The best sounding Beatles album? | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

skye said:

So before you got the remastered albums, which was your favorite? Right now, the only remastered albums I have are Revolver (mono) and the White Album (stereo), and I can’t really say which has the better sound.

My favorite sounding Beatles album before the remasters was Dr. Ebbett’s remaster of “Beatles For Sale ” (the ‘needle drop’). I thought it sounded awesome. Today, when I compare it to the 2009 remaster, it sounds pale, tinny, and a bit harsh.

paulsbass said:

 The best sounding Beatles album is by far the “Yellow Submarine Songtrack “! Damn, why didn’t they remix all the albums that way?!

Listening to Paul’s voice from the center on “Sgt. Pepper ‘s” and not from the right corner is really an eye – or ear opener.

I didn’t hear much difference between the old and the new CDs with my “normal” equipment. I was very disappointed that they didn’t touch the right-left master of Revolver …

I recently did a back-to-back comparison between the 1999 songtrack “Yellow Submarine ” and the corresponding 2009 remastered tracks, and found the 1999 “Yellow Submarine ” (which I used to simply adore) to be very thin sounding. This was, of course, much to my huge shock.

For example, the bass in “Hey Bulldog ” is unbelievably wimpy on the 1999 remix. Gone is the industrial strength ooomph in the bass underlying John’s “You can talk to me!” But go back and listen to it on the 2009 remaster, and it’s all there, in its full glory.

The worst offender, to my ears, was “It’s All Too Much “. Completely sanitized on the 1999 remix (to the point of sounding castrated), this song loses all its magic. Luckily, everything got perfectly restored on the 2009 remix.

In general, I think I’ve noticed a trend when it comes to evaluating the sound quality on various Beatles remixes/remasters: there are people who prefer the warmth and the sweetness of analog sound (one of those people would be me); on the other hand, there are also people who prefer the clinical clarity and analytical coldness of digital sound. And the division line is very clear: the digital crowd invariably tends to praise the 1999 “Yellow Submarine ” and the “Love” remixes, as these products reveal a lot of hidden details previously not so easy to hear.

Meanwhile, the analog crowd is more focused on the warmth and the sweetness that the 2009 remasters bring. True, there is very little new details that emerge from these new remasters, but that’s not really what’s exciting about them. What is really revolutionary about the 2009 remasters is how ANALOG-like they sound, despite the fact that they are delivered digitally.

skye said:

Would you consider the Dr. Ebbetts remasters to be analog? I’ve listened to that version of the Yellow Submarine and prefer it over 1999. You’re right about It’s All Too Much – I don’t like the way the 1999 version sounds.

What Dr. Ebbett’s remasters brought to the catalog was certain ‘slam!’ that the 1987 digital remasters lacked. One of the characteristics of the good analog sound is the presence of this ‘slam!’ factor which contributes to the illusion that the sound one is hearing coming out of the speakers is three-dimensional.  Early attempts at transferring analog sound onto a digital media often resulted in producing the sound that was two-dimensional, that is to say flat sounding, hence the general disappointment with the original digital Beatles catalog.

Luckily, the 2009 remasters managed to correct all that. They sound way better than even the best Dr. Ebbett’s transfers (he himself acknowledged that upon hearing the 2009 remasters, and announced his final retirement from the scene).

Just to give you an example, I was listening to “Yesterday ” last night, and I could very clearly see Paul standing right in front of me, because his voice was so physically present in full three-dimensionality. Comparing that to the transfer of the same song on the 1987 CD, it’s not even funny. On the old CD, Paul’s voice is paper thin.