Rhino should follow David Coverdale's lead in the Whitesnake album super Deluxe box sets. They are very well done. Sabbath deserves this same treatment of their catalog.
You know, this is my favorite Sabbath album and I'm still not interested. It was bad enough that we didn't get any extra studio material (don't care for a couple single mixes), now there are claims that the live show is lossy? Maybe I'll bite if it goes down to $20 or less. Truly that's about all this set is worth.
As Mark suggested, you can visit any of the following sites too on occasion: iommi.com geezerbutler.com blacksabbath.com Plus... Press Releases | Rhino Media Release Schedule | Rhino Media
Yeah, if I had known I would not even have bought this. Am embarrassed to say that I was duped into buying something lossy. Hopefully at least the book/packaging looks cool.
I'm generally very happy with this set overall especially for $96. The packaging is well done, I think Sabotage itself sounds fantastic. I can't compare the live records to any other bootleg versions but the performances are phenomenal and I think it sounds great for it is, this will be in regular rotation for me
Likewise… I had big reservations about this set but unfortunately pulled the trigger on what seemed to be a very good price for the vinyl just before this news broke. I have the bootleg live set, also on vinyl (“Live In Asbury Park 1975”), so it will be interesting to compare these once the set arrives later this week. Regardless, I will be very sceptical of any future Sabbath releases after this debacle.
Well here's some odd news. Am not sure if it is good news or bad news. ImportCDs CANCELED my (CD) order! Just got an email from them saying my credit card would not authorize the charge, which was utter nonsense. Took me about 15 minutes of phone calls to figure out what happened, long story with a lot of misinformation involved until I finally go to the heart of the matter. Am not going into all the details but has to do with ImportCDs sister company DeepDiscount screwing up an order I placed in April then handled so atrociously by their effed up customer service that two months later I had no choice but to complain to my CC company to get my $$ back. Now I am basically blacklisted from both merchants because I dared to resort to involving my CC company who did a "chargeback" on my behalf. Unbelievable. Since I did want this set it's bad news that my order is canceled but since I felt ripped off learning about the lossy b.s. it is good news in a way in that now I am not getting it. Maybe I will get it elsewhere but honestly I have no interest in picking up a lossy sourced live show, especially since it is one I already have as lossless, so whatever.
Have we stone-cold CONFIRMED the lossy source? I'd like to take a run at Sabbath but not until I'm sure they put out lossy crap.
I posted the graphs in the linked thread. It shows the 16khz hard cut that is seen with mp3 encoding and is not on the master reel bootleg. Along with this are some other artifacts of mp3 encoding and I matched those artifacts to a few bootlegs which share the same audio between them. There are other bootlegs with lossy lineage but they are different encodings with different artifacts. I know what my takeaway is from this data but others can determine what they think.
Well if you see the hard cut-off that is indicative of MP3 (I am aware of this cut-off but not the technical details of it) and you've compared this to other known bootlegs including those known to be close to the source, then I'm good. Didn't mean to question your credibility. I believe you. And it's easy to believe with this outfit.
I wasn't offended or anything. It's good to question things and ask for hard evidence, I don't mind. I just meant I don't want to be taking the position of answering the question for others of whether it's been stone-cold confirmed to be lossy. I would rather just point to the evidence.
Thank you for this information. That's helpful to know. So I'll stop recommending ImportCD to people. Sorry to hear how you've been treated, that's the absolute opposite of what "customer service" is supposed to mean. Anyway, I agree not having the box set itself is not really a loss. In terms of either material or sound, it provides nothing new and no upgrade in any way. I can confirm the frequency cutoff on the screenshots (all on this page: Black Sabbath Sabotage 2021 digital ) of disc2+3 of the CD box set looks exactly like MP3 lineage. And the ones that @rnranimal posted prove not only that they're lossy-sourced, but also that they are sourced from one of those lossy-sourced bootlegs, because they share very specific characteristics with those. Of all people I know, rnranimal is the first person I ask whenever I am unsure whether a certain recording is lossy-sourced or not. In this case, I am just glad he noticed it because I would probably not even have thought of the possibility - this being an official release and all, rather than a bootleg. And of course, even if they'd been lucky or competent enough to pick a lossless bootleg, it would still be unacceptable that they simply used a bootleg and EQed it a bit. I mean, it is bad enough when pirates steal official recordings. Now Rhino steal pirates' recordings and use them for "Super Deluxe" box sets? What is this, some kind of revenge? A few pages pages earlier in this very thread, we were discussing whether this Asbury Park version might be a fresh mix or the same old mix that is up on Wolfgang's Vault. Fast forward to now, and hardly anyone even complains that not only did they use the exact same mix, they simply used a bootleg rather than the master tape as their source. Now that we know the discs are lossy-sourced, the fact that they used a bootleg as such seems relatively harmless. But it isn't, especially considering the price of these sets. Tony Iommi keeps mentioning in interviews that his basement is full of tapes, yet rather than use some of those, Rhino use a ~17 year old 2xCD bootleg copied from MP3 for their "Super Deluxe" sh**. If this is how they'll continue to work, I'd prefer it if they shut everything down and tell us to our faces that they believe we are stupid idiots. At least that would be honest.
I felt like a sucker for buying the Vol 4 vinyl knowing full well what was going on with the live stuff. This MP3 ******** is another level. Wow. This release really is nothing more than an insult to fans. Disgusting. Really... MP3s on vinyl... Disgusting.
Fold it to mono, remix it in order to make everything but the cymbals inaudible, then compress them to death.
Good to know. Will send back to Amazon my still sealed CD set. No way am I paying that kind of money for mp3s.
And maybe let Rhino know what you think about this. While I certainly don't believe they'll send you a fresh transfer from the Asbury Park master tapes or multi tracks as an apology, I do believe that if many people complain and make it clear that they don't want recycled bootlegs but proper tape sources, maybe, just maybe, they'll put a bit more effort into forthcoming releases.
Same here. I listened to some of the new live set to compare it to the vinyl bootleg from 1975. The bootleg sounded marginally better. What a s*** show.
Dare I ask… any view on whether the same approach was taken for the other two recent “deluxe” sets, Paranoid and Vol 4?
For the Vol. 4 SDE bonus material, they went back to the multi tracks and there's no bootleg available for any of that stuff, so while I didn't run any tests on those, I guess we're relatively safe. But hey, you never know! As for Paranoid SDE, IIRC I tested the Montreux 1970 disc on the Paranoid SDE for lossy lineage (because available bootlegs were all lossy-sourced) and it was lossless. Not sure if I tested any of the other bonus stuff on it, but @rnranimal would probably have noticed if anything were lossy there.
Correct, all the V4 stuff was new audio and I'm sure I'd have noticed it were lossy as I brought it into the same editor I did for Sabotage. Also correct. Monteux is true lossless and I'm sure Brussels is as well. I did an involved syncing of it to the best bootleg video source and the audio patches I had to use from the video were lossy so I definitely would've noticed if the Brussels CD audio was lossy. As far as I know, the band had access to the CD-R transfer of the existing tape for Monteux. I'll bet the vinyl has a hard cut at 22.05khz. Most of the deluxe '09/16 bonus material comes from this same CD-R cache and have the 22.05khz hard cuts on their vinyl releases.
