Beatles box sets

[ironbut]

Here's a link to an interesting article on the recently released mono and stereo Beatles box sets. There's lots of great insight into what went into this and earlier "remastered" releases by Allan Rouse. I was thinking about which version of this set to purchase until I read the last sentence of this article,.. now I'm totally lost!

http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/lab/?p=561

[mep]

What analog loving audiophile wants to buy a vinyl Beatle collection that was mastered from a digital source?  Not me.  I bought all 3 of the new digital Beatle collections; the mono CDs, the stereo CDs, and the green apple that contains 24 bit files of all the albums (supposedly only 30,000 of these were made for world-wide distribution).  I wouldn't trade my EMI Paralaphone BC-13 collection for any of them not to mention my individual Parlaphone LPs.

I never willingly/knowingly purchase any re-mastered LP if it comes from a digital copy of the master tape.  You might as well just buy the CD and be done with it.

Mark

[ironbut]

I wish I had the Paralaphones but unfortunately I don't.
Like you, I've never heard a vinyl release of a digital file that's any good but in this case at least, I'll give it a chance (since they are 24/192).
What I'd really be interested in hearing would be the original 24/192 files.

That said, the real reason I posted this link was to share a little inside poop on the who and what was involved. I was also happy to read that the session tapes are still in great condition.

[astrotoy]

I was just at Costco yesterday. They had the stereo CD box set for about $175.  Larry

[mep]

The Parlaphone BC-13 boxes turn up on both Ebay and Audiogon.  I am sure the new LP box sets that will be released by EMI will be expensive.  I don't care if they came from the 24/192 files that were made from the master tapes.  The optimum package would be that EMI takes the original master tapes and recuts the LP collections from them, but that is not going to happen.  They are going to use the 24/192 digital files that they have invested their time and money in and use those files to create the LP box sets.  Like I said, you might as well buy the CD collections as it will be cheaper and they will maintain their "perfect sound forever."

I have two copies of the EMI Parlaphone BC-13 collection-one has never been played and the other I have played the crap out of for over 25 years and they still sound great.

[Tim]

Steve....You should try the USB drive version and let us know what you think.  It's 24 bit, so should have an edge over the CDs. Also, hard-drive playback supposedly has less jitter than optical disk-drive playback.

BTW, to me, the Beatles Anthology sounds significantly better than the recently remastered CDs.  The reason is simple:  one less analog tape-generation.  Anthology was derived from the multi-tracks, which in many cases were original (1st generation) recordings. The remastered albums were derived from the 2 track mix-down masters, so they are (at least) 2nd generation, analog copies.

Here is an interesting site that demonstrates the audibility of analog tape copies.  (Also check out the "data" page for other ABX tests).

http://home.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_tapg.htm

The recent problem of the "lost master" (Linda Ronstadt) means that the TP version is 5th generation (4th analog copy), so the quality difference between the multi (1st gen) and TP (5th gen) should be significant. (multi>master>safety>TP master>TP product)  I wonder if the multi for that album still exists?

Speaking of generations, I'm looking forward to the live concert recording session the TP is trying to put together.  If it's recorded (and mixed) live to one inch, the the final product would be only one copy (2nd generation)!  In comparison, other "pop" TP releases are 3 copies or 4th generation (multi>master>TP master>TP product).