Black Sabbath Sabotage 2021 digital

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by wrat, May 9, 2021.

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  1. Many Clouds

    Many Clouds Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    It was my birthday yesterday and my wife bought me a first pressing of Sabotage on vinyl. Her mum also got me a vinyl player , which obviously helps . Used to collect vinyl when I was a kid, about 8-9 years old. My grandad was a big vinyl collector, which rubbed off on me. Then when I was 10 my mum burned the house down and my vinyl went with it. My grandad died last year and he had a superb collection. Unfortunately one of his daughters took it upon herself to start selling his collection whilst he was in a care home. We didn’t know this was going on. It’s only when he had died did we realise she’d sold most of it off. So yes although it’s been a part of my life, there’s a couple of horrible stories with it. I’m going to start collecting again. Got Sabotage and also a first pressing of Deep Purples Made In Japan, so not a bad start.
     
  2. Belated Happy Birthday! Now those are certainly exciting presents! Fingers crossed the LP is in great condition.
     
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  3. Many Clouds

    Many Clouds Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    It supposedly is. It weren’t cheap, so I hope so. Will find out over the weekend when get chance to blast it out .
     
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  4. sddoug

    sddoug Music Aficionado

    Location:
    San Diego, CA, USA
    Uh, that's a kimono, not a dress.
     
  5. Import CDs has reduced the pre-order price of the CD Box from $36.18 to $29.80
     
  6. Hole In The Sky 2021


     
  7. Music_dude

    Music_dude Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    The 2021 remasters I’ve heard sound like a compromise between the original WB and the 2009. I can live with that.
     
  8. maxnik

    maxnik Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Switzerland
    What do you guys think of the 2021 remasters so far?
     
    Greenalishi likes this.
  9. I only listened to one of the samples relatively quickly. The mastering didn't sound as terrible to me as the earlier three 2021 Sabbath remasters, but still quite a bit harsh for my taste. I recommend the original WB CD (which sounds very similar to the original US and UK LPs) or (if you want a darker mastering) the 2009 Sanctuary CD. Side 2 of the 1986 Castle also sounds great but side 1 suffers from tape damage. Outside these 3, there's no digital release I can recommend for this album.
     
  10. Jmetamatic

    Jmetamatic This is the end of our oxygen supply.

    Location:
    Glasgow, Scotland
     
  11. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    Listening to it now on TIDAL, it's reasonably mastered (not smashed) and it sounds decent on its own, I'm too lazy right now to make comparisons to other versions (CD or LP). They didn't try to dramatically alter the sound like they did with Vol.4.
     
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  12. motionoftheocean

    motionoftheocean Senior Member

    Location:
    Circus Maximus
    going to need a little more time with it, but yeah, it's nowhere near as egregious as the rest of the most recent batch. closer to the 2009 but a bit more "polish" if that makes sense. still seems a bit loud.
     
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  13. Claus

    Claus Senior Member

    Location:
    Germany
    I received the box today. The print is too dark to the original LP artwork. I will listen to the set tonight, but only the live set ,-)

    By the way, the booklet is a mess! No infos, but only quotes!!!
     
  14. I am very curious for how the sound (mix and mastering) of the live set compares to Wolfgang's Vault and bootleg versions.
     
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  15. hutchguv

    hutchguv Rock/Metal/Prog/Pop

    Location:
    England
    only just read this, a bit late I know, but what a bitter sweet post

    I hope that Sabotage LP your wife got you made you happy and your collection is going well :)
     
  16. hutchguv

    hutchguv Rock/Metal/Prog/Pop

    Location:
    England
    The Vol.4 one just sounded “wrong” to me… I wish I could articulate it better.

    It just sounded like someone had just discovered an eq device and thought, you know what, let’s make sure we use everything randomly

    I realise this isn’t particularly constructive, but I can’t actually describe what I’m hearing on the Vol.4.


    Just had a quick listen to the Sabotage…. It’s a bit harsh on the treble and I think it makes the drums have less impact, wouldn’t be my favourite, but it could have been worse

    But that is just a quick listen, can’t really give a full description yet, so don’t take what I said to be my final opinion
     
  17. rnranimal

    rnranimal Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    Had a chance to compare Symptom of the Universe from the new hi-res remaster to the old WB, the 2014 HDtracks and 2009 CD. The new one is very in your face. I'm actually a little impressed with how "loud" they can make it sound without a slammed waveform. This one is not nearly as bad as Vol 4 but is still not all that good. It has a bright, sharp, bass boosted, blasting sound to it. The old WB CD is far more natural sounding and not as bright. The 2021 might have a similar amount of compression as the 2009 but that's where the similarities end. The 2009 is quite darker sounding. The HDtracks was the only one which was brighter than the 2021, but still sounds more natural. The 2021 at least doesn't sound weird, but it doesn't sound very good when comparing to better mastered options.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2021
  18. Vinyl Fan 1973

    Vinyl Fan 1973 "They're like soup, they're like....nothing bad"

    New CD remaster sounds great! Very crankable, and I’m really enjoying it.
     
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  19. Many Clouds

    Many Clouds Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Yes, it plays great :) and the collection is slowly getting there. It’s not cheap nowadays is it.
     
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  20. I can live with it too (unlike the Vol. 4 2021 remaster which kills me), but I cannot agree with the "compromise between the original WB and the 2009" bit. Being a compromise between the original WB CD and the 2009 Sanctuary would seem to imply that the new remaster sounds brighter than the 2009 yet darker than the original WB CD, and not harsh at all. To me, the new Sabotage remaster clearly sounds brighter and harsher than both the original WB CD and the 2009 Sanctuary CD. Not dramatically, but notably so.
     
  21. gad999

    gad999 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
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  22. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

  23. rnranimal

    rnranimal Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    Just had a chance to checkout the Asbury Park included in this set. Oh boy...

    They really pulled a doozy here. I have pretty low faith in them at this point, but they even managed to come in lower than that. I was not expecting this.

    I knew the chances of them just grabbing a bootleg were fairly high since this is what they did for the Past Lives tracks. But I assumed they'd grab the master reel transfer CD-R rip that has been widely circulating for 15 years. I believe that's what they used for Past Lives. They grabbed a bootleg, alright. But not that one. Or even a lossless one. They grabbed one of the bootlegs that has lossy audio. Yup, we finally get an official release of Asbury Park and it comes from lossy audio. It has the telltale hardline frequency cutoff at 16khz and the blotchiness above that line in quieter areas which is exactly what MP3 audio looks like. So then I decided to go on a mission to trace to which bootleg. A Sabbath expert sent me a song from about 20 different bootlegs of this show and I traced it to the audio on these 3 titles: Accidental Overdose, Behind the Wall of Spock and Heaven & Earth. It's possible other titles share the same audio and they got it from there, but either way, the lossy encoding characteristics match exactly between these bootlegs and the 2021 official release. If anyone would like evidence, I'll gladly post pics. They remastered the 2021 a bit so the waveforms don't look exactly alike but everything about the frequency cutoff and blotchiness does. I did a rough EQ match between the two as well and the waveforms got much closer. It seems they just grabbed a bootleg and EQ'd it. *Allegedly*

    There is basically no chance the vinyl Asbury Park isn't also sourced from lossy audio, but if I ever come across a transfer of the LPs, I can confirm it.

    If I purchased this set, I'd be asking for my money back and e-mailing Rhino to tell them why. This has reached the level of inexcusable at this point.
     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2021
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  24. Thank you. Once again, I am just glad you are always so thorough with this kind of stuff. When I get a ROIO, I usually think of testing it for lossy lineage. But I would possibly never have thought of testing this official recording. Especially not in this case, where lossless copies are all over the internet. I agree with you, this is a new low. I hope that some people will ask to get their money back. In this case, Rhino have done worse than many bootleg companies.
     
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  25. rnranimal

    rnranimal Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    You're welcome. If they ever want to stop this stuff from happening, they can hire me as a consultant/quality control for a fairly small fee. :)

    I honestly wasn't thinking of lossy audio either. I was opening the audio into the editor to start looking for evidence that it was sourced from the common "master reel" bootleg and as soon as I opened it and saw the cutoff, I was like WTF?!!

    Same thing happened when I discovered that Paranoid "hi-res" download was mostly sourced from the '96/'09 CD. I wasn't expecting it to be an upsampled CD but when I opened the audio and saw the 22.05khz cutoff, I started my search for the CD mastering they surely upsampled.
     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2021
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