Bongofury,
Can you tell me how the bass level sounds on "All My Loving" off "With the Beatles" , with the new mono discs in comparison to the old?
I have been listening to my old issue CD copies of Please Please Me and With the Beatles. These do not sound bad but I think they could sound better, particularly in regards to soundstage and perhaps detail on some cuts.
The bass level in "All My Loving" in particular is quite low and buried and not clear in the mix in particular I notice on the old CD masters. Bass is not bad on most other cuts from these albums, but might be better I'm guessing. |
"the Monos are more 'believable' as performances"
Ever hear The BEatles "Live at the BBC" package?
That set has actual live performances that really present the raw musical talents of those whacky BEatles perhaps better than any of their studio cuts, which obviously stand on their own artistic merits as well. |
"but the performances were done during the early stages of their career, so there is no way to compare their later work. "
YEs, the early and later work are two different beasts and largely represent the transition from "rock and roll" created largely for the purpose of dancing as it became established in America in the 50's to "rock" and all its derivations, which is what became popular after the BEatles and though occasionally danceable, covers a much wider array of artistic purpose and intent.
Early and later BEatles are two different things and their transition is a microcosm of the transition that rock and pop music itself underwent during their tenure, FWIW.
Its also noteworthy that rock and roll had its roots in prior uniquely American music forms created and popularized largely by African Americans, prior to Elvis, in the middle 1950's. Rock and Roll music actually faded from popularity then in the late 50's after many of the big names of the time (Elvis, Chuck BErry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly + co) stopped performing for various reasons. The BEatles took this and presented it as a stylish British import fueled by their raw talent back to AMerica several years later and then introduced their own artistic variations.
Fascinating stuff! |
BTW, fantastic marketing move issuing two box sets knowing that Beatles completists will have to have both in order to retain that status.
The charitable thing to do would have been to issue both mono and stereo versions in a similar reasonably priced package.
Oh well, great art does not come cheaply I suppose.... |
Lucked out and managed to pick up a mono box set today.
Will be checking it out shortly.... |
Shadorne,
Ripped the disks to music server and spent the afternoon servin up the tunes randomly, with a couple original CD masters and "Live at the BBC" mixed in (while watching US football in HD on the tube...I definitely have it too good).
Here are my initial observations
- The sound overall is very good throughout, consistently as good as I have heard.
- The mono cuts have consistently solid and well defined soundstage, better as a whole than the old mono mixes
- the low end fills in which much better weight and punch overall but are done well, not artificially overdone
- I like all the mono versions I have heard a lot. It is easier to focus in on and absorb what is happening.
- the later albums (Pepper through White) is where I notice the biggest differences in actual music content/ mixes from stereo consistently. If you have good ears and are a "White Album" fan, that alone might justify the cost of admission. WA in mono is a huge improvement over the prior stereo mastering. Losing the stereo tricks of the day is a huge improvement.
- The mono disks include stereo versions of "Help" and "Rubber Soul" as well. These also sound as good as I've heard in comparison to earlier stereo masters.
-the difference between this mastering and prior CD are marginal on some cuts, like "I'll Get You", mostly because the old versions are really quite good rather than the new ones being deficient
- the set is worth it if you will be spending time in the future listening to Beatles music and have a good system, otherwise, I still think the old CD masters are largely serviceable. I will nt be getting rid of mine. |
Spent some time listening on Stax headphones last night. If you know these recordings by heart having heard them so many times over the years, you can really notice subtle differences and details that way. The stereo remasters in the mono box set are definitely more "fun" to listen to with headphones. The various recording components (tracks I suppose) come in and out quite startlingly the way they were mixed. Hearing three distinct individual voices in harmonies on "The Word" was cool. ANd McCartney's bass in "Norwegian Wood" presented itself quite cleanly and nicely for example.
Also, with the stereo cuts in particular under the magnifying glass of a pair of good headphones, you can clearly hear that a lot of signal processing (compression/expansion/limiting?) was applied to the various tracks in various ways in order to produce the desired results. The result is that yes you hear a lot of differences including new details and nuances among other things (some recording/processing artifacts) that you did not hear before, but the listening experience can be a bit jarring and uneven compared to music played live and sounds very much like various tracks mixed together in a recording studio. Still, a revelation and a lot of fun to hear with these tunes from that particular stage of the Beatles career as well since experimentation in the recording studio is largely what they were about at the time. |
Seditious,
More so the "Rubber SOul" stereo tracks in the mono box set, but in the "Help" stereo tracks as well.
"Run For Your Life" as well as the cuts I mentioned, "The Word" and "Norwegian Wood" were places where I recall things sounded a lot different than I recall from the older stereo versions I am familiar with. I believe "The Night BEfore" is another.
I was listening with all tracks from the box set plus all tracks from the earlier "Live at the BBC" release cued up in "juke box" mode randomly for comparisons and these are a few of the cuts that came up where I recall noticing these things in particular. I have not yet listened start/finish to any single disk from the mono set and have not yet heard every song on each new mono album. |
Rick,
My understanding is that none of the new remasters (including the new stereo remasters) are remixed, so the music content is the same even though the sound is different.
So are the stereo versions of "Rubber Soul" and "Help" included in the mono box set the same as the new separately issued stereo remasters or something still even different from those?
Also, I wonder why only those two albums in the mono box set include stereo versions of the individual tracks?
BTW, though the final verdict on all the box set albums is still out, the one album where I think the monos may be lacking so far in comparison to older stereo versions I am familiar with is "Revolver", which so far my impression is that at least some tracks miss some of the life that stereo helped breathe into the various studio tricks the Beatles cracked open for that particular album. I'm not finding this to be the case so far in general with either Rubber Soul or Pepper, the two albums that preceeded and came after it where the BEatles were most into innovation within the recording studio. |
I'm reading that the stereo cuts in the mono box set are the original experimental stereo mixes from when those albums came out but now on CD.
From this I'm inferring then that the new stereo remasters outside the mono box set are of latter standard stereo mixes of those two albums that the original CD versions from the 80's were based on as well, however now remastered to the nth degree as well, so probably better sounding than the stereo cuts in the mono box set as well.
Clear as mud???
The stereo cuts in the mono box are certainly not bad and I suppose do sound somewhat experimental given that this is supposedly what they were, but I'm actually happy to find out that these are different from the real, new, stereo remastered versions because there were definitely some rough edges listening under the headphone microscope.
I suppose once I get a feel for the weaker recordings in the mono issues, I will have to then buy at least a few new stereo remaster versions as well in order to sate my desire to have the most rewarding version of each album. Revolver will be top of the list at present.
Hell, maybe I'll just buy the whole stereo set as well and cover all the bases, for better or worse.
Boy, those marketing guys at Apple Corps. sure got me pegged....
Still gotta compare with my old standby vinyl albums I have also, which includes MFSL recordings of Pepper and Abbey Road.
Beatles, anyone? |
