The remasters are horrible

[sregis]

I was hoping that there was a major difference from the older cd's, but I guess theres not. I'm buying the stereo set anyways because my old cd's are pretty shot with a few songs skipping and so forth.

I didnt take very good care of them.

good decision; they're worth it.

[sewi]

I have read that some USED remaster CDs are on sale.Why would people buy those "expensive" CDs to sell them some weeks later at low price?This is something I cannot get.Only to rip them and get some cash later???Why would someone buy them if he/she is not a fan?And if so why a fan would sell such a "treasure"?

[I_Will]

The only reason I'm getting the stereo remasters is because a) I'm getting them as a Christmas present so it's not actually my money, and b) call me a bad Beatles fan, but I don't actually own any records on LP OR on CD. I only have crappy downloads from torrents (shhhhhhhh...). So I'd like to actually have a more physical representation of the music (and DEFINITELY better quality than Limewire provides)

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I listened to a few of the stereo remasters on Youtube, and they convinced me to buy the box set. The later albums have fairly negligible differences, I admit, but for the earlier albums (Please Please Me through Rubber Soul, and maybe for Revolver too although I haven't listened to any tracks from that yet), it's like night and day compared to the old CDs. The old CDs, up through Revolver, plus Past Masters Volume 1 and the first few tracks on Volume 2, have a thick layer of hiss and a distinctly grainy sound. Furthermore, even for the later albums, I would love to have them if only for the enhanced liner notes with original album art.

The only problem is that on the songs that were originally in mono are now in false stereo, creating a weird "echoey" effect. It's especially noticeable and distracting in "Misery", on the "dun dadun dadun dadun dun dun" piano bit, where it seems to bounce from right to left.

This could be reason to get the mono box set, hypothetically. I got the stereo box set, however, for two reasons. One, it's cheaper. I got mine for $105, including USPS Priority Mail. Second and more importantly, while I don't want stereo versions of the early one-take mono tracks, I also don't want mono versions of tracks that were created in full stereo. Luckily, I can have it both ways while still only having one box set, simply by ripping the false-stereo albums as WAVs, using Audacity to make the stereo tracks into mono tracks (I tested it with a YouTube video of Misery and it works wonderfully, the compressed-stereo seems to sound the same as the mono, also on YouTube), and then burning the now-mono tracks to CDs, putting them in the boxes, and placing the original false-stereo CDs into jewel cases and storing them. Problem solved.

One more note regarding what sewi said. Most people who listen to the Beatles (or any other musicians) are not die-hard fanatics like us. Most people just want something to listen to while jogging or driving or whatever, and so they buy the CDs, get the uncompressed WAVs or FLACs that they can't find online, and then sell the used-once CDs again. It's still legal to buy and own these CDs, however. As long as you own the physical medium, you have the license to listen to it. So when you buy the used-once CD, the license is transferred from them to you, and thus it's not you, but THEM who are illegally pirating the music. So while it may irk the die-hard fan, it's still something you can take advantage of, because the artist still gets his money, but the resold CDs are usually much cheaper than list price.

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Listening to some of the later albums on YouTube, the improvement is even noticeable there, especially on quiet songs like "Long, Long, Long", "Julia", and "Sun King", where you might turn up the volume to hear it and get hit with that everpresent hiss on the old CDs, but there's no hiss on the remasters! I would therefore say that the remasters are definitely a significant improvement, and that they're not horrible.

Personally, I prefer the wide panning of Beatles music over the modern trend of putting everything close together in the middle, so I don't see the fact that they didn't "fix" that as a problem either. It allows the listener to hear a given part and mentally block out the others more easily, for instance if you're trying to learn the song or just be able to listen to it more thoroughly, among other benefits.

[alexis]

Listening to some of the later albums on YouTube, the improvement is even noticeable there, especially on quiet songs like "Long, Long, Long", "Julia", and "Sun King", where you might turn up the volume to hear it and get hit with that everpresent hiss on the old CDs, but there's no hiss on the remasters! I would therefore say that the remasters are definitely a significant improvement, and that they're not horrible.

Personally, I prefer the wide panning of Beatles music over the modern trend of putting everything close together in the middle, so I don't see the fact that they didn't "fix" that as a problem either. It allows the listener to hear a given part and mentally block out the others more easily, for instance if you're trying to learn the song or just be able to listen to it more thoroughly, among other benefits.

I agree with you 100% on this! As a matter of fact, I wish the vocals were panned even wider - the better to hear the different harmony parts, especially in the early songs.

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

A few things further:

Reading the liner notes in my new box set that I received today, I realized that even the early records had stereo versions, although these were simply instruments on one side and vocals on the other, mostly for audiophiles. These stereo mixes are not false stereo, and the "echoing" was simply a strange artifact of the way it was recorded (all at once, with the vocal mics picking up the instruments and the instruments picking up the vocals and each other). They're still jarring, however. It is worth noting, though, that this only applies to the first two albums and the singles prior to "I Want To Hold Your Hand", which were recorded with two-track machines.

The only real problem I have with this set is the sloppy manufacturing. The printing has yellow and blue spots at random places, some text appears to have been printed multiple times on the same spot (there's a visible diagonal line in the Magical Mystery Tour liner book on one page, below which the text is thin and with small spots missing (still readable) and above which it's unintentionally bold and blurry-edged. My With The Beatles booklet has indentations on the very outer edges of the pages where it appears someone tried to staple between the sheets instead of in the middle. The contrast on all the pictures in all the booklets and on all the jackets is extremely high, so many pictures are very dark. The biggest problem with this that I noticed was that the cover of With The Beatles appears to be two light half faces on a sea of black. On my older WTB CD cover, their black turtleneck sweaters and the other halves of their faces are clearly visible. Strangely, pages 18 of the A Hard Day's Night came before page 17, causing confusion when I started reading in the middle of a paragraph. Lastly, the black box itself is damaged and WTB's CD has scrape marks on the outer edge, which I would guess will cause the documentary not to play right. I'm lucky it was where it was, since it's not on the music portion and the documentary is on the DVD disc, which is in good condition. I know this is a new box set because all the albums had the Apple stickers on the shrink wrap, so it must have been manufacturing problems.

Then of course there's the MMT disc, which claims to have the Let It Be documentary, as has been documented elsewhere on this forum.

Nevertheless, I'm still pleased with the audio, which is of course the important part and well worth the money if you can get it for around $100, which I did easily on Ebay.

EDIT: Turns out it's not just those two pages. The entire AHDN booklet is out of order, and in no predictable way. It's not even just that they stapled it together wrong. I don't understand.

[dcowboys107]

The cd's are a cool idea since digital recordings retain their quality pratically "forever" I still prefer them in vinyl. After getting my record player and spinning some albums there's no comparison.  So much more worth it on vinyl boys.

[sewi]

One more note regarding what sewi said. Most people who listen to the Beatles (or any other musicians) are not die-hard fanatics like us. Most people just want something to listen to while jogging or driving or whatever, and so they buy the CDs, get the uncompressed WAVs or FLACs that they can't find online, and then sell the used-once CDs again. It's still legal to buy and own these CDs, however. As long as you own the physical medium, you have the license to listen to it. So when you buy the used-once CD, the license is transferred from them to you, and thus it's not you, but THEM who are illegally pirating the music. So while it may irk the die-hard fan, it's still something you can take advantage of, because the artist still gets his money, but the resold CDs are usually much cheaper than list price.

Interesting point of view.
However,it still surprizes me someone buying that expensive box and trying to sell it later.Who is going to buy a second-hand box?Specially an expensive one.If you are a die-hard fan you are going to buy a new one so who is going to buy him it? :-?

[Yarvelling]

I reckon those that DO buy the boxes just to rip them, and then sell them off individualy are doing it purely for the hope of making a profit on individual sales; especially with the Mono boxset.
That however, wouldn't work for me!  Part of the joy of owning these sets is in the packaging itself; from the atractive and carefully designed Stereo digipaks to the marvelous Mono mini-LP replica sleeves, down to the lovely label reproductions on the CD itself, which even uses the same font style based on the original LP labels.
Ripping it to ones iPod is one thing, but to not own the physical media also is like only having less than half of it!   
Steve

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

What digipaks? My (shoddily manufactured) stereo box set holds the CDs in gatefold cardboard sleeves! Did I get a counterfeit or something?!

[Yarvelling]

The stereo CD's come in a glossy tri-fold pack, except the WA which has a four-way folding sleeve, with an embossed outer slip-cover.
The artwork is heavily based around the original album's, but with additional photos.
Maybe 'digipak' isn't the correct term(?), but they are frequently called this...much nicer than the traditional jewel-case anyway!
Steve.

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

A Digipak is a specific trademarked type of disc case consisting of a cardboard exterior, glossy or otherwise, glued to a hard plastic disc tray.

You had me scared for a moment there! 

[nimrod]

I disagree with the OP.

The stereo remasters may be slightly louder (thats ok with me) but THE big improvement is........ clarity

IMO this is most apparent on good quality headphones, or high end speakers.........the separation has been significantly improved and now individual guitars can be really heard, also the sound quality of the guitars is improved (listen to the Fender Strat on Nowhere Man for example) and they now sound much crisper and punchier.

I love these RM's so much I dont think I'll ever listen to those hissy muddy dead sounding 80's versions ever again.

I cant see why anyone would complain about these RM's, maybe some people need an ear sringe :-) (no offence meant)

[peterbell1]

I certainly do agree that the RMs sound better than the old 1980s CD releases (they couldn't be any worse!), but wouldn't you have preferred a remixed catalogue for your £150/$200 rather than simply a remastered one? I definitely would!
Why did they wait 20 years since the original CDs came out to do a simple remaster job? Those old CDs sounded so bad that a remastering should have been done long ago.
Give them a few years and Apple will come out with the remixed albums - and they'll expect everyone to shell out for the same material .... again.
It's all about money with the Beatles catalogue rather than giving fans some sort of value. Yes, EMI are a business and they want to make money, but there's nothing stopping them giving the fans more value for that money .
Many other bands bend over backwards to get good product out to their fans. The Who, for example, have done some great "deluxe" re-releases of their albums, with lots of unreleased studio and live material put out on double-CD packages. This is after the whole catalogue was remastered some years ago (again with extra tracks) to replace the original series of CD albums. The deluxe CDs are released at not much more than the price of a normal non-chart CD. Plus, the old Who CDs are still available, but at a reduced price, giving the CD buyer a choice.
Imagine if the Beatles had done the same - replaced the original albums after ten years on the shelves with remastered versions with a few extras thrown in.
Then, ten years later, finally remixed every album and released it as a "deluxe" 2-CD package.
I would have happily shelled out for all of those releases.
There are some of the Who CDs that I have in three different versions (original, remaster and Deluxe) but I never minded handing over the cash for them because I have always felt like I was getting value for money.
As it is, as a Beatles fan I am meant to be content with overpriced and underwhelming rehashed product.