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The Beatles Stereo Box I

So the Beatles have landed. I got my set on Wednesday, in a giant cardboard box that made me so happy. Taking out the sticky tape, I gleefully hacked at the CAUTION tape with a pen knife and removed the big black box from the cardboard. It looked great. I was happy. Then I opened it with much joy and happily counted my albums. They were all there. I realised, however, that a corner of my big black box was damaged, which was quite disappointing.

I was soon to find more defects, and my copy of A Hard Day’s Night was not properly pressed, so it couldn’t be played. Not knowing quite what to do with it, I squished it between two heavy books and hoped for the best.

So, first impressions, not too great. (I’ll take some pictures later.)

Still, nothing can quite match the sheer happiness of being reunited with the Fab Four. I tore of the shrink wrap very carefully and marvelled at the package for a bit. Then I proceeded to listen to a few selected tracks. Having heard most of the tracks on The Beatles In Mono, I came into this with some kind of a preconceived idea of what to expect, but I must say that I was quite surprised. The stereo remasters have so far sounded better in a number of tracks.

Case in point, I listened to Money and heard some guitar details that I’d never heard before. Then I listened to some tracks on A Hard Day’s Night (I borrowed my friend’s copy for the time being, but I suppose I’ll have to have it replaced eventually), and it felt as if the stereo was particularly revealing. The voices in If I Fell were much more clearly separated, for instance. And Magical Mystery Tour showed me why sometimes it’s no point sticking to mono. Hello Goodbye certainly sounded more alive to me in stereo than in mono, with a lot more volume (that is, dimensional volume and not loudness volume) to it.

That’s not to say that everything’s great in stereo, of course. I’m pretty sure I’ll complain about the left-right vocal separations when I get to them, and I’m pretty convinced that some songs will be better in mono still (my bet is on Sgt. Pepper’s). For now though, I’m very impressed.

And without comparing the two versions, Abbey Road rocks.

So, in the weeks to come, I think I’ll be going through them and writing some impressions. And they’ll be put up here, for whatever they’re worth. In the meantime, I should get the defective CD replaced…

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© 2009 a modest odyssey.