TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : Excellent Good Fair Poor : COMPACT DISCS

“Master of Reality.” Black Sabbath. Castle (import). AAD (analog original). Since there are no domestic CDs yet of the seminal heavy-metal group’s albums, fans might be tempted to buy this Japanese pressing. Beware. Sure, “Master of Reality” is a genre landmark--not the English band’s debut LP but the first one to fully display its trademark big boom. But the CD is a sonic oddity, with a slight, scratchy edge on loud passages, as if “re-mastered” from somebody’s well-worn copy! On top of that, the timings on the cover for the no-nukes “Children of the Grave” and the instrumental “Embryo” are transposed.