Comments on: Beatles Review – Please Please Me Remastered CDs

By: Andreas

Andreas — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:00:30 +0000

I was reading a little on the Capitol Boxes and it turns out that the compression was already there on Capitol’s master tapes from back in the 60s. So I guess you could say the boxes were a victim of the loudness war, just a very old loudness war. Kinda makes you feel sorry for people living in America in the 60s who couldn’t experience the sound of the Beatles like their UK cousins.

By: Den

Den — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:43:31 +0000

Great review, Rob! Thank you and hope for more!

By: Foxx

Foxx — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:44:23 +0000

Rob,

I bought the 2000-2005 John Lennon remasters, and they are not good. Some are remixed, and others sound strange. Yoko now promises that th enew 2010 reissues will be better. Apparently she now used the original mixes. I wait till I see some reviews. I DID already buy the stripped down version of Double fantasy and was disappointed. John’s voice is very prominent, but it shows (to my ears) that he was not in very good form (contrary to what some reports say). The original album is better. Why do I keep creating my own disappointments…..

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:45:58 +0000

Town Crier, the crunchy metallic sound in “Ask Me Why” is very high pitched and faint, but it’s there. It takes very good speakers or headphones to hear it…and, of course, very good hearing.

Foxx, you’re right. Bonus tracks are a marketing technique used to add value to reissues. Sometimes the bonus tracks are fantastic, but many times, they’re uninteresting.

Either way, I haven’t bought any of the solo Beatles reissues. Have you?

Daniel, thanks for the compliment and for reading my review!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 09:56:28 +0000

thanks for great info and writing!

By: Foxx

Foxx — Sun, 16 May 2010 21:30:09 +0000

Hi Rob, I enjoyed the reviews you posted when the Beatles albums were re-issued. Would love tou see you do similar things with the recent Lennon, Harrison and the upcoming McCartney re-issues… I for one do not like bonus tracks. This is a marketing thing. Bonus tracks in many cases were left off the original albums because they are not good enough. In fact, they are malus tracks…. Or they do not belong to the sessions of that album. John Lennons finest album (IMO) Plastic Ono Band was spoiled by the inclusion of Power to the people and Do the Oz, which were recorded later, and in yhe US rather than UK. Anyway, howaboutit?

By: Town Crier

Town Crier — Sun, 09 May 2010 04:38:39 +0000

Sorry dude, there’s no “metallic distortion” on “Ask Me Why”. I’ve listened to your posted clip, and I’ve listened to the original CD’s themselves. It’s not there. What I do hear is a tiny bit more high-frequency on the 2009 version. No metallic sound though.

By: Brian Maxwell

Brian Maxwell — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:07:45 +0000

Rob, do you also hear staticky clicking at the end of the versions of She Loves You on Past Masters and Mono Masters? During the last lines of the song. The version on Mono Masters has it especially bad during the final “yeah yeah yeah yeeeeaaaaahhh”. Sounds almost like a needle bouncing around on scratchy vinyl.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:14:24 +0000

Hi Brian, you’re exactly right, it sounds like the mono master tape was crinkled in a bunch of spots throughout “Ask Me Why.” In terms of sound quality, the version on the old 1987 CD sounds almost identical (minus the crinkled tape distortion, of course), so why didn’t the engineers just clean up that version for the 2009 remastered CD instead?

By: Brian Maxwell

Brian Maxwell — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:03:22 +0000

I too have noticed the strange distortion in “Ask Me Why”. In fact I found your site while Googling for information on it. It does sound like some sort of tape flaw, like it’s been crinkled in those spots. Like you, I compared the song to the 1987 Mono and 2009 Stereo versions and did not find it in those two versions, either. I also had a friend send me his MP4 rip of his 2009 Mono copy of the song, and sure enough, it too has the screechy metallic distortion at 1:26-1:27, and near the end. I noticed it right away on first playthrough, and was dismayed, thinking I had either a disc drive that was dying, or a bum copy of the disc; so I re-ripped it to be sure. And the noise stuck. I’m not much relieved if this error is on every single copy of the disc; and I’ll be even less pleased if this damage is irreversible.