If you already own all of The Beatles albums in stereo on CD already then you may be wondering if it’s really worth it to buy them all again because they’ve been remastered and repackaged in The Beatles In Stereo Box Set.
The appeal of The Beatles Mono Box Set is easier to understand. This is the first time these mono mixes have ever been released on CD and in the case of mono version of The White Album, it’s the first time it has ever released in the US in any format.
Sound quality is the key with The Beatles in Stereo set. While the mixes aren’t new, sometimes they sound so much more clear that they might as well be.
One comparison that should help you understand the improvement in sound quality with these remastered CDs is the comparison from VHS to DVD and then from DVD to Blu-Ray. To my ears, this difference is at least as big of a jump as VHS to Blu-Ray is a jump in video quality.
But I actually this it’s a far more revelatory experience than seeing a movie in high definition because hearing each of the parts of The Beatles music clearly really adds a lot more depth to the appreciation of the music more so than seeing a crisper version of a movie adds more appreciation to the viewing of that movie.
Hearing these newly remastered Beatles CDs is like hearing them for the first time. Yes, the improvements in warmth & clarity are that big!
I’ve read that they worked on these remasters for years to get them just perfect and that work has really paid off because they managed to capture all of the original analog warmth of the original master tapes while also managing to make them more clear so that all of the parts of the music are easier to hear.
Paul’s bass (and he wrote a lot of awesome bass parts with The Beatles) and Ringo’s drums are probably the biggest winners in these new remastered versions because the bass and the drums really cut through these songs like never before.
I was worried that they would lose the original ambiance and warmth of the music in an attempt to “modernize” the music. I was also worried that they would take part in the horrible “loudness wars” that are ruining the sound quality of most modern music. It turns out I had nothing to be worried about. These newly remastered stereo mixes sound absolutely fantastic.
