Received my new 10LP boxset today. Very pretty, but the pressings remain fairly poor. The soundstage sounds so thin or something. No depth. So glad I bought original pressings of all the albums last year on Discogs. They weren't hard to find, were relatively inexpensive and sound infinitely superior to all of the recent reissues.
Sooooooooooooo, despite me cancelling my pre-order and saying "no, I am not buying this boxset, I don't need this boxset, I have multiple copies of those albums, I do not need anymore....”, I did infact buy the boxset. Oopsie. I was in Sister Ray Records in Soho and they had 1 copy of the CD box and 1 copy of the vinyl boxset. I went for the CD box as it's considerably cheaper and for LP's, I stick with my original UK Epic pressings. But this does now mean I’ve bought 6 lots of ABBA albums on CD (original Polydors, 97 remasters, 2001 remasters, 2005 CSR remasters, deluxe editions and now this, I haven’t kept them all though).
It's a really nice set overall, probably the best sounding one so far if you want everything in one boxset.
Some pro's over previous sets:
- as with the deluxe editions, the first 3 albums sound brilliant
- the "fix" at the 2:07 mark on Dancing Queen that has plagued every digital release since 1997 has now actually been fixed. It no longer sounds like the girls are off key at the end of the chorus
- the digital skip from the 2001 onwards releases of Knowing Me, Knowing You isn't there either
- this is probably the best remaster we've had of Arrival & The Album
- The Name of The Game is present and correct in full form with it's original EQ, good dynamics and no distortion. AT LAST.
- Head Over Heels is the correct mix
- this is the first international release of the original Swedish Polar tracklisting for the first 2 albums, which is nice to have.
- of course, Voyage is included, making it a complete albums set
Some con's:
- The Visitors is not much of an improvement over the Deluxe Edition. Notable tapehiss in places, the volume drop between side A and B is clear still too.
- Take A Chance On Me seems to be mastered louder than the rest of The Album
- the bonus disc is ridiculously short. You can clearly tell that the CD set was an afterthought, and this was designed with the LP box in mind. Even the artwork for Voyage is the LP artwork, with sides A and B listed
Overall, glad I took the punt on the set. It's worth it for Arrival and especially The Album.
On a personal note, I'm really glad I bought this in London whilst I was there for the opening weekend of the Voyage live show. When I was here in February 2000 to see Mamma Mia!, I bought the signature edition Gold, remastered More Gold and the "From ABBA to Mamma Mia" book, all of which I still have and have such wonderful memories of buying them, so this will be kept now alongside those.
