Mono vs stereo

Nice post, bdp.  On the early Beach Boys LPs, I recall that Surfin' Safari, Surfin' USA, Surfer Girl, Shut Down Vol. 2, Little Deuce Coupe, the Christmas album, In Concert and All Summer Long were all stereo.  The Duophonic crap started with Beach Boys Today and Summer Days (at least, I think so).

czarivey, I may be in the minority but I prefer the early Beatles in stereo.  Of course I wish they'd done a better job with the panning of the tracks but given the method they used (bouncing between two four tracks, etc.) I'll live with it.  If I"m not mistaken the early mono mixes were done from the stereo mix, so the stereo would be one generation fresher on top of everything else.  I know that later they did separate mixes.

bdp, yes, the later Beatles mixes can be very different between stereo and mono.  Listen to the stereo version of the song Yellow Submarine and you don't hear "a life of ease--everyone of of us" and on the stereo Sgt. Pepper's Reprise you don't hear McCartney's "barker" shouting at the end, right before the segue to A Day In the Life.  Somebody fell asleep at the board on those.  But the early Beatles recordings are not that way.   As I said, the mono mixes of those were (according to George Martin) made from the stereo mix.  He made the stereo mix the way he did to facilitate the making of the mono mix.
 The Beach Boys mixes were a bit weird anyway, in concept, because you've got an artist with only one good ear trying to mix in stereo.  Doesn't work so well.  Brian did assist with the 90's Pet Sounds stereo remix (which I prefer to any other mix of that work).