Black Sabbath Black Box (box set)

I've been looking at getting the Black Sabbath 'Black Box' box set which covers the entire Ozzy discography. For more details see here: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Box-Complete-Original-1970-1978/dp/B0000DII8S

I need some help in respect of where I should buy it from. On ebay there are quite a number of sellers from China and Hong Kong that sell this boxset for around 70 bucks. What worries me is that these might in fact be fakes. I have seen this same boxset from US / Canadian sellers priced between 180 - 200 bucks. What gives?

If you bought this boxset, where did you buy it from? Did anyone buy theirs from Hong Kong sellers?

Personally I would never buy from China/Hong Kong sellers just because those markets are so flooded with boots.  Probably worth the extra money to get it from a legit source.

From a product design this is one of my favorite sets.  Looks nice on the shelf.  I got mine from secondspin for about 70.00 several years back.  Don't know about now, but back then they were fairly common at a lot of the used sites for around that rate.  Worth it for a legit copy.

Thanks.

As I see it I have two options -

Either purchase the box set for round 200 bucks to ensure I'm buying an original.

Alternatively, I can go down the path of buying each Warner Bros. 2010 re-issue separately and the deluxe editions of Black Sabbath, Paranoid and Master of Reality. This latter option may be slightly more economical but I miss out on the cool book and dvd that come with the box set.

Alex Dee Rokket wrote:

Thanks.

As I see it I have two options -

Either purchase the box set for round 200 bucks to ensure I'm buying an original.

Alternatively, I can go down the path of buying each Warner Bros. 2010 re-issue separately and the deluxe editions of Black Sabbath, Paranoid and Master of Reality. This latter option may be slightly more economical but I miss out on the cool book and dvd that come with the box set.

The booklets in the Deluxe Editions of the first 3 albums are cooler than the book in the black box.

Definitely fake if it's a China or Hong Kong seller.

I'm having the quandary on purchasing those deluxe editions also.  I mean how many times will I purchase these albums.  I go back and forth on whether the extra discs make it worth it.

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Definitely fake if it's a China or Hong Kong seller.

Or Greece. Those 3 countries have been red-flagged in my book.

I was fortunate enough to get mine directly from a Rhino Records p.r. guy back when they were brand new on the market. He was handing them out at a convention and I asked for one. I think the upc on the back might be scratched out, but for free, I'm ok with it.

It's a lovely set and like someone else mentioned, looks good on the shelf.

I have the Black Box and it's a nice set, but I think the sound is better on the Deluxe Editions.

I had the deluxe of both 'Paranoid' and 'Master of Reality' and there is not truly a huge amount of difference between those and the Black Box ones. 'Paranoid' especially is nearly identical but the sound is sliiiiiiightly more what people would say "analog" on the Deluxe, whereas I think the Black Box preserves that while clarifying just enough muddiness. The 'Master of Reality' one is very quiet, and for something in the Deluxe shell, the master is just not improved enough over the original CD. 

The record company did this with Pink Floyd too, all those new slimline digi remaster whatevers, many of them are so barely different than the 1992 Doug Sax ones (which sound just fine) that they're really not worth getting, none of them are, IMO.

The Black Box is generally a victim of the loudness wars. Check out the different versions of Paranoid to see this: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=black+sabbath&search_album=paranoid

However, the Black Box is not as bad as it could have been, which is nice.

Witchfinder wrote:

The Black Box is generally a victim of the loudness wars. Check out the different versions of Paranoid to see this: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=black+sabbath&search_album=paranoid

However, the Black Box is not as bad as it could have been, which is nice.

The Black Box is more compressed than the British reissues from a couple years ago and also the SHM-CD Japanese releases (which are fine but costly). A shame though because I think without the compression the Rhino versions would sound the best overall.

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Definitely fake if it's a China or Hong Kong seller.

Or Greece. Those 3 countries have been red-flagged in my book.

What about Argentina? I see allot of discs on ebay shipping from Argentina. I just assume they are boots too. Anyone care to tell me differently?

Witchfinder wrote:

The Black Box is generally a victim of the loudness wars. Check out the different versions of Paranoid to see this: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=black+sabbath&search_album=paranoid

However, the Black Box is not as bad as it could have been, which is nice.

That has to be the coolest site on teh internets. Thank you for this.

Towards the end of my time on ebay Argentina sellers seemed to be out numbering the Greek ones for "rarities".  That said, I one time did buy from an Argentinian seller but it wasn't rare and expensive.  It was a local release and ended up being legit.

I would say one popping up on amazon from a reputable seller is still the best bet.  Also keep an eye on places like secondspin.  I noticed they had the Rules Of Hell set for a good price the other day.  Their website has a function where they will notify you if a disc you want comes in stock.  It's funny to get notifications for stuff from years back that I've long since purchased.  But it's still a really cool feature.

I usually not one for looking for uber-rare, out-of-print stuff anyway. The stuff I want is fairly common.  I'm just looking for the best price. The stuff from Argentina usually fits that description.

Wow. SecondSpin. I haven't thought about or been to that site in ages. Forgot all about them to be honest. I'll have to give them a look-see.

I may have purchased music from this seller in the past...

http://stores.ebay.com/MUSIC-FROM-ARGENTINA

PS Sorry for derailing your thread, Alex

I checked out that Dr. Loudness War website mentioned above. I have no idea what I'm looking at. It says a band name and an album, and there is a bunch of color codes and numbers. They may as well have told me the warm range was decompressed and brickwalled for all the sense it made. Ha.

There's a legend above the list that tells you how the DR scores. So if you look at the DR Album column, compare that score with the legend above. I'm not sure what Transition means but it looks like 14-20 is the good stuff w/ less compression and greater DR.

The DR Track Min/Max columns tell you what the lowest and highest tracks score as. If you click on an album, each track is scored. You'll also get the barcode (handy) and some other info. This is my new homepage.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

I checked out that Dr. Loudness War website mentioned above. I have no idea what I'm looking at. It says a band name and an album, and there is a bunch of color codes and numbers. They may as well have told me the warm range was decompressed and brickwalled for all the sense it made. Ha.

The numbers refer to decibels.

Dynamic Range = the difference between the quietest & loudest sound in a recording. A DR rating of 10 means there is a 10 decibel range from the quietest to loudest part of the song. When compression is used you are squashing the natural dynamic range of the recording to make the quietest and loudest sounds closer together, which artificially increases the "perceived loudness" of the recording. Unfortunately as you decrease dynamic range you also throw off the natural spacial balance between the instruments.

A rating of 14 or above falls into the "good" range (though you won't find many CDs these days that will fall into that scale).

A rating between 8 & 13 is considered transitional, better sounding toward the top end of the scale, worse sound toward the bottom.

A rating between 1 & 7 is BAD...and unfortunately where most of your modern CDs are going to fall into.

For example the new Black Sabbath album 13.

CD - DR=5. 5 decibel difference between the loudest and quietest sound. Perceived volume level is LOUD and is strenuous to listen to at increased volume.

LP - DR=10. The LP has twice the dynamic range of the CD, 10 decibel difference between the loudest and quietest sounds. You can crank the album up to a high volume and it doesn't sound distorted or tiring on the ears because it has proper dynamic range.

As a person who has dealt with asian sellers many, many times before, there are definately legit sellers from China or Hong Kong but it also depends on the popularity of the artist, or album in question. More obscure stuff is likely to be legit because bootleggers go for the more common stuff. Also, Taiwan sellers tend to be more reliable than general chinese sellers, because the country is a bit more stable and can support legitimate releases, as does Singapore and Malaysia. Of course, even there they have some fakes but mainland China is the biggest culprit for that kind of stuff. Russian sellers are often shady too. Guess it has to do with the whole communist thing in regards to how they respect copyrights.

I've bought a couple of fairly obscure vinyls from Greek sellers and they seem fine. The kind of stuff that I tend to buy would hardly be worth bootlegging unless you made a lot of them and if you made a lot of them, word would soon get around as in many cases, there were not a lot of the originals to begin with. (as has been seen with 'yellow goat' Bathory s/t & Mayhem Deathcrush)