I was informed this afternoon that I am a "sound snob." As much as I wanted to become all defensive, take this as a huge insult, and be incredibly offended... I realized that this is totally true. I, GuitarGuyTim, am a sound snob! I'm not sure where my level of snobbery began, possibly all the concerts or the hours and hours of sitting in a studio. Regardless, somewhere in my 28 years of existence I've come to love high fidelity sound. In my opinion, there is nothing better than sitting back and listening to a great album on a great set of speakers!
Today, the Beatles, my favorite band of all time gave me something I didn't even know I was missing, truly hi-fi CD reproductions of their music! This afternoon while listening to The White Album, I was blown away by the clarity of Ringo's cymbal crashes and the thump of Paul's bass, among many other subtle improvements.
Musically the first thing you'll notice is that the volume level is substantially hotter (louder). The clarity is so good that the songs literally sound like they were recorded yesterday, not between 40-50 years ago. In addition to the volume increase, you can also hear the individual instrument better. The original '87 remasters were "muddy" sounding, meaning the instruments would blend in with one and other and parts of the mix were all but lost. This is no longer so, if you are familiar with the Beatles catalog you'll be amazed by the array of instruments you haven't noticed in the past.
One particular moment that stuck out to me was the 'bass line' on I Will which is actually sung by Paul. It is far more present and clearly a voice, not an instrument. You'll also notice a heavier reverb sound, amp feed back, longer ring of cymbals and much more. Other things like amp buzz in While My Guitar Gently Weeps and finger scrapes in Blackbird, give these remastered tracks the feeling of being live performances, like only the Beatles could produce.
The only criticism I can find (and it may be unfounded) is that all of the individual albums are in stereo. This maybe unfounded since I haven't listened to any of the earlier albums, but up until I believe either "Hard Days Night," or "Help" everything was recorded on two track tape. One track for the vocals, the other for the instrumentation. Not to be too critical, but I can't see how you can make an amazing stereo mix with only two tracks. Then again, I haven't heard any of the early albums yet, so I may be totally wrong.
So the question is, should you go re-buy the entire collection. The answer to this isn't so easy, obviously the new packaging is cool as are the mini-documentaries that are included with each album, but then again those are more for hard core fans and not casual listeners. If you're going to listen to the actual CD's these are a must have, if you're going to rip them to mp3's and stick them on your iPod, don't waste your time with the new versions. As for me, I'm afraid that I've found something to spend my hard earned cash on.
