"New" Beatles Mono Catalog Release on 180gr Vinyl

Two years ago, when it became apparent that the stereo reissue of these Beatles albums were mastered from 24/44.1Khz masters, I started snatching up what I could find among the used albums, coming away with "The Beatles Second Album," "Something New" in mono, a Parlophone stereo version of "Help!" and a Capitol mono pressing of "Sgt Peppers."

Today I took delivery of my order of the new EMI mono LPs from the analog masters. I didn't get the box set, but got everything individually except "Help," MMT, and the White Album. What I have is incredible and exceeded my expectations in every aspect. I'm really surprised how subterranean the noise floor is and how extended the bandwidth is. If I had it to do over I wish I'd just gotten the entire box set. As good as my "Help" (Parlophone), MMT, and white albums are, based on what I've heard, I suspect those new ones are better.

10-05-14: Tonykay
Slaw,
"Revolver" may be my favorite Beatles title. Your comment that the soundstage is "closed in" worries me a little. Did you use a dedicated mono cartridge or stereo?

I have no no modern-day experience with a mono cartridge, and I love the involving effect of great soundstage and imaging. However, when it comes to multi-miked, multi-tracked studio albums, imaging and soundstage can be a crapshoot. When it comes to mono, you know the image is going to center between the speakers. Even so, mono usually has very nice sense of depth and ambienc, which these LPs have.

The most important trait (to me is tonal balance. And in this parameter, these new Mono analog LPs trump the thin, brittle-sounding Capitol stereo versions handily. They have a completely different gestalt. Before I heard EMI/Parlophone LPs, I had thought that Beatles albums had a thin and brittle-sounding tonal balance.

Not so for the mono versions, which are warm, rich, and full-sounding. EMI mixed these albums with mono in mind, and I love them. They re-define what I thought Beatles albums sounded like. Sgt. Peppers reflects the balance I hear on my 1st-run Capitol mono pressing. The engineering team spent about 4 days mixing down Sgt. Peppers to mono and about 4 hours to do the stereo version. It shows. The tonal balance is so much better, I really don't care how wide the soundstage is. I'll take these mono versions over the fake stereo versions any day, where the voices were hard left and instruments hard right.

My enthusiasm over the Beatles mono masters does not mean that I consider mono to be superior to stereo, per se. I like these Beatles masters because:

1) Against all conventional wisdom, EMI listened to the audiophile contingent (Thanks, Michael Fremer), bucked the digitizing trend, and maintained an all-analog signal chain to remaster and release these recordings.

2) In the original sessions George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and the rest recorded, mixed, and mastered these recordings to be mono, and did the stereo mixes more as an afterthought purely for commercial purposes.

So although I prefer good stereo to mono, when mono has the superior mix and tonal balance, I'll take the mono. When the choice is 44.1 Khz digitized stereo or all-analog mono, again I'll take mono.

My all-time favorites are the 3-mic stereo labors of love from RCA Living Stereo, Mercury Living Presence, and the early Columbias (Miles Davis, Bruno Walter & CBS Symph Orch) before they got into close-mic'd multi-track recording.

10-09-14: Gpgr4blu
The new Beatles mono set is, in a word, fabulous. ... The pressing quality is as
good it gets. An absolute must for any Beatle fan with a turntable.

I'll go one better and say that this Beatles release is the best
reason to go out and *buy* a turntable if you don't have one.

The Pro-Ject Debut Carbon is only a few bucks more than the box set itself, and
is plenty good to bring these pressings to life.

In the October issue of TAS, Sean Magee, engineer for this project, said that while
they're all excellent, The Beatles (white album) stands out by delivering more of
what's going on in that album than any previous release of it.

I got 7 of the new albums; I may have to go back for this one, and maybe all
three (Help!, MMT, White Album).

I personally haven't tried this, but for those hoping to find a reasonably-priced mono cartridge, Grado makes two, the MC+ with conical stylus for $90 and the ME+ with elliptical stylus for $150. Both have replaceable stylii as well.

For those of you with removeable headshells, this would be a smart buy and it would only take a minute or two to swap in the mono cartridge when you want to play Beatles mono pressings or other mono for that matter. In addition to 7 of the 2014 Beatles mono pressings, I also have several '50s-'60s mono classical albums such as orthophonic RCA shaded dogs; it might be worth it for me to get one of these myself.