side sound. I played the Dire Straits album Communique from the recent box set and it sounded as good as it always has, so it's not a stylus/cartridge - turntable issue. Anyone else detect that odd sound effect I "think" I'm hearing?

 

Perhaps they had problems calculating the box size... Going from inches to centimeters and so on...
Metric system / the "other" system.

Jim

 

My maiden reissues are now complete, received the last batch of records and singles today.
Went thru all of them once again to confirm the condition. Every 7" single i received is perfect. No scuffs, warping, scratch or anything on them. They all look fantastic.

Records look great to, no warping what so ever (except slight warping on killers). BUT i have to change my Powerslave. Something went wrong there. Lot of grease on the surface. Looks like oil or something.. anyone else seen this?

Will send it back if it's not to late. Probably have to buy a new one.

I'm very happy with the pressings overall. 27 products and only one bad!

 

It amazes me how appaling quality control is on most new Vinyl reissues nowdays! Scratches all over the LP? Ridiculous!

 

The pressing plants are overloaded so the quality control is a little more lax.

 

I can see tiny scratches from the cardboard-sleeves they slam the records in. WHY? they should have used poly-lined-sleeves for all of them.
I Bought 200 poly-lined paper-sleeves that fit inside the cardboard picture-sleeves so i will not get any additonal scratches on the records.

 

Customer cutting. Every penny counts. They were in poly sleeves in the US but that didn't help the condition here.

 

They probably had saved a lot more if they did plain-black poly-lined for every record instead of printed cardboard-sleeves.

 

They would have to do both if they were to include all the original artwork. That is what they did in the US.

 

Yep, I posted about it a few pages back. Curious to hear if the US is the same too, hopefully not though.

 

That's no excuse, keep up the poor quality, word gets around and people start to avoid certain pressings based on who manufactured them, I have my list of plants/labels to avoid and I'm sure that I'm not the only one on this board who does the same. Quality attracts, crap repels.

 

MPO got the gold-star in my book. All 19 were fantastic!!

Edit: Visaually fantastic, haven't play them all yet.

For Optimal 7 of 8 were good

 

I agree but people like us are in a minority and you can't always find out where things are pressed. Plus even the bad plants screw up and get it right sometimes. URP is one I try to avoid but unfortunately they do the majority of the pressing in the states. That is why I tend to buy from Amazon so I can exchange the bad ones without questions and easily.

 

That's probably because cassettes overtook vinyl here in the U.S. right around the Seventh Son...

But yeah, I've seen tons of used Maiden vinyl over the years and most of it was pretty hammered either from mishandling or playing on cheap turntables.

 

I was on to CDs by the time Seventh Son came out. I got it on CD the day it was released if I recall.

 

Correct me if i'm wrong but i think the first maiden album that was released on CD were Powerslave 1984.

 

Finally got my EU copy of SIT today. The box was nearly destroyed, but luckily the record was in perfect condition.

First off, the packaging is great. Really emulates the 80's release, just like my US OP. The record is heavy 180 gram beautiful black vinyl and is dead silent during quiet parts. Again, I'm very impressed by the quality control for the UK pressings.

For the sound, I am blown away. This pressing has more depth and a wider soundstage while preserving the same dynamics as the US OP. As far as that defect that people have mentioned during Long Distance Runner, it is extremely minor on my pressing and doesn't detract from the pressing at all in my opinion. Don't let that stop you from buying this excellent reissue. I highly recommend it. This will be my go-to pressing from now on.

I cannot wait for Seventh Son, my favorite Maiden LP, to come in the mail. Hopefully tomorrow...