[witchdoctor]

I think the original abbey road masters are analog tape recorded in mono.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-08-07/beatles-abbey-road-remix-50th-anniversary-giles-martin

[Digi-G]

Definitely analog tape.  Abbey Road was available in stereo only, no mono.  For the rare country that did release a mono version, it's purported to be a fold-down of the stereo mix.

[wushuliu]

Before you blame the witchdoctor I am not the one saying stereo is dead, it was the general feeling of the recoding engineers in attendance at the Audio Engineering Society show October 19th in NYC according to Walt Zerbe of CEDIA. On his show recap on this CEDIA podcast Walt was saying that the studios are remixing their back catalogs in immersive audio (NOT surround). The two leading formats at this time are Dolby Atmos and Sony 360. They also discussed why nobody talked about delivery via disc or blueray, only streaming. Apparently you can standardize the loudness of a stream using limiters where discs have issues with different loudness factors.
He talked about an immersive mix demo of miles davis where you could walk around the listening space as if you were on stage and standing next to Miles, or the bass player, etc. You MUST listen to this CEDIA podcast, it will change how you think about your next equipment purchase by a factor of a lot. For all you two channel fans don't worry, every immersive mix will be backward compatible with stereo so it won't actually be dead, just a fossil:

https://www.cedia.net/insights/cedia-blog-detail/blog/2019/10/25/the-cedia-podcast-episode-147-the-latest-in-audio-engineering

Whatever. They said the same thing in the late 90s. SACDs and multichannel/5.1 mixes will be the future!

Look how that turned out. It's like Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality has been on the verge of 'changing everything' for almost 30 years now.

There is IMO a fundamental aspect to how humans are hardwired such that 'immersive' entertainment is not appealing. It's too disorienting and messes with how we process stimuli. It's fun for a minute and appeals to a tiny niche but not as a replacement for stereo (or even mono) listening.

[rollo]

  Well thanking my lucky stars for having more music on LP and CD that will last me until its over. My simple rule is to play recordings recorded in analog with analog gear. Digital recordings with digital gear.
   For my ears the issues with sound quality arises when it is up sampled, recorded in another format and the like. Remastered better than original OK. Liking a lot the Blue Coast recordings actually recorded in DSD. Expensive at $40 ea but OM goodness.


charles

[witchdoctor]

Thanks rollo, Blue Coast offers a free download on their site, I'll check it out.

[FullRangeMan]