Definitive Collection

I just received this box set and it is simply excellent. For the short summary skip this part. LONG DESCRIPTION: This collection includes every studio album released by Led Zeppelin--from Led Zeppelin I to Coda, as well as the soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same (extended version). For those worried if the album Coda includes the bonus tracks: it does--all previously released studio songs are included in this collection (bonus tracks aren't listed on the albums to preserve the look of the album--more on this below). Since every song is included and the albums are separate and in order, unlike in other box sets where the songs are randomly arranged, one can enjoy Led Zeppelin the way they were meant to be. Inside the elegant black box adorned with the band members' symbols are 10 mini versions of the UK vinyls, down to the smallest detail (as far as I know): the Led Zeppelin III album has the spinning wheel and In Through the Out Door is easily smeared. The discs even have 70s copyrights printed on them. There are also alternate sleeves for several of the albums. Each album is wrapped in plastic and contains the track listing in Japanese (this could be discarded but the plastic is recommended to preserve the discs' quality). The sound quality is superb on these cds: anyone who says otherwise is full of themselves. Also to the person who says these discs are remastered from the 90s versions: every Led Zeppelin cd is from the same transfers from the 90s and these Japanese cds really do sound great; the bass is fat and full, the drums and guitar are powerful but not overly loud like in Mothership, and Plant's lows and highs and everything in between sound vivid (for me to be wow'd by his singing is a surprise since i'm usually focusing on how the instrumentals sound awesome). Overall these are the best studio cds you can get, and the next best thing to the entire collection on vinyl. If you are a huge Led Zeppelin fan and are trying to decide between getting this or the Complete Studio Recordings or Box Set 1 and 2, this mini lp set is your best bet for awesomeness. If you are a casual fan you should get Mothership which is the "best of" and see if you enjoy the zep ear magic. ............ SHORT SUMMARY: Every studio album including The Song Remains The Same in awesome vinyl-replica sleeves and cool box. All officially released studio songs. Better than other box sets. Super good sound. Best you can get if you want entire (digital) studio Led Zeppelin collection. If you're not that big a fan try "Mothership" which is a best-of compilation.

This boxset has every official studio album, plus The Song Remains The Same live album. They all come in Mini LP style jackets, protected by wax paper, and then plastic wrap (outer sleeves). The CD's are printed in Japan by Rhino, and when imported into iTunes using Apple Lossless with Error Correction, the sound is utterly amazing. The clarity of the voices, the perfect balance of each instrument, not too much fuzz or distortion from the sound, which could translate to little audio compression. Still, some of the highest frequencies, as parts of Bonzo's drumming, can get distorted, but it's not uncomfortable to listen to like an iTunes-store bought song. The total collection weighs about 7 GB in my iTunes, but it's worth every gigabyte; compared to the Mothership set, the sound seems to sound even more contemporary, as if the master tapes were recorded yesterday. The actual box of the boxset is not as sturdy nor does it exude quality as much as my Beatles Mono Box set, yet it looks very elegant in all-black and boasting the band member's symbols in shiny silver. It has two jackets for LZ I, 5 for In Through the Out Door, and LZ III has the spinning wheel behind the circles, so you can change the artwork and place the band member's faces in different positions. Physical Graffiti has a removable paper that will change what appears in the windows of the house. In this aspect the boxset is beautiful, yet the outer sleeves are very fragile, and the adhesive on them can stick to the album and damage them. There is nothing more I can say about the quality of the audio besides the fact that it's excellent. I recently bought an Audio Technica AT LP120 and replaced it's stylus with a Shure M97xe, and own a first edition LZ IV. I also have a vinyl-recording of LZ IV downloaded from the internet, and then the Definitive Collection LZ IV. I can say that either I am not doing things right on my turntable, or my record is too old, but my LZ IV record does not sound anywhere near as good as my CD, and then the CD and the vinyl-recording on my computer have barely noticeable differences. The quality of the recordings in this boxset is just as good as the records, or even better, as the remastering has "dusted off" the tapes, balanced out the instrument volumes better so the other instruments don't cover Robert Plant's voice. If you are a great fan of this band as I am, you should definitely get this Definitive Collection ;) Rock & Roll!

there's no point to talk about the music it's all top notch and perfect in every way so i'll discuss both the package its self and the recordings them selves The collection that you get here is fantastic and there honestly very few box sets that can compete with this. Each mini lp replica, is well just that. I've compared the mini lp sleeves to the actual lp's and they're pretty spot on even down to the "lp protectors" inside the cases themselves, these sleeves are smaller versions of those plastic sleeves you would get with a full size vinyl, word of warning, do not remove the sleeves from their cardboard casing they're a bit of a pain but can easily be opened inside the cardboard sleeves, i honestly with all cd's were packaged like this if you take care of your cd's there's honestly no way these things can get scratched or damaged in anyway they have like triple protection. The mini lp cases themselves are also steller it's obvious that high quality materials were used in their production. The cases feel nice and sturdy and unless you miss use them or throw them around they will not tear or break. You also get a bonus of having both color prints for zeppelin 1, and all 6 cases of through the out door. As stated you get every zeppelin album here with the omission of compilations (obviously), and the two other live albums, "bbc sessions", and "how the west was won". The song remains the same is expanded though. The mixes and these albums are, thankfully, not affected by the loudness war what so ever. They're all dynamic, punchy, and overall just how a modern remaster should be done there's really nothing else that can be said To wrap it all up this collection is worth every penny that i paid for it, it's beautiful, it sounds amazing, and it's just a gorgeous package overall. It should be known that if you're the type to get cd's, rip them to itunes, and never look at ur cd's again, you're better off just getting the complete studio works, it's about 50 dollars cheaper and music wise you're getting the same deal minus the song remains the same. However if you're an avid collector of led zeppelin merch, or just an avid collector of cd's/lp's w/e, GET THIS BOX SET, not getting it should be considered a crime for collectors

I'm 43 at the time of this writing and I grew up listening to records. I have no doubt that vinyl sounds better than CD/digital, but not in every case. If the record companies who are now, and have been re-issuing back catalogs of popular bands take the time to do it right, we the fans end up with incredible product. However some bands are satisfied allowing their music to be released in an appalling way. The Judas Priest remasters are an example. What they call remastered, to them simply means compress the heck out of the music, so when in wav form there are no peaks and valleys, just an ugly block. All this does is make the music louder, and ruins the dynamic range of the original recordings. In such a case, I prefer listening to vinyl, even a less than perfect copy! The reason for remastering in the first place is because music recorded in the pre-CD era was transferred to digital in the 90's with awful results. Listen to the first CD press of such bands as Black Sabbath, Rush, Kiss, Pink Floyd, even the holy Beatles! The music sounded far away, almost as if someone had made you a cassette recording of the music off of the masters, minus the hiss. So now we have some bands putting out wonderful remasters which use as little compression as possible and achieving results in sonic performance that match, and in some cases exceed the sound of the original vinyls. LED ZEPPELIN has achieved this with this box set! I have not done an A/B comparison to the older "Complete Studio Recordings" box set, mastered by Jimmy Page himself, so I will not comment on any improvements that may or may not exist between the 2, but I will say that these new masters sound brilliant! The music actually fills my room, which is something that vinyl has always done, and where digital format music falls short. Yes digital is crystal clear and bright, but to my ears it always lacked DEPTH! The music in this set has that wonderful depth that my vinyl provided me. It is warm and rich and up front. Every nuance is heard. I am completely satisfied with this release in terms of sonic performance.

While these mini LP replica CD's tend to be pretty pricey, I like to collect them here and there because I love the authenticity. Particularly for older albums that were originally produced on vinyl, these versions present the albums in the way that they were intended. I wish they could just start producing all older albums in this way on CD at the same cost as jewel cased or digipak CDs. Soundwise, this set is probably no better than other sets that you can get for quite a lot cheaper. However, the authenticity and vintage flavor makes it worthwhile if you're into that sort of thing. And authentic this set is, all the way down to the frickin' watercolor feature on the "In Through the Out Door" sleeve (a feature that I personally think could have been safely omitted). Beware, do not touch anyware on the image part of this sleeve with bare hands unless you want colored ink all over your fingers and a ruined sleeve. Just the natural oil on my fingertips was enough to bring out the color. The first time I took this out to play, I was listening to the CD and examining the artwork when I noticed a bunch of blue, green, and red ink on my fingers and smeared on the sleeve. I thought, "well, when they say replica, what they mean is REPLICA!" I figured I might as well finish bringing the color out now and hopfully prevent further smearing, so I took a brush with a little water to it...that was a mistake. The colors were bleeding out of the lines of the images and making a further mess. I tried to carefully wipe some of the color off around the borders to clean it up a bit while it was still wet, and that ended up rubbing some of the paper (and artwork) off. I decided to just leave it the hell alone from there; so much for that sleeve. Please learn a lesson from my misfortune and only handle this sleeve by the edges or with gloves if you would like to preserve it. Serious collectors probably don't need to worry because they probably wouldn't even take it out of the plastic packaging. However, for less anal collectors who like to enjoy their things, but keep them nice, this advice is for you. Overall, this is a great set. I only dock one star for the high price, the annoying adhesive on the protective sleeves, and for the "In Through the Out Door" crisis mentioned above.

I ran across this Led Zeppelin Definitive Collection Mini LP Replica out here at Amazon and fell in love right away. At first I did want the SHM version of the CD's, but I waited a month to long and the Box Set shot up in price to around a grand when they were not producing those anymore. So I said fine, I will 'settle' for the standard CD's that we are all used to and they sound just fine I might say, they are the 1994 remasters. The replica album covers are perfect, the Led Zeppelin III CD has the turning disk and Physical Graffiti has the windows that you can move up and down, then of course In Through The Out Door has the brown paper cover so that you cannot see the particular type of jacket that is in it. By the way, for that album they included all five available jackets that were made. The CODA disk is from The Complete Studio Recordings as disk 10 here and includes an additional 4 songs, so you get everything available after the band disbanded. Even if you have some of these CD's go ahead and get this set, just for the LP replica stuff, you are taking the CD out of a cardboard album cover/case and not a plastic jewel case and all of the CD's come in a single sturdy box to store them in. You will want to get rid of the plastic covers that are included with them because they are a pain to constantly open up and the sticky edge could stick to the cardboard CD jacket covers and ruin them, I had a close call here. This set I show to everbody who wants to check out my CD collection, I explain this is why I do not buy mp3's digitally, just the real CD's and then rip them myself.

There was, at the time of writing, one person who wrote a review of this set that claimed no sonic advantage over the previous releases. Well, I don't know what kind of 'system' he's listening through, but this is (by far)the finest-sounding version of these classic albums on the CD format. There is greater extension, improved soundfield & dynamics, greater impact & clarity, and most noticeable of all, a dramatic reduction in 'hiss' and surface noise. The sound varies slightly from album-to-album (just as it did on the original LPs), but every title sounds far superior to ANY release before these. By the way, these are NOT from Warner/Rhino, as Amazon says above. Warner/Rhino apparently HAS released a similar set; I have seen it on another site for considerably more money. These are the Japanese 'mini-LPs' (as shown in the video) - and despite what it says in another review, are re-mastered versions; some copies utilizing a process called SHM-CD (playable on any CD player and identified by those letters stamped near the center hole). Japanese pressing plants are virtual 'clean rooms' - and these CDs reflect the greater attention to detail (smoother edges and a perfectly-round center-hole, to start), both the discs themselves as well as the superb sleeves (perfectly true to every detail; even including the 'Houses Of The Holy' paper sleeve around the original LP). Even with Page's involvement, the LZ catalog always sounded compressed and somewhat flat - this process has suceeded in breathing new life into these tracks. P.S. I would like to add that I have now heard the "SHM" version (check out some of the blogs if you're confused) side-by-side on the same $200K system and was unable to tell them apart. Both sound outstanding, and with the apparent large difference in price, I would suggest buying these from Amazon before they're out of print (as they surely will soon be).

I just got this box set recently and I'm really pleased with it. When I was a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's, there were only 2 bands that I owned every single vinyl LP of, they were Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. I had sold off all my vinyl albums many, many years ago, so it brought back a lot of good memories to see these Zeppelin cd's packaged exactly the way I remember them (although in smaller form). And since I also own "Oh By the Way" by Pink Floyd (which also has their entire catalogue in "mini-LP" form), I'm content with life. It appears the CD's here are the same as the Japanese imports, as they still have the Japanese characters printed on the wrapping of the cd's. If I had to list any negatives, I'd say there's a bit of overkill with the 5 extra "In Through the Out Door" covers and the extra "Led Zeppelin I" cover. Okay, so instead of orange ink, they used blue ink. I didn't really need it. It would have been nice if they had included "How the West Was Won" and "BBC Sessions" instead of those empty CD holders. Then you'd really have the complete LZ. The music, of course, is awesome. Led Zeppelin really doesn't have a weak track in their entire catalogue. It's well worth the $150. At most other other stores, this box runs around $200+. You also get the new version of "The Song Remains the Same" and an extended "Coda", so that's a bonus too.