The Beatles Stereo Box Review
Now that I have had The Beatles Remastered Stereo Box Set for almost a full week I think it’s time to do a review of the set as a whole. Now I have heard everything at least once (although some albums I’ve heard multiple times and others just once) and I have no reservations in saying that these remastered CDs are far superior to the old CDs most of us Beatles fans owned previously.
It’s fantastic how much more clear these new CDs sound when comapred to the old CDs. I’m hearing so many details in the music that I didn’t even know were there! It’s really like rediscovering The Beatles awesome music again as I go through each of the 16 CDs in The Beatles In Stereo CD Box Set.
There’s already been a lot of debate among Beatles fans over what sounds better; The mono box set or the stereo box set? This debate is raging of course because The Beatles In Mono Box Set was also released on 9/9/9.
In my opinion the stereo mixes sound much better for the the band’s later CDs because they allow for greater clarity which is particularly essential considering how much is going on in most of the later mixes. With the first four or five albums it’s a closer call. I still like the clarity of the stereo mixes even with the earlier albums, but it is true that the really wide panning can be a bit distracting so I think there’s a good case for the more “powerful” sounding mono mixes too!
In short, I’m very glad that I bought both box sets and I really think they are both essential for serious Beatles fans. After all the mono mixes were how the albums were originally intended to be heard so they have great historical value, but the stereo mixes sound really really good, so you have to have those too.
And while the major reason I’m so excited about this box set is, of course, how great the music sounds - another great thing about it is the awesome packaging. Each CD comes with it’s own informative booklet full of pictures, lyrics, historical details, and information on the recording of that album. Each CD case folds out so that it has six sides in all (actually the double albums like The White Album & Past Masters have eight sides!)
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