Hiya, First post here:

I can add my voice to the praise of the new Beatles remasters: shockingly this is the first time I have owned any Beatles on any format: as I didn't know where to start really I had a look on http://www.thebeatles.com, picked a song I knew I liked and bought the album that went around it. So, perhaps bizarrely, my first Beatles lp is 'Magical Mysery Tour' (the song being Strawberry Fields Forever). Being such a sad label geek, I almost squealed when the CD had the Capitol rainbow label! (You can't get a thrill like that from a download!)

I quickly added Sgt. Peppers to go with. (later the same day, actually) I am probably now going to work backover before hitting the later works. I'm hooked though.

Anyway: some of my favourites - I like these for music, and sound too.

Dean Martin: Sleep Warm (Capitol, stereo 1959) - Dino in luscious voice, perhaps an artistic peak with pallie Frank Sinatra conducting the orchestra.

Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim (Reprise, stereo 1966) - Frank this time so laid back he's horizontal. Nice stuff.

Joan Sutherland: Operatic Arias (Decca, stereo 1959) - Her first solo Lp for Decca, it sounds like a recording of its day - airy and spacious, natural and that voice.

Abba: The Visitors (Polar, stereo 1981) I guess this must be some sort of studio remix/upsampling - a 24-bit remaster of an Original Digital Recording from 1981. In any case, it sounds better than the original CD release (was this really the first popular music CD issued?). I still have the original Epic LP which doesn't sound as good, but has many many years of wear on the inferior music centre turntables of my youth. It's a shame these and other hi-res remasterings didn't make it to a hi-res carrier. That said, the shimmering mandolins at the start of One Of Us always give me goosebumps. The wonderful final fling single 'The Day Before You Came' (an epic six-minute masterpiece with an emotional vocal from Agnetha to rival Winner Takes It All) is among the bonus tracks.

Now I'm going to go spin some of these on my 5o6.2o, and dream about a G61R.

Thanks (& sorry for rambling)

Malcolm

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