ABBA - The Collection

I have bought a lot of reissued LPs from Amazon this year, including Carpenters, Bee Gees, George Harrison, Elton John, etc. All of them have fantastic sound quality. I was excited when I received this ABBA 8-LP collection. But when I listened to them, I was very disappointed. All the LPs sound very digital. I'm sure that there was some kind of digital processing in making these LPs. A few years ago I bought the Japanese version of the original ABBA LPs from eBay. Yes, they are used LPs. But they sound much better than this 8-LP collection. Previously only the "Visitors" LP sounds digital. But now all LPs sound digital. If you are looking for analog sound from the original masters, this collection is definitely not the one you should go after.

The presentation of this box set is incredible. The quality of the jackets and the inner sleeves is great. The albums look stunning. The sound quality is terrible - sounds like a poor quality picture vinyl (which isn't good). This could have been great...but really...it's just an expensive novelty pressing for people who don't care about the sound.

This is a great set and the colors of the vinyl records are beautiful! The vinyl sound fabulous with very few if any pops and crackles! A wonderful job by the distributing company that put them together!This set is a million times better than the Carpenters box set that came out a few years back!

I'll keep it plain and simple. If you're a fan of ABBA and don't have this box set, you need it! The colored vinyls are absolutely beautiful and weighted perfectly. Not to mention just the entire experience of opening this set. An absolute must have for any ABBA fan!

It does not sound as good as I expected. The presentation is good and colorful the inner selves very nice

It’s beautiful I just HAD TO cop. The shipping & handling is great, came double boxed where one of the boxes prevented any movement within the record sleeves so no tear on the corners of the sleeves. Can’t wait to play them all !

I'm more than pleased to have this amazing box set in my collection! If you are a true ABBA fan and love vinyl music, pick this up you will love it

A must have set of the studio albums on colored vinyl! An instant Abba collection, arrived in immaculate condition. This is great pop music, pitch perfect vocals and brilliant production.

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.  wonderful!!! The records are beautiful !!! and they sound spectacular !!!! I have a lot of Abba vinyls, but this box exceeded all my expectations !!!

Previous ABBA vinyl reissues have tended to be quite poor quality scans. The text wasn’t sharp enough and the artwork reproduction left a lot to be desired. No attempt has yet been made to fully re-create the artwork, and I’m sure my home scanner could do a better job than previous efforts.This set sees a slight improvement. The majority of the text has been re-created (sometimes in slightly different fonts, but you can’t have everything). However, artwork other than text still seems to be scans.After opening the cellophane wrap (undamaged, thanks to the opening being on the side and fully exposed), I did a thorough investigation of the contents. As others have mentioned, the re-created text is a big improvement on what’s gone before, but it’s been severely offset by the poor quality of the artwork reproduction. They still feel like facsimiles of the originals. I’m not sure the matt finish helps - were any of them glossy originally? A gloss finish might have helped to hide some of the imperfections.I’ll review each one individually:RING RING - the titles and members’ names still appear to be scans, as they aren’t as sharp as all other text, which has clearly been re-done. The red vinyl is nice, perhaps my favourite of the set.WATERLOO - again, a nice solid colour for the vinyl (orange). This album always had grainy artwork, but the scan quality makes it even worse.ABBA - nice to see all that script text looking nice and sharp. As with the previous two albums, even the inner sleeve text advertising other Polar albums of the time has been re-done. The photos of the releases in question though, are in very bad quality. As with Super Trouper, the marble-effect vinyl is horrendous. It honestly looks like two transparent coloured vinyl halves with very creased paper in the middle. Also, grey is a very boring colour. Someone suggested it was picked out from Agnetha’s dress, but I always saw that as a green-ish colour. I’d have gone with the yellow of the lettering, and perhaps used a light brown for The Visitors instead.ARRIVAL - a slightly boring choice for the vinyl (white) but after the shock of the marble ABBA, it’s a relief to see a solid colour again (yep, I know white isn’t actually a colour). Presumably the white is because of the costumes worn in the photos.THE ALBUM - as with Ring Ring, the titles on the cover still appear to be scans as they aren’t as sharp as other text. The giveaway is that “The Album” title on both the inner sleeve and labels is rendered in a different font that gives more spacing between each letter. The cover titles, however, look much more like the originals. The (R) of the registered trademark indicator is way-off the sharpness of the other text, suggesting that even the ABBA logo is a scan. The green vinyl is much darker than I expected. It does not contrast well with most of the other, much brighter colours.VOULEZ-VOUS - nice solid blue vinyl. As with the others, the artwork is otherwise disappointing. The “frame” design of the inner sleeve is in a very different shade of blue to what I remember.SUPER TROUPER - as with ABBA, the marble effect is appalling. My theory about it being very thin creased paper (I’d term it tracing paper) between two transparent coloured pieces of vinyl is strengthened - where the “marble” bubbles up on one side, there is a corresponding indentation on the other (not the vinyl itself). It’s as though the thin paper is slightly too big for the vinyl, so to compensate it’s having to ripple up inside. This is definitely the worst of the eight records. It’s a very unattractive finish and should have been done better. I have other marble-effect vinyls and they look nothing like this. Truly awful.THE VISITORS - yet again, it’s a relief to see a solid colour (yellow) after the travesty that is Super Trouper. As someone else noted, the bright yellow does not suit such a dark album, but does go well with the three other bright colours in this set. One positive about both this and Super Trouper is that the plain design of the inner sleeves means no nasty scans. These two albums therefore have the best inner sleeve reproductions (effectively entire recreations) of the eight.All in all, there’s a feeling of dissatisfaction. Even though others on here had prepared me for what to expect, meaning I shouldn’t have felt disappointed, somehow I still do. It should have been so much better than this. Coloured vinyl remains a novelty for me - seeing a record that, in my mind, should still be black but isn’t, is still fascinating. I don’t feel the same about picture discs, and not sure I ever really have, but coloured vinyl still does it for me. Well, apart from ABBA and Super Trouper anyway.

Wer kauft diese Box hätte man sich vielleicht bei Universal denken müssen? Der Sammler, der ohnehin schon alles hat? Sicher, aber zumindest ich, habe einfach nur die Gelegenheit genutzt, mir ABBA complete nach Hause zu holen. Und angesichts der nicht gerade geringen Investition muss ich mich fragen, ob man das nicht besser machen könnte. Die verschiedenfarbenen Scheiben waren jedenfalls für mich kein Kaufgrund. Klanglich reissen einen die Pressungen auch nicht vom Hocker. Und auch bei der Haptik gibt es viel Luft nach oben... so lassen sich die einzelnen Platten nur mit Mühe aus der Box ziehen. Sie dabei nicht zu knicken ist das nächste Kunststück, das zu bewältigen ist. Und letztendlich hat man (wieder mal) die Chance verpasst, dem Hörer gefütterte Innenhüllen zu spendieren. Das wäre nicht so schlimm, wenn die Box wenigstens genug Platz bieten würde sie a.) zu verwenden und b.) darüberhinaus genug Platz vorhanden wäre, die gefütterte und die original Innenhüllen ins Cover zu stecken. Leider sitzen die Alben so schon viel zu stramm.... Mit dem Amazon Vorbestellpreis hab ich letztendlich nur rund 15,-- Euro pro Schreibe investiert. Das ist gerade wenig genug, um die Box nicht zurück zu schicken.

Worth every penny. So well packaged and I love all the different coloured vinyls. Plus a free download code

Amazon parcel received from Germany but only packaged in brown paper which had split open luckily the item was undamaged. Review is for the product not the package. Most of the vinyl records are in great bright colours and the outer sleeves are good quality. The vinyl all sound brilliant with no surface noise and part from ring ring are perfectly flat. Also found a download code in the box which was a fantastic bonus. All the albums are presented in a nice outer box sleeve.