Any rock fans out there?

Martinmoble: Cool story. According to the band (Sabbath,) Bill Ward couldn't hack it on the drums. Look it up. Anyway, I like all those bands too. Some heavy metal and hard rock recordings from the 70s onward are surprisingly good sounding, as you probably know. I do like Classical and Jazz too. That's nice you have an audiophile society. I tried to get one going here
(Las Vegas,) and it was all talk no action.

Moonglum and Captain_winters,
Thanks guys. I'm a huge Black Sabbath fan, especially with Ozzy so I'll be getting this record. About a year ago I got an opened but untouched 5 LP set called "Black Sabbath - The Ozzy Osbourne Years" for a whooping $15 at my local record store, which is insane. It's an European release, and I understand it's pretty rare on vinyl. By far one of my best finds.
Also, I caught a rerun of an episode of "That Metal Show" on VH1 from about a year ago or so with Tony Iommi as a guest. What a humble, modest and down-to-earth guy. For a guy who's one of the founding fathers of heavy metal and venerated all over the world for decades, it speaks volumes about his character and integrity. Love the guy.

I have first UK pressings Vertigo of Self Titled, Master of Reality, Vol 4, and Bloody WWA first UK pressing, and the sound quality of 13 definitely is right up there with them. If you like the music, I can't imagine you will be disappointed with the sound quality. I have talked to 2 others in my circle that also agree with me. If you buy it and don't like the sound quality or pressing, I am almost, almost willing to send you the $20 myself.

Captain_winters,
Thanks for the offer, but I think with all the great advice you've given me on this board, I'd still owe you money regardless of how "13" sounds...:)

Well, considering that all the LPs I bought between 1970 & 2000 were never cleaned, I decided to play "13", without cleaning, just for the hell of it. :)

Manufacturing details first :
- Excellent centricity (holes not significantly off-centre)
- LPs were flat & warp free.
- Very clean pressings - well made.
- The runout grooves were well clear of the "shoulder" of the label area so no need to panic at the EOS.
- A minor criticism was that the good mastering work was spoiled by the packagers. Interior sleeves were too tight! Someone needs to show the packaging suppliers an existing LP cover for comparison. The inner sleeves were 1/4" smaller than those for regular 120g! Friction + static means they get well & truly stuck. Careless handling is liable to damage the LP during extraction. :(

Recording itself is fine and no sign of any MRA interference during play. All 4 sides played cleanly and were 100% interference free.
I won't add to the excellent reviews above other than to say the opening track will remind you of BS vol 1. Nice touch at the very end of the album (won't reveal the secret - don't want to spoil it for you! :)