NP - Beatles Remasters

[Carvill, John]

> It's true that  semi-pro needle drops may have superior sound to the
'87 transfers-I've heard some wonderful bootleg transfers of session
tapes that beat the crap out of the Anthology transfers-but the vinyl
still kills the needle drops.

Oh yeah, I know, there's no replacement for proper vinyl. But in terms
of CDs, these are the best I've heard, what I've heard so far. They are
*so* good, that they, at their best, can *almost* be compared to vinyl.

> First, if you can-get the Mono set. Those have good eq choices and no
compression.

I will, it's only a matter of time. Part of the reason for delaying is I
want to enjoy the stereo discs first and if I plunged straight into mono
that might spoil the stereo for me.

> Every aspect of the mono mix of Pepper is superior.

I think that may be over-stating the case, there are interesting aspects
of both versions. But yeah, the mono is better overall, as in a lot of
Bealtes albums. But maybe Revolver, maybe Pepper, is where the stereo
starts to compete, where the debate gets interesting. For instance, on
'She Said, She Said', the mono sounds good, but the music drops down
noticeably when the vocals come in, which spoils the impact a bit.


> One notices that Dirk McQuickly's bass lines are now the lead
instrument and that all of Ron Nasty's vocals have been erased.

Heh. There's an amusing, if not too credible, rumour going around, that
McCartney and Ringo somehow bullied the Abbey Road engineers into
boosting their parts of the performances. Not that it's even remotely
possiible, but, had they tried to pull such a trick, don't you think
Yoko might have had something to say?

Thanks for the tip on the Hoffman forum, I know it well. But I wanted to
get the opinions of p-listers, rather than hard-core Beatle-audiophiles.


Cheers
J