Beatles

Today at The World of McIntosh Townhouse Producer Giles Martin Introduced his new "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band" 50th anniversary stereo mix. Apple Corp and UMe introduce the new 50th anniversary box.

As the 50th anniversary approached of the 1967 release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Apple Corps and its president Jeff Jones set about deciding how best to mark the occasion (or not).

Before I get further into this follow-up review, a short disclaimer: other than the US Apple/Capitol singles of “We Can Work It Out”/“Day Tripper” and “Hey Jude”/“Revolution” (which, as expected, sound lousy), I don’t have any Beatles 7” singles other than this new The Singles Collection box. All my Beatles listening is on LP (the 2014 mono series, the Giles Martin remix LPs, and a few mono and stereo UK and European pressings) and the occasional lossless digital format, therefore from these recordings I’m used to great sound quality. My expectations for The Singles Collection (generously gifted to me by AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer) were likely different from most others’: sure, I expected the all-analog lacquer cuts to sound good, but sound quality on 7” singles isn’t the first thing I think about. With the 7” format, it’s primarily about the musical content, collectibility, packaging (when applicable), and finally, sound quality.

Analogplanet received one of the first Ortofon 2M MONO Special Edition cartridges developed by the company in cooperation with Universal Music Group as a tribute to the upcoming Beatles "Back to Mono" box set.

As expected, Rubber Soul, sourced from George Martin's 1987 16 bit, 44.1k remix sounds like a CD. Why should it sound like anything else? That's from what it was essentially mastered.