Beatles Remastered Vinyl

In my defence this is the first time I have ever bought any Beatles, other than Sgt Pepper, so I think I've waited long enough, I know there is all the talk of the Mono Boxsets coming but this new thing called stereo really appeals  So hopefully this will be the one and only Beatles purchase I will ever need.

You're right Graham, it's up to £299.75 now, maybe there was a flood of orders after I posted the link so they had a change of heart.

Hi Steve,

I decided to go with Amazon in the end as they seem to be taking care with their packaging so hopefully it will be with me shortly, how long after ordering did delivery take?

Hi Paul.

Ordered my box Sunday afternoon and it arrived Tuesday morning 8.00am by DHL, not bad service IMO.

Graham.

Dear Steve,

the UK´s will surely be better, but I am not a rich person and I can´t afford UK-1st´s...so I am very happy with what they did.

I could easily talk myself into buying this but as I recall I played the cd box set a couple of times when i got it and then only a few times when the mood takes me since so £300 is on the vinyl seems a lot - so much good stuff about I think I'll pause on this one.......

Gary

Musiclover,

My box set arrived today. I've only had time to compare one album; Beatles For Sale. The 1st press is also Stereo. Unfortunately the 1st press wins hands down. The new album sounds muffled in comparison. Don't get me wrong the new one is acceptable if you don't have the original but to me it sounds like a 'good' digital copy. Why the fcuk they couldn't simply put out a pure analogue reissue astounds me. Maybe some of the other albums will be better but somehow I doubt it.

ATB

Steve

Steve,

The analogue tapes are 40+ years old so maybe too degraded now ?

Debs

Strangely enough, for a Beatles fan such as myself, I’ve only ever heard two Beatle albums on vinyl, Help and Rubber Soul, and they’ve both crappy 1989 remastered issues so both have total pi$$-take SQ.

Plus I have Abbey Road on CD which is actually better but from the same re-masterings so not brilliant.

However, my only past enjoyment experience with the fab four on vinyl was the odd compilation of Beatles songs in the [1978 issue?] 8 x LP Readers Digest promotional box-set. Sounds very dubious I know, and it looks really pants, but I remember the pressings being quite okay and the SQ sounded wonderfully analogue with very good enjoyable punchy SQ.

Just one of the items from my original collection that I shouldn’t have sold off 20 years ago…

Debs

True lots of good new stuff, but none as good as this ... played 3 albums so far and they are worth the entrance fee alone .......... wonderful. People will pay £1000s for a new piece of kit, but think think music is a bit expensive ... well I'd sooner it was cheaper, but this is just so good ... 

Only 50,000 copies and they'll be gone .... perhaps I should buy two and keep one as an off premises backup just like for streaming audio. 

Well, as Spike Milligan once said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - get it out with Optrex"

Seems both here and on the Hoffman Forum people are happy and saddened by these Beatles remasters in equal measure.

I took delivery of Abbey Road today, as I wanted to dip a toe in the water. I don't have an original LP, but I do have a (Debs style) early digital copy, and tracks like Come Together on the 67-70 blue compilation, which happens to be an analogue version, even though mine is an 80s pressing. So no "heritage" versions to compare.

The early digital is the least good. No question. The 2009 remaster is flat, quiet and more detailed. Better. But my umpteenth press analogue 67-70 version of Come Together is just much better still. Vibrant, detailed, natural. I would love to hear a first press. Strikes me the 2009 is alright, but not worth getting excited about.

I cheered myself up with a spin of Riders on the Storm from the latest Analogue Productions master of LA Woman. Now that is an example of mastering, pressing, and jacket splendour. Surely the Beatles deserve that treatment?

And then depressed myself with a spin of the layest Steven Wilson Thick as a Brick LP. There is something very not right about that mastering. One of my favourite records almost butchered. What a shame. Strangely TAAB2 is fine.

Another thread maybe.....

I have four thoughts on that, Guy:

1)  great idea, if that's a reasonable expenditure for you;

2)  funny, if it was intended to be (the part about the backup);

3)  the mono CDs were a limited edition of 10,000 which sold out quickly, where upon a second edition of an undisclosed number was printed and are still available new;

4)  I called four record shops in the Seattle/Bellevue area on Sunday to inquire about the cost of the vinyl set;  

• one respondent didn't know the remasters were being released on vinyl
• two shops each had four of the vinyl sets, three of those eight were pledged to customers
• the last shop didn't have any, but offered to order it for me.

My point is that more will be printed if the demand is there (IMO) and the demand on these shores may not be as great as it seems on this forum.  I'd speculate the target demographic for the set is males age 50-65, middle class or better, with "audiophile-level" gear (oh, and a TT ).  It will be interesting to see how they sell.

I'm glad you are enjoying your set.  Makes me think I will, too.  Cheers!

I'm glad someone else feels that way. Not a patch on my original copy; there's just something off about it that I can't put my finger on

Well I wasn't going to but......................having read your glowing reports I did. From Spincds and it arrived within 48 days in exactlythe same packaging as in the picture above. I thought they could have my money rather than amazon. And I can only agree! The pressings are very fine so far. Abbey Road is just getting played and played and played.

I totally agree about absolute analogues re issue of LA Woman an absolutely superb sounding recording. I have TAAB re issue but only played TAAB2 so far which was ok. Worried about TAAB after these comments!!!

Mine arrived earlier this afternoon. Very impressed with the packaging and the general production quality (especially on the book).

Have sat down and listened to a selection of tracks - "Girl", "Drive My Car", "The Word" "A Little Help From My Friends", "Eleanor Rigby", "A Day in the Life", "Taxman", "Tomorrow Never Knows" and they all sound quite awesome. Oddly I'm not that convinced by Abbey Road thus far - I think my old Jap copy sounds better, but wil, have to evaluate properly.

Sgt Pepper sounds also very very nice. 

Very happy with it. Nice tonal balance...my German was a bit "shrill".

"Norwegian Wood" sounds quite, quite remarkable.

Have now played through the whole set and the quality of the EU pressings has delighted me.... not one single pop or click the whole way though... very refreshing compared to my experience with a lot of modern vinyl and a somewhat different experience to the one across the Atlantic by all accounts.

I haven't yet had time to make comparisons with my original pressings bought when they first came out.... but.... have to bear in mind these must have been played a good few hundred times over the past 45 years or so..... fortunately not on a Dansette!

Michael,

If you're happy with the new LP's don't listen to your original 1st presses, you may be disappointed. 

ATB

Steve

Yes Steve... I know exactly where you are coming from there!

Still...........  as Pam is an avid Fab Four fan she is so pleased to have such a wonderful package.... so worth every penny in her eyes.

Michael Fremer has a review of the US remastered vinyl for Rubber Soul.  This one was sourced from George Martin's 1987 16 bit, 44.1k remix.  Michael is mostly unflattering of the SQ and says it sounds like a CD.
http://www.analogplanet.com/content/rubber-souled-out  

Any thoughts from the European market listeners?

Except it's no where near that good  

I have to agree with him. See my posts above.

I agree the packaging is great, the pressings are flat, quiet with good reproduction of the labels, but the SQ and presentation does come across a bit flat and veiled compared to the original analogue pressings.

Shame.

Steve

Oh well. I did for a fleeting moment consider investing in the set but now I'll not bother. (See you later Steve)

Question ~

If, hypothetically, forty years ago in 1972 they produced a Beatles stereo box-set of their 14 albums, how much would it have cost back then?

The new box-set @ £300 or so is a little less than an 'average' weeks wage, but how much would it have been in 1972, and how would it relate to how many average weekly wages?

I would think that adding up the 1972 prices of all the 14 albums would probably be a good approximate [we can throw the box and the book in for free]. I was too young with no money in the early 70’s and had no idea how much LP’s cost in those days, or how much an average weekly wage was.

Debs

Relatively speaking Debs it would have cost much more in the '60s/'70s than the box set costs today.