The Beatles - The Beatles Stereo Box Set
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Free Music Notes for The Beatles Stereo Box Set
Free Music Review: They Got It Right This Time,Yeah Yeah Yeah!
Hit: 5 Stars
When The Beatles were first released on CD,it was in a long line of late-80's CD disapointments.First off,the first 4 albums(Please Please Me,With The Beatles,A Hard Day's Night and Beatles For Sale) were released in mono.While it's understandable that both Please Please Me and With The Beatles-both albums stereo mixes have extreme L/R channel separation(instrumentaion on the left,vocals on the right)- in that sound,both A Hard Day's Night and Beatles For Sale had excellent stereo mixes. Second off,the sound quality ranged from shrill and grating to sounding no better than a fresh copy of a LP.Third off,with the exception of Sgt. Pepper,the booklets was shoddy and skimpy.Years passed by,with all the major 60's/70's rock catalogs(the Rolling Stones,the Beach Boys,the Byrds,Bob Dylan,the Doors,Jimi Hendrix,the Who,David Bowie,Queen,the Eagles,Chicago,Yes,and Genesis)getting major sonic upgrades(sometimes mutipule times)while the offical Beatles canon remained untouched,the 87-88 masterings shortcomings growing more and more apparent.But all that changed since 9/9/09 came and passed.The black STEREO box set has all 13 original studio albums(along with a revamped 2-disc Past Masters) with the first 4 UK albums in true stereo for the first time(and there's no fake stereo here-the two "Love Me Do"s,"She Loves You","I'll Get You","P.S I Love You","Only A Northen Song" and "You Know My Name(Look Up The Number)" are presented in mono here for obvious reasons-and featuring brillant remastered sound,free of tinny/harsh top-end,muddiness and annoying tape hiss that accompanied those old 80's discs and the mindless over-compression that plauged The Beatles 1 ,with even the earliest recordings as well with later work as Revolver,Sgt. Pepper,The White Album and Abbey Road sounding rich,warm,more vibrant,and as clear as cloudless sunny day.All of the albums come in digipacks containing beautiful,colorful booklets with rare photos and detailed historical and recording notes.My only bone to pick is that the packaging is a bit unwiedly,but it's not much of a problem for me.I have fallen in love with the Beatles music again,thanks to the folks who put this together with loving care and consideration.Six stars! BTW,Get The Beatles Mono Box Set to experience The Beatles-from Please Please Me to Sgt. Pepper- the way it was meant to sound.Free Music Review: The Beatles = $200 Everyone Should Spend
Hit: 5 Stars
This is the best money I have ever spent. Now, please keep in mind that I have unilateral hearing loss, meaning that I am profoundly deaf in one ear (something I was born with, not the result of years of blasting music), and as a hearing-impaired person, I was worried that I might not be able to hear a difference between the 1987 remasters and these shiny new 2009 remasters.
I didn't have to worry. Ripping these in FLAC first thing, I can already definitely hear a wonderful difference in the sound. It's so much clearer, more vibrant, and it's just all around a revelation to hear the greatest music ever made sound as it was meant to sound: AMAZING. One concern I had as I awaited for my pre-order of this box to arrive was the stereo channel separation of the previous remasters and such (a huge problem for me, as I own an iPod, and I had to convert these ones to mono for the sound to come out in only one earphone, which compromised the quality). Thankfully, these remasters do NOT have this channel separation (or panning, as I've seen this be referred to as). I tested out the main victims of the panning: Yellow Submarine, Eleanor Rigby, and A Day In The Life to name a few, and I was so very pleased, to say the least, that I could hear everything in one earphone. I will not have to compromise quality merely for playback on my iPod (once I convert them to V0 VBR mp3 for such playback).
I am in love with the digipak packaging. Although admittedly it was a tad difficult to remove the CDs so I could rip them in FLAC, I am glad these albums are in digipak. So much more aesthetically pleasing to me, and a lot easier to carry around without the worry that the cases will crack (or worse, break) if dropped. I also love how the CD labels' designs mirror the designs of the original vinyl labels. The glossy booklets detailing the history (and, in some albums, including the original liner notes and reviews) and recording notes are a huge bonus.
Hands down, I urge every fan of music, including those of my generation (I am 18), to purchase this stereo box set if they have the means. Do not merely settle for downloading rips of it. As for those complaining about remaster versus remix: either coherently and rationally criticize it (as opposed to having a caps lock and punctuation fest, which is disrespecting the English language) or keep it to yourself and save this product page some review space for those who actually appreciate this product for what it is.
Free Music Review: History in a box
Hit: 5 Stars
Within the past year I have stopped buying physical CDs completely, moving exclusively to digital downloads from iTunes and Amazon mp3. However, when I saw The Beatles Stereo Box for only $129, I had to jump. It is $20 cheaper than the recently-released iTunes version, includes a 51-minute DVD of mini-documentaries, and best of all you have the satisfaction of knowing your investment is preserved in a beautifully-packaged physical format.
When I received the box set, I immediately ripped all 14 albums to iTunes using the Apple Lossless encoding format. This is the highest quality setting in iTunes. The 226 tracks, a little over 10 hours of music, came out to approximately 3.8 gigabytes. High resolution images of the 2009 CD covers are available through a simple Google search.
I usually try to give pros and cons to my review, but there simply are no cons to owning this box set (unless you hate The Beatles). So here are the pros:
Value: Purchasing the box set proved to be the way to go to complete and update my Beatles collection. I already own five of the albums in the box set on CD, but they are not the 2009 re-masters. At $129, each of the 14 albums comes out to less than $10, not counting the included 51-minute DVD.
Audio quality: These 2009 remasters sounds amazing. I am hardly an audiophile, but I can indeed tell a difference between these versions and the earlier CD releases. These albums sound rich, full, and clear without coming across as overly-processed. Some might disagree, but for hardcore Beatles fans, when sonic perfection isn't as important as the music itself, this box set is fantastic. In fact, I would argue that because The Beatles were constantly stretching the limitations of recording technology in the studio, these remasters, which indeed make use of the latest technology as of 2009, stay true to that philosophy.
Packaging: the packaging is obvious from the photos available. It's very well done and of very high quality. The cardboard sleeves and liner notes have a glossy finish, and each sleeve recreates most of the aspects of the original LP. This makes the box set a very worthwhile collector's item and keepsake. Each booklet contains the original liner notes, along with more recent "recording notes" from George Martin.
DVD: I have not had a chance to view the mini-films compiled on a single disc, but the sleeve says the running time is 51 minutes.
Free Music Review: Hand's down the best the Beatles have ever sounded
Hit: 5 Stars
I can sympathize with those who are upset with the remastering of the Beatles albums. The original recordings are so iconic that changing them in any way would seem akin to retouching the Mona Lisa or rescoring Beethoven's 9th Symphony. But that said, this is absolutely the best that the Beatles have ever sounded to me. Individual songs come alive in ways that I've never heard before. And this is as true of very late albums as early ones. Listening to a song like "I'm a Loser" or "I'll Follow the Sun" from BEATLES FOR SALE seem fresher and more detailed than on my older CDs. And even later albums like ABBEY ROAD (which I must have listened to three hundred times when I was 16) seem incredibly new. There are definitely a number of changes in the arrangement, in particular in decreasing the degree of separation between the channels. So it has been changed, but being as honest with myself as possible, I have to acknowledge that in nearly every instance I like the changes. Using headphones I found many of the original versions to be somewhat irritating, with the instruments segregated radically to one or another track. They are still separated, but this has been decreased to a degree.
But mainly I'm just blown away by the clarity of the recordings. There is just so much more detail in all of these cuts now. When I was a teen, I went through a Beatles phase that was only matched later by a Dylan phase that I went through in college. Songs that I listened to hundreds and hundreds of times reveal nuance and detail that I never experienced before.
Each individual lover of the Beatles is going to respond differently to these remasterings. Theoretically, I'm bothered by the notion of remastering to this degree. Pragmatically, I loved what they've done. Unless you are violently opposed to the idea of rearranging songs by the Beatles, I strongly recommend this box set to lovers of the Beatles. If you are violently opposed, I still recommend trying to stay open minded to these discs. Either buy a single disc and give it a try or borrow one from a friend. Give them an honest chance. You may find that, like me, you are theoretically bothered by what they've done, but, also like me, that in practice you find you like what they've done a very great deal. This is definitely my choice for best album of the year.
Free Music Review: Worth every penny
Hit: 5 Stars
Well, despite my having the entire Beatles collection on CD since 1988, I love this group too much to have not purchased their remastered stereo box set. I'm very glad I did. The sound is definitely sharper. The bass and drums, in particular are more defined; the 1987 CDs now sound too trebley and tinny by comparison.
Obviously the biggest difference to most of us who owned the original cds is in the first four lps (Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night, Beatles For Sale) which were only in mono version, and are presented here in stereo. Now, this is minor complaint, and the only complaint I have, but I almost prefer the mono version of the first two lps to the stereo versions. The two channel recording technology of 1963 gave George Martin and The Beatles no better alternative than to record all instruments on one track and vocals on the other, which is probably why stereo was a poor option at this point in history. The vocals on most tracks on Please Please Me sound a little too echoey in stereo, but was probably the preferred way of recording with mono in mind. The Beatles themselves also weren't taking the stereo mixdown of their early recordings too seriously, and few people had hi-fi equipment for such a listening experience anyway. Now, having said that, once it gets to A Hard Day's Night and Beatles For Sale, I think the stereo mix sounds really good, whether the Beatles put much care into the mixdown at the time or not. So, the recordings of 1963? Yeah....maybe a little better in mono, but a very minor complaint when taking the overall quality of the new stereo remasters in mind. Everything from A Hard Day's Night on sounds better, in my opinion.
The extras are a nice touch to the box set. The booklets with each cd are great, and the dvd with mini-documentaries of each album is surprisingly good, for somebody like me who thought he'd seen just about every piece of Beatle footage.
As a Beatles fanatic, I may consider purchasing the mono box set one of these days, but I just really love the crisper sounds of the new stereo remasters. Even the overly echoey vocals on some of the Please Please Me and With The Beatles tracks aren't reason enough for me to drop my grade to an A- on the stereo box set. I give this an A!