Black Sabbath - CD Comparisons

Did some A/Bing this weekend. I've been putting off comparisons on the Sabbath catalog as it seems somewhat confusing. But after taking care of some of my Who needs (picked up Tommy on MFSL a few weeks ago and then Quadrophenia on West German Polydor just this past Saturday night) and making some progress on some of my Floyd catalog, I decided to start entering the Sabbath waters.

Sabotage:

Here are the three versions I compared:

Rhino - From the latest boxset.

Victor Japan - this is licensed from Castle and it's that remastering

Warner Bros - the original

The Warner is the winner, IMO. The Victor Japan (Castle) sounds pretty close to it, but they seem to have EQ'd it in the midrange. I'm not a sonic expert, but that's the way it sounds to me, and this was an album that always had plenty of midrange. So it sounds a bit strange. The Rhino sounds boosted on the low and high end. In my car the Castle and to a slighty lesser extent the Rhino seemed a bit murky in the midrange. The WB CD seemed a bit better but I didn't hear that much of it in my car to compare. Further comparisons took place on my home stereo. Anyway, I think the WB CD is the one to go with but I'll need to hear the actual Castle UK to compare. I used to own it but don't have it any longer.

Black Sabbath (s/t):

Victor Japan mini lp (Castle remaster)

Teichiku Japan mini lp (Castle remaster)

Rhino boxset issue

Castle (80's issue w/ bonus live track)

The first two are the same, and quite good. The Rhino is also very good, but I think the original Castle is probably best. It really has a nice, warm sound to it. I would imagine the orignal WB CD to be equally good.

Master Of Reality:

Victor Japan mini lp (Castle)

Rhino boxset

Castle (80's issue w/o live bonus track - rare!)

The first two are very similar tone-wise. One thing about Rhino is that when I listened to "Solitude" it was beautifully hissy and the sound really had breath. The old Castle issue from 1986 was terrible. It had almost no hiss. They must have been sent a tape in dolby or something. The tonality of the old Castle was muddy and nowhere near as good. Incidentally, you'll be glad to know that while taking a break from comparisons and listening to the Inglot/Hersch version of "Lord Of This World" from the Rhino set, I began air drumming so heavily that I strained my neck. Man, oh man, what drumming! I hate the production of Ward's drums on Master because they have that sound that is so padded it is like being in a room with no breath, but all the stop-start, one beat into a totally different beat type stuff on that track is just really something.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath:

Victor Japan mini lp (Castle)

Teichiku Japan mini lp (Castle)

Rhino

The first two sound amazingly different! Something happened on one of them in the conversion process and I think it's the Teichiku but will have to buy the regular Castle UK remaster to know for sure. The Victor Japan (Castle) is just too EQ'd for my taste. It almost sounds like a radio broadcast on the acoustic guitar bits of the title track. The Teichiku Japan sounds like it is the same remastering but with a lot of treble rolled off. I'd have to listen to it more to know whether this works. No idea what happened. I guess the Rhino is the best here but I suspect the original WB CD will be the way to go.

Heaven And Hell:

Teichiku Japan mini lp (Castle)

Warner Bros

The WB CD wins out here and reminds me of the way this album sounded. The Castle remaster is heavily EQ'd and makes Ward's hi-hat sound like digital scissors. The WB CD is nice and warm.

Obviously, I'll need to pick up more CDs (especially the original WB issues) to do further comparisons. I also realize that there may be some variation between the Japanese CDs of the Castle remasterings and the Castles themselves, not to mention it has been reported that the Castle mini lp CDs sound a bit different than the jewelcase issues, but I wanted to get this ball rolling and would love to hear opinions. There is a lot of stuff in the archive but it seems to me there needs to be more discussion of which Sabs issues are the way to go. At *this* stage, I'm inclined to think that if one just went with the original WB CDs, they'd be in pretty good shape.

 

Thanks for your thoughts, Jeff. You've got to hear the WB CD of Master of Reality...it sounds TOTALLY different from the Castle remaster...unbelievable difference in tonality. The WB CD of S/T sounds nice but "Wicked World" in the middle of the album peeves me a bit.
I have not heard the WB of Sabotage yet. It's missing "blowin' on a jug" but I suppose I should get over that.

 

Yeah, I forgot about the WB missing "Blow On A Jug" but I didn't get that far yet. Anyway, I'm sure I owned MoR on WB at some point, but I'll definitely pick it up and compare. Some info in the archive suggests that the Castle sounds more like the tonality of the original Vertigo issue, but I don't know. Interestingly, the Rhino and Castle issues of MoR sound *very* similar, so the EQ choices must have been very close.

 

My opinion: the best versions are:

the first Warner-Japan pressings and Rhino's Black Box. I don't like very much the Castle remasters.....

 

And one other thought just came to mind about _Master Of Reality_. The old Castle (non-remaster) CD is definitely soaked in dolby from their source tape or some form of NR. Since my early Castle (non-remaster) of the s/t sounds great, then I can only suspect that the tape they used for the transfer had dolby. Perhaps the WB CD was made from a similar tape. One way to tell is to just check "Solitude." It is a nice quiet tune and should have a load of tape hiss. The Rhino really does bring out how nice this tune sounds with Iommi's flute and guitar just breathing beautifully. I didn't check the Castle of this but I suspect it's similar.

 

Update on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I bought the regular Castle remaster from 1996 again to compare.

Teichiku Japan mini lp (Castle)

Castle 1996
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The above two sound the same

Now...

Victor Japan mini lp (Castle)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sounds drastically altered. Major EQ? I always assumed these Victor Japan mini lp CDs were the same Castle mastering as they do not carry their 20-bit K2 deal, but in this case, it is *drastically* different. Much, much brighter.

The Rhino from the boxset sounds pretty similar to the Castle, actually.

 

These are the Warner versions I've heard and know to sound good with good masterings. None of these are remastered versions.

S/T, Master Of Reality, Paranoid, Never Say Die, Technical Ecstacy, and Vol. 4.

 

I just got the remastered Black Box last week and was able to compare with the original Master of Reality which was the only Sabbath CD I had.
I thought the ideal sound would be somewhere between the two. The original is smoother, warmer and the Black Box is much more intense and detailed, a bit bright. But despite that I think I prefer the Box's intense presentation as more artistically suited to Sabbath.

 

So Dave, is this to say you prefer the Castle _Sabbath Bloody Sabbath_ to the WB?

 

Interesting. I wonder how we will ever determine what the definitive version of _Master Of Reality_ is? The Castle, btw, sounds similar to the Black Box, which apparently sounds nothing like the old WB CD. A recent version I heard that I described above was the old Castle issue from 1986, which was soaked in NR. I almost wonder if there was a source tape floating around of this album that was in Dolby. I'll have to pick up the WB CD as I haven't had it for years. Could someone with a copy of the WB CD check "Solitude" and see if it is nice and hissy like the remastered Castle and Black Box versions?

 

I would imagine it means that he hasn't heard the WB Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

 

I can't recall right now whether it just didn't sound good or if I've yet to hear it. The WB that is. I haven't heard the Castle Jeff.

 

It does have hiss present, but it is not overwhelming by any sense of the word, very quiet in fact. Good solid bass. I give it a as I have no desire to change from this version of Master Of Reality.

 

Please get the WB SBS to check it out. I have heard several times that it is the best version. I haven't heard it though.
Sabotage and SBS are my favorite Sabbath albums by far. I have the castle remasters of both, and I find the sound to be pretty bland, but I have nothing else to compare them to.

 

Thanks, Dave.

I wonder why there is apparently such a tremendous difference in the tonality of the WB MoR and the Castle remaster. The Black Box also sounds very similar to the Castle.

I'll snatch the WB MoR soon.

 

edit: sorry, doesn't look like i'll be able to post the wav files after all, don't have any web space of my own.

 

I finally got the Black Box yesterday and did some comparisons with the only Castle CD I have left, "Paranoid".

The tape used is not as low generation as the Castle, although the Bill Inglot has cleaned up the problems in the Warners tape significantly, losing most of the level errors in War Pigs, I suspect, by very careful level adjustment. The occasional errors remaining sound like the old Warner tape problems to me. The thing I didn't expect was that the micro-dynamics of the Black Box Paranoid were way better than the Castle - listening especially to the hand drumming throughout Planet Caravan, the drums have real power on the Black Box, and sound a little anaemic on the Castle. The vocals are also more human and less hifi on the BB. The other thing I noticed was that the bass generally sounded a lot less like synthesised bass and more like a human was playing on the Black Box - something I have noticed in the past with markedly NoNoised recordings (e.g. the Definitive Edition King Crimson Series). I guess that one would expect the high frequencies to be the most affected by computer aided noise reduction. Probably the old "low gen tape + NoNoise versus higher gen tape without NoNoise" story.
On "Black Sabbath", Wicked World sounds much better than the Castle version. The album covers aren't as well done as the Castle CDs however. The book is wonderful.
PS does anyone else like The Warning from the first album?

 

I mentioned intensity and impact but you're right the micro-dynamics (low level details?) are a nice improvement. But again I do wish for something in between the WB and Black Box.
If 5 is half way then 6.5 towards the BB.

I noticed that the BB covers were too glossy and a little cheap looking/feeling, poor spine. Much different from the much better Japanese Zeppelin mini LP replicas for instance.
I did have the Castle box set only a few years ago and parted with it soon afterward without any marked memories.

Yeah that's fun. I wonder who Sabbath had been listening to prior to writing that?

The Wizard is my favourite track.

 

Has always been my favorite as well.

 

Try a screen-capture, save it as a file on your computer. Remember where you've put it and then post it here as an attachment.

 

what about on the whole the 1996 jewel case Castle remasters? I have the S/T and compared to the Rhino box, the Rhino does have boost; seems really evident on the cymbals. Or maybe I'm hearing it wrong. I was just wondering how the other 96 Castle jewel cases stack up

 

already did this on a related thread:
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=47973

 

Interesting waves. I'd be interested in hearing that Castle version. Is that the non-remastered version? The remastered Castle of Paranoid really sucked so I passed on any others and I'm 100% certain the wave of that one would not look as good as that one you posted. The Rhino has too many haircuts to increase volume.

 

The comparison I did was with the latest Castle remaster - in the mini-LP format.

 

Dave, what would you say was sonically wrong with that Castle remaster? The Castle remaster of S/T didn't sound bad considering it was recorded for a few hundred pounds stirling!