Led Zeppelin Box Set 50% off

nspindel

Wow, where have I been for the last three years? According to this, though, the remaster in 2007 was Rhino as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Song-Remains-Same-Remastered-Expanded/dp/B000VWYNNW/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1298516391&sr=1-3

In any case, just superb. The old one was only the original 9 tracks from the vinyl release, this one is 15. What I've heard that was on the old one is waaaaaaaaay better. And what I've heard that wasn't on the old one is just awesome. Black Dog, Over the Hills, Misty Mountain Hop, Since I've Been Loving You, The Ocean, and Heartbreaker. Hello??? I guess they left all the b-material off of the original....

nspindel

Brock, btw - I saw Jason Bonham's act a few months ago, did a 2+ hour Zep tribute right in my town. He is his father reincarnate. The band was fantastic, it was a great show. Brought my 15 year old son, he loved it.

nspindel

My word, the No Quarter is good.

nspindel

Just reading up about this mastering - seems they edited a lot of this. I need to listen more closely and pay attention to the details, right now I'm just blown away by how good the sound is and the additional tracks.

heiney9

Neil, in this case Rhino is simply the distributor and has nothing to do with remastering the material.

I know Rhino is well known to do remasters, best of's and "lost" material but that is usually with lesser bands or more importantly material that isn't owned by the band or in the bands complete control like Zep or Beatles or Rush, etc, etc.

Glad you enjoyed Jason, I've seen him live twice and I have a DVD of the 02 show and while he is really good..........I wouldn't say he is his father incarnate :biggrin:

H9

nspindel

I've got the DVD of the O2 show as well. Which one do you have? Mine's called "The Songs Remain The Same"

F1nut

nspindel wrote: »

The more I'm thinking about this, the more it's surprising me that these masters are identical. Wouldn't you expect a company like Rhino to be putting out it's own remastering rather than using the same version that's been available for all these years?

I guess the reason why I'm asking is I read this review of a similar mini-lp box set of Pink Floyd. Read the 1-Star review by Bob:

http://www.amazon.com/Oh-Way-Mini-LP-Replica/dp/B000X1LH6C/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1298515099&sr=1-1

How is this Zeppelin set all that different, except for the web deal offering it at such a reasonable price? I'm not sure what Rhino did here to believe that they'd sell many of these, if it's just the same versions that have been around in a different box set. Perhaps that's why they're dumping inventory at 50% off?

Rhino Records is owned by Warner, who also owns Atlantic.

nspindel

Ahhhhhhhh..... Now this makes sense!

nspindel

So how do people feel about the review from that guy Bob in that Amazon link to the Floyd box set? If Rhino/Atlantic are both owned by Warner, then this mini-lp Zep set is very much analagous to the EMI Floyd set - another release of the same masters under different packaging.

The main difference with the Zep set here, however, is the fact that Rhino are letting it go for 50% off. If I saw this Zep box for full price, I wouldn't have even considered buying it knowing it's identical masters to the ones I listen to all the time. Minty new masters, different story. But if the only difference in terms of what I'm listening to is TSRTS, which I can pick up as a stand alone title, then to me charging $175-$200 for this set (musicdirect.com is selling it for $199) is highway robbery, on par with Bob's 1-star Amazon rating of the Floyd set. After all, most of the world looking at the Zep set aren't looking at it through Jesse's 50% off link.

Am I off here? Or do issues like this get other people angered? Forget about whether or not you as an individual are happy with your purchase at $87. I'm talking about seeing re-packaged versions of identical recordings, 90% of which has already been issued in another box set, being sold for nearing $200.

nspindel

That said, I am thinking about picking up the Floyd set used :-)

heiney9

Neil, not sure what the title to my O2 concert is. Might be "Listen to This Ahmet". I'll have to take a look.

Perhaps we could trade copies as they might be different versions. I got mine within a couple weeks of the concert and it's the footage shot by Terry Stephenson of Third Eye Productions (he did most of the Page and Plant Tour bootlegs and is known inside the Zep circle). He has a seperate audio track sync'd with the video. He also released a Blue Ray version which is very hard to come by.

He had an audio rig set up with DAT and boom mics in one part of the arena and then shot the camcorder footage from another part of the arena.

H9

nspindel

Is it shot with multiple camera angles and then edited? Mine is. How is the audio track, the one I have is decent.

I really hope they release a real dvd of that show. Total injustice to history if they do not.

nspindel

Bought the Floyd set

Most of my Floyd stuff is the original cd's, seems like this box set is from 90's masters that are at least newer than a lot of stuff I have, so should be some step up in sq for me, not to mention the mini-lp packaging sounds like it's well done. Got it for $108 shipped, not bad considering it's 16 discs.

heiney9

nspindel wrote: »

Is it shot with multiple camera angles and then edited? Mine is. How is the audio track, the one I have is decent.

I really hope they release a real dvd of that show. Total injustice to history if they do not.

This is single camera, although in the very beginning he splices in inferior footage for less than a minute total to replace footage where his view was blocked.

Audio is excellent. We should trade, it would be interesting to compare the two versions and it never hurts to have an alt copy. PM me your addy.

I doubt very much if an "official" version will ever see the light of day..........atleast not while band members are still alive.

H9

nspindel

Why would the band members not want a high quality official version for the fans to enjoy? I don't see the logic in having such a limited access show not be put out for the masses to enjoy, forget about how much money the release would make.

heiney9

nspindel wrote: »

Why would the band members not want a high quality official version for the fans to enjoy? I don't see the logic in having such a limited access show not be put out for the masses to enjoy, forget about how much money the release would make.

Last I heard (rumor probably) is Robert wouldn't sign off on it. They should have released it closer to the actual event, IMO. It was a one off moment in time and Page had said they did capture it (extensively) entirely and no expense was spared, as you saw about 10-12 cameras and a full mobile recording truck. But it was never with the intention to release anything.

I also read that as soon as the last note was played an entourage of reps for the band were in the recording truck already taking the recorded footage away for safe keeping. I assume to reduce the opportunity for leaked material.

It was one HELLUVA an effort and all prior criticism could be laid to rest. Robert sang his **** off (his words) and except for some minor flubs by Jason Bonham they tore it up, best I've ever heard from any gig after the crash of Zep. So it's not a matter of it not being good enough in the eyes of the musicians, IMO.

The four of them are still a business unit and it's not a democracy, all have to agree to anything regarding the band (Jason less so) or it's a no go.

H9

nspindel

Just seems so wrong that such a limited few got to enjoy it live, the rest of us are left to bootlegs to know what it sounded like. I could see not putting it out if there were a tour in the works, not that they'd have any problem selling tickets. A lucky 18,000 people won a lottery for tickets, out of millions of fans.

nspindel

Although Plant is the reason why there was no tour, either. Everyone else wanted to do it.

Didn't realize Jason had any flubs, where were they? I agree, they sounded fantastic, and silenced all the critics claiming they didn't have "it" any more.

heiney9

nspindel wrote: »

Although Plant is the reason why there was no tour, either. Everyone else wanted to do it.

Didn't realize Jason had any flubs, where were they? I agree, they sounded fantastic, and silenced all the critics claiming they didn't have "it" any more.

In hindsight I'm glad they didn't go on tour. There is no way they would have been as consistent as they wanted to be. Even the P/P tour's 10 years earlier when they were younger were pretty inconsistent. They really played outside themselves at the O2 gig. Would have been an extremely hard thing to maintain for an entire tour.

I think they should release a DVD of the event and that should stand as the last defining moment for Led Zeppelin; the performance is that good!!! I was nervous for them but they hit it out of the universe, IMO.

H9

nspindel

I'm totally with you. Like I said above, not putting that out for the record is a historical injustice. Zeppelin's last stand.

madmax

nspindel wrote: »

But in terms of sound, no big revelations here, at least to my ears.



I'm assuming by "original release" you're talking about the 80's individual cd's, not the gray box set of studio remasters from the 90's? There was a night and day difference between the original releases and the earlier box set. But that set still left me feeling like there was more to it that I wasn't hearing, or cleaner sound that could/should be achieved for such monumental recordings, but wasn't coming through. This new set doesn't seem to change any of that, but is far superior aesthetically, and is well worth the $87 discounted price without a doubt.

Original releases to me were first generation LP's which the first CD's cannot compete with.

heiney9

madmax wrote: »

Original releases to me were first generation LP's which the first CD's cannot compete with.

No they can't because the mastering to cd was quick and dirty and done horribly. A few instances the original masters couldn't be located so they used a 2nd gen back-up for the cd.

H9

nspindel

Ah. THOSE originals :-)

SCompRacer

I've got all the original LP's too. Nothing shabby about this box set, at all. Got them all ripped to the hard drive and was listening in order. Made me remember LZ II rules. Back in the day we said this is heavy metal. Amped up, up tempo blues riffs with thunderous drums. Gotta whole lotta love for it.:biggrin:

heiney9

SCompRacer wrote: »

I've got all the original LP's too. Nothing shabby about this box set, at all. Got them all ripped to the hard drive and was listening in order. Made me remember LZ II rules. Back in the day we said this is heavy metal. Amped up, up tempo blues riffs with thunderous drums. Gotta whole lotta love for it.:biggrin:

:biggrin:

H9

madmax

heiney9 wrote: »

No they can't because the mastering to cd was quick and dirty and done horribly. A few instances the original masters couldn't be located so they used a 2nd gen back-up for the cd.

H9

Not to mention it was a CD...

heiney9

madmax wrote: »

Not to mention it was a CD...

Yeah I knew you meant that mostly............but they were done poorly even for cd's.

nspindel

Any thoughts on my earlier question? Is it "right" of Warner/Atlantic/Rhino to be pushing a product like this to sell at north of $175 with no new material? Again, forget about the fact that we all got it for $87, I'm talking about for those not fortunate enough to have Jesse's link.

heiney9

I wouldn't have paid full price and Zep is my all time favorite band. This is a collector piece made in Japan and it's right about in line with what Japanese product sells for.

I doubt if we will ever see any new or lost material from Zeppelin. There isn't any that would stand up to the perfection Page insists upon. Christ, it took them 20 years to release the DVD and that was simply because technology was finally available to resurrect those poorly stored tapes and make something presentable out of them. That was a monumental task.

I know they have more stuff in the vaults...........I have most if not all of it on bootleg including dvd's of a couple Earls Court shows, Seattle 77 and both Knebworth concerts. All professionally (I use that term loosely) shot for the large video screens of the day. The problem (as Page has pointed out) is it's not a good document to sit and watch beginning to end. The shots are to close and haphazard to put any sort of a real continuity of the real event across. That's the main reason we only got snippets of material instead of full concerts on the DVD. The best material was cherry picked and assembled for continuity, not completeness.

Even the Royal Albert Hall footage was edited in spots (WLL most obvious if you have the bootleg) and incomplete as the last encore was not included. Heartbreaker was mostly damaged beyond repair so the snippet that was left was used as background music for one of the menu's.

H9

madmax

I've actually grown sick of LZ but would still purchase it at full price.