The Beatles RemastersAt the risk of stating the obvious, if you are a rock fan then you owe it to yourself to look into the new Beatles remasters. This is, in my opinion, the most important music release of 2009. Several of these albums are making their debut in mono on the CD format, and for many audiophiles this is a watershed event. I pre-ordered both the mono and stero boxed sets from Amazon.com on July 11th and received them on Wednesday, September 9th.
Here is the mono set:
and here is the stereo set:
I have not had time to go through all of this music, but I have heard enough of it to recommend both. The Steve Hoffman forum is buzzing with a lot of talk about these sets and the consensus is very positive. I have listened to the following: Revolver in both stereo and mono, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in both stereo and mono (and also compared it to my original 1967 UK mono vinyl pressing), and Magical Mystery Tour in both stereo and mono. As someone who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, I remember listening to this music in mono. I did not hear stereo mixes until the 1980s.
Without going into too much detail I will say that I found the mono CDs to be very authentic. The mono Sgt. Pepper on CD was very, very close to the 1967 vinyl. I wish I had an original 1966 UK mono pressing of Revolver to compare, but nevertheless I am very pleased with the mono CDs. On a lot of songs the mono mix is better resolving and you can hear more than on the stereo mixes. But there is a lot to recommend the stereo mixes as well. If you never thought much of Ringo as a drummer or Paul McCartney as a bass player then these remasters will provide you with some new perspective.
I know that $400+ is a lot of scratch to throw down for both sets. Only you can judge for yourself if there is enough value here. The stereo CDs are available individually so if there were a few titles of interest you could snag those without breaking the bank. The mono albums are not available seperately and according to EMI they are a limited edition...though how many sets they will ultimately produce seems to be up in the air.
This is most certainly something you should check out.
--Jerome