Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems The Beatles

JerryL's first post on this thread asked what the sound quality was like.

A lot of posters have said that the mono set is very good. My questions are:

- Do you mean good for the 1960s or good by any standards?
- If you mean good by any standards, would you be happy for modern artists to record in mono as it can be very good?
- Would this be analogous to modern filmmakers using B&W for artistic reasons?

It seems quite odd to me that the original recordings are mono given that, for example, the 1958 Decca recording of Wagner's Rheingold is in excellent stereo and sounds very good (for a 50 year old). Was this really artistic intent or did they take the commercial view that most people who would buy the discs didn't have a stereo system at that time?

Simon,
I dont think you are in a minority at all(just see the ratio of stereo vs mono boxed sets produced), you just want what will suit your tastes the best and what will make your very impressive system shine.
Nothing wrong with that at all, Enjoy!
Martin.

P.S. The Beatles back catalogue on Wax cylinder would still be more impressive than some of the middle of the road [censored] that passes for Genius these days! 'Can you hear me Coldplay, you one trick ponies'...'grrrr,Khaaaaan'.

Where was it confirmed only 10,000 sets were made? Here in the UK at least they are still readily available from Amazon, Play.com, HMV and the like. I wasn't aware the sets were actually limited which is why I'd not picked up the mono box yet.

Hi Malcolm,
I cant answer your first question on sound quality but your second point regarding them only being in mono vs stereo is quite easy to guess why.
These long haired working class rock and roll yobs were not quite held in the same regard as they are today, same goes for most recording artists of the time who played the 'Devils Music'.
The fact they were recorded at all is a miracle let alone them only having the simplest 4 track mono equipment to record with at their disposal.

Fully agree with that (especially like you chanelling your inner-Shattner). Not sure if I'm just getting old and inflexible, but I've not found a new band I liked in some time. Musical revelation ususally comes in the form of an older band that I somehow, inexplicably managed to miss. That recently happened in the form of the band Camel, who have only been recording albums for 40 years .

Simon,
Dont get me wrong, there have been some new bands that I have found in the last 20 years that have been great. Just not so many in the last 5 years, seems to be getting harder to find new bands that actualy have anything new to offer.
But you are completely right about finding gems from the past in older bands that we might have missed the first time round, I get far more satisfaction from finding an old lost treasure than wading knee deep through tween crap trying to find a nugget of originality.
Martin.

P.S. Everyone needs an inner-Shatner .

I will of course be buying the boxed set, but I found some of the critiques on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Stere...showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

credible and believable, especially the comments on compression and the comparison to the remixed previous releases.

Are these critiques out to lunch or is there some truth to them?

I dunno. These versions sound good to me - and I've got a pretty resolving system. I've mentionned before that I have no experience with the Beatles on CD prior to these remasters, but to my ear they hold up pretty well given the age. Sure, it is a shame the full catlog has not received a hi-rez 5.1 treatment - and perhaps that is a lost opportunity, but BS was right, in the battle between SACD and DVD-A, MP3 won!

Crying 'compression' is rapidly becomming my new pet peeve. Anytime somebody doesn't like one of these remasters they claim compression - I wonder how many of these people actually know what it means and could reliably identify it? Bah humbug!

In interviews prior to the release, the lead engineer expressedly stated that very little limiting was applied to these recording. Get the set, it sounds really good.

Well now that I have both sets- though I have not been able to listen on the M gear yet- my impression is very surprising. By and large I prefer the stereo version! On everything from Help! forward I think the stereo version has better dynamics and I think I should underline something very important- the very first Beatles LPs I listened to were the stereo (US) versions- so thats what Im most used to. And I have the CDs which were stereo except for the first 3-4 albums. By contrast the mono versions sound lifeless. Im really surprised at how negative a reaction I have to them.

I understand the analogy to the colorized version of a movie, but like all analogies its not perfect.

First off the stereo albums were obviously sanctioned by the Beatles or at least their management- so in the case of the movie- it would have to be that the movie company put out a colorized version at the same time as the B&W version. Secondly, there are many people, myself included, who grew up with the stereo mixes and thus accept that as the authentic one. Where as colorization is usually done to a movie long after it was made and thus there is no built in audience that legitimately thinks of the colorized version as the accurate one.

I will add the exceptions to my preference for the stereo is the past masters- on all the vol 2 songs I prefer the mono mix. The biggest improvement of whole set IMHO is Day Tripper- the stereo mix totally destroys this song. And also I prefer the mono of Rubber Soul. That 1965ish stereo experimentation was a little too echo for my tastes.

The stereo mixes came much later and were not overseen by George Martin or The Beatles, There is even a quote I have seen floating around from someone I think might have some insight into this...

McCartney admitted as much when the subject of stereo remixes came up in an interview for Goldmine magazine in 2002. "I'm with you," McCartney told journalist Sean Egan. "We made 'em in mono so I'm always happy to listen to 'em in mono."

But who cares, it's all good.

Although I did think my film analogy was pretty solid.;)

If it hasn't been mentioned elsewhere, the mono mixes sometimes used different takes to the stereo ones.

"takes" ???