Now that I’ve been playing CD Box Set|The Beatles Stereo Remastered CD Box Set|The Beatles Remastered Stereo CD Box Set] for almost a week I think it’s time to do a review of the set as a whole. Now that I’ve had a chance to hear all of the remastered Beatles albums I can say without any doubt that they sound much better than the old Beatles CDs.
It’s amazing how much more clear these new discs sound when comapred to the old discs. I hear lots of details in these songs that I have never heard before! It’s really like rediscovering The Beatles timeless songs again as I go through each of the 16 CDs in The Beatles Remastered Stereo CD Box Set.
There’s been a lot of argument among Beatles fans over Beatles box set sounds better; The the stereo or the mono? This debate is raging of course because The Beatles In Mono Remastered CD Box Set was also released this month.
I think the stereo CDs definitely sound better for the later LPs because they allow for greater clarity which is essential considering how much is going on in most of the later mixes. With the first four or five albums it’s a closer call. I still like the clarity of the stereo mixes even with the earlier albums, but it is true that the really wide panning can be a bit distracting so I think there’s a good case for the more “powerful” sounding mono mixes too!
I definitely think both of these box sets are “must buys” for real Beatles fans. After all the mono mixes were how the albums were originally intended to be heard so they have great historical value, but the stereo mixes sound really really good, so you have to have those too.
Obviously the main reason I love this box set is how great The Beatles music sounds in remastered stereo but I also should give a “shout out” to the really great packaging. An informative booklet with many pictures and notes on the historical context of the album and the recording process for that album is included with each CD.