"New" Beatles Mono Catalog Release on 180gr Vinyl

I bought this new box as well. A neighbor has the early UKs, so we will try to do our own comparo once the box arrives. I never 'collected' The Beatles and an old UK Blue Box has served me well. But, I have been buying a few other copies around the fringes- an '82 japanese red mono of Rubber Soul, the 78 UK white vinyl White album (stereo). The coolest one, sonically, is that Horzu Die Beatles -2 pressing. Straight up early Beatles, and fairly gettable.

Had a chance to listen to Sgt Pepper yesterday. Vinyl is very quiet, voices sound clearer and there seems to be better space around the instruments. This is with the stereo cartridge, will try the mono cartridge over the weekend along with listening to more selections. A very nice job so far.

So far all of my mono recordings, new or old pressings sound better with my Lyra Helikon mono than with my Koetsu Urushi Black Phono Cartridge. There is better layering, height and clarity with the mono cartridge. I think it is because there is no vertical compliance with a mono cartridge so it does not have to deal with it.

I have 2 Beatles White Albums first pressings. The first one I purchased for a low price, it was not in great shape and had quite a lot of surface noise. Then I went and bought another at a much steeper price and it sounded great, at the time I only had the Koetsu. After purchasing the Lyra I played the first one again, it was not as good as the second one even with the mono cartridge but most of the surface noise was gone and it sounded very good. After that I no longer looked at mono records the same, even if they look bad they for the most part sound very good. The only issues I look for is groove error from when people used coins on the head shells and/or too much tracking force.

I am getting the new box set and will be trying it with both cartridges.

I backed up my perception with my order of the mono box.

Based on my own experience with Beatles vinyl. (I've never heard an original UK Parlaphone).

Their catalog up to MMT is most likely best heard on mono.

Again, this is just from my personal experience. I will order the mono box. (This is partly due to the value it will have in the future).I also plan to order some separate lps on the stereo issues.

Anyone remember the "Yellow Submarine" remaster around 10 years ago on yellow vinyl? It sounds fantastic. So does "Let It Be Naked".

The stereo versions of early Beatles are hard to listen to because they were meant to be listened to in mono.

My unofficial, end user opinion.

I also heard these are analog.

I like'm mono as well. Parlofone pressings is the way to go, but $$$. I guess new releases may drive the price down by notch.

Along with Led Zep, these are the most protected tape assets in the biz. I am sure they are taken off the original masters.

I love the monos from 1962 to 1967. This is how they were listened to by the band. The White Album was the first non-mono mix.

Czarivey, If one can believe Abbey Road engineer Paul Hicks, the mono tapes are in good condition. As quoted from Sound on Sound:

Because of their importance, the analogue masters had been scrupulously maintained and archived. “All the Beatles tapes are in fantastic order, the multitracks as well as the quarter-inches,” enthuses Paul. “Guy and I have been doing Beatles stuff for about 15 years, on and off, and we’ve never baked a Beatles tape. The formula on that EMI tape was just fantastic. The only thing we did find, which we had to be incredibly careful with when we were transferring it — and especially with the monos, which hadn’t been played in 40 years — was that a lot of the glue had dried up on the edits. So on the first wind-back you had to be incredibly careful, because a lot of the edits just split apart when winding. We had to get the gloves on!”

“For the transfer and archiving part of the process, we did it song by song,” continues Guy. “So if the tapes had come apart when we were spooling back, we’d replace all those [splices] — same length, we’d measure them all and make sure it was all pukka — and then song by song we’d transfer them. We’d transfer the first one, go back, clean the whole tape path again. Beginning of each week, we’d de-mag the heads. We had a speed reader on the capstan all the time so we knew it was running at the right speed.”

“We’d line up and then we’d always play through, manually checking the azimuth,” says Paul. “It was amazing just by tweaking that, if nothing else, how much more top end you could potentially get. That was a significant part of the transfer process.”

I preordered mine the second this set was announced.

it's not possible today to rebuild this mono catalog without digital re-mastering. i wouldn't be surprised if the tapes are already sounding very poor today.
the tapes are darn old and missing half of recorded information if not more.
early re-issues in EX or better condition can be found on internet and that's better and cheaper way to go.
for audiophile folks it's more important to have crispy sound so i assume that this bundle had been electronically re-processed to meet audiophile standards.

My impression is that there is no digital in the trail from the new discs back to the master tapes. Hi rez digital versions were made for reference purposes in remixing, so that the master tapes did not degrade from having to be played over and over. But its all analog all the way back. The electronics are solid state rather than tubes, and the cutting heads are new and different than the originals, of course.

You might want to check your facts, Wildoats. According to Fremmer and An,luge Planet: "Apple Corps and Universal Music Group today announced the September 8th release date (September 9th in North America) of the long-anticipated Beatles’ mono vinyl reissue series, cut to lacquer using the original analogue master tapes."
So, I don't these are from digital masters. Wrong? I've got mine on pre-order.

Hmm, maybe I should have read the RS article 1st. if these are truly from the analog masters then this is what everyone has been waiting for, forever.

I'm not too excited as it's fake vinyl, taken from the digital masters. As R. Harley says from ABSOLUTE SOUND, "it's like trying to turn hamburger back into steak. I'm sure they sound good, but so do the mono cd's. Most vinyl coming out now is fake based on digital masters.