Beatles Remasters on Vinyl (part 9)

Those iPhone 5's aren't THAT thin! They could have kept the old connector. I have a Samsung phone that's thinner than that, and it could probably still fit that connector type in there.

 

Thanks for your efforts last night, Mazzy.

 

Given the lack of basic understanding of vinyl and the gross misinformed prejudices against vinyl prevalent at Hydrogen Audio I would suggest you use references with at least some credibility here. Not saying you are wrong but you are not going to help your case using such ridiculously bad references.

 

I thought is was best just to speak one on one about this. It would have been tacky to bring in up during a full Q&A when they are their promoting selling their product. I hope he and others really look into these pressing issues (I for one love the remastering decisions so I will move on about that). There were some weak links at Rainbo. Not sure how the process works in terms of checking on them as they press but they got to fix this. for future pressings and with the Mono set.

 

In a nutshell, does all this tech-speak then point to the fact that vinyl is indeed inferior to higher-res digital then, since going above 24/44.1 is - according to Sean and other engineers - pointless, and those who - in the past - moaned about (for example) 'Simply Vinyl's releases being digitally sourced in the past, where wrong to do so, since the LP cutting heads can not go above 22Hz anyway? Was/is all this push for analogue sourced LPs a waste of time then ultimately? I'm trying to sort out the facts from the emotions here

From my own perspective, and understanding of what's been said so far, I have to say I'd prefer to have the option of the 24/44.1 unlimited digital files to hand, without (technically speaking) 'degrading' those files further (and thus taking one even further away from the original 24/192 captures of the masters...) by the changes necessary for the RIAA processes to get these digital files cut into lacquer. I'm not one of those that thinks everything magically sounds better just because it's been released on vinyl. I'd prefer my digital to remain digital, and my analogue to remain analogue in a perfect world, but perhaps I'm being somewhat closed minded here?

I understand the USB 'Apple' release was 24/44.1, but unfortunately limited. Is there a chance we could see a release of the unlimited 24/44.1 files? They gave one the option of this with the Paul McCartney and George Harrison downloads (which were fab!). Would be great to have that option with The Beatles too...

Fascinating discussions here anyway, and I intend to pick up a couple of the LPs to satisfy my curiosities.

John

 

I'm not sure I believe any of this (i.e. his statement that he was unaware of the problems) but if it is true, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a long time (if ever) that we get any admission of culpability regarding these pressings.

 

I received Abbey Road today and the album looked great visually under my halogen lamp, placed it on the turntable to see it spinning, looked nice and flat. Put on side one and it didn't sound right, it sounded like my needle was extremely dirty. The music sounded muffled and garbled. I soldiered on through the next few songs and stopped playing it for fear of damaging my stylus. I cleaned my stylus and played side two, it was better until I hit "Sun King" where the garbled sound returned.

I decided to give the record a good cleaning in hope it would help but to no avail. I am now playing Past Masters and haven't experienced any problems, both pressings look clean and flat.

I have Revolver, WA, SP and MMT on the way from the same vendor so will wait until I hear them before returning Abbey Road. I'm not sure if I should even attempt to get another copy of AR with all the problems I'm reading about this record in particular.

 

Could a repress @ another facility be far off and in the cards? Hmmm...

 

Sean, looking at my new copies of With The Beatles and Magical Mystery Tour, I notice that there is substantially more deadwax space on those two records than on my Parlophone one-box With the Beatles and my Capitol Magical Mystery Tour. Did you cut these records this way, i.e., with more deadwax space, in order to try to avoid inner-groove distortion problems? With The Beatles is only 32 and 1/2 minutes long, so did the relatively short length of the album give you the freedom to employ that approach? I did notice that my new Beatles for Sale, while just a few minutes longer than With the Beatles in overall playing time, seems to have a more conventional narrow deadwax band on the model of the vintage records I'm used to seeing and playing.

 

I would guess that it depends on whether the copies in the first batch all sell or are returned as defective. If several months from now there are still thousands of unsold copies from the first batch, I doubt more will be pressed. What would be the point, from the perspective of EMI/Apple?

 

It's not magic. It's euphonic coloration. And it is a reasonable option even if the source is digital.

If you are basing that opinion on real world experience with high end audio playback then no, you are not being closed minded. If you are basing it on something other than that experience then you are missing the most important criteria for making such a choice.

 

This is kind of off topic, but the iPhone 5 is the thinnest smartphone on the market right now.

 

Don't you mean 96khz? 48Khz sampling will produce 24Khz peak frequencies which the cutter head can just accomodate. Problem is 24/96 sourced vinyl from experience tends to sound more open than 24/48 or 44.1. There may be other factors involved here but as you say the strictly stepped waveform is not correct. Somehow inaudible high frequencies have an affect on tonality which is likely preseved through analogue filtering as it appears to be with analogue sources. I think Sean did indicate that the Beatles masters were produced 4 1/2 years ago which suggests that if done this year they likely would have been 24/96. That is the standard being used for many remasters now including recent Macca reissues.

It could be all in my imagination these differences but others appear to hear them including MF. Would 24/96 improve the Beatles vinyl? Frankly I can't say but I'm sure an analogue source would based on the 'originals'. BTW I do agree with a previous poster that the Stereo Beatles are not heavily compressed (surely that is the mono cuts). Of course all Lp's used some compression pre the era of the 'audiophile' mastering. If 16Khz was the peak on old cutting heads as Sean says something is going on that preserves all that extra instrumental tone and air you get on well mastered old vinyl pressings.

 

I don't believe in the euphonic coloration of vinyl. I believe that the LP medium sounds good despite its inherent flaws, not because of them.

 

I don't think anyone here is saying that. What's being debated, I think, is the importance of either medium's ability to reproduce signals that aren't even part of the audible spectrum.

These remasters (and vinyl, as a medium, in general) will succeed or fail dependent more on how well they're mastered (and manufactured) than what sample rate was used. (That's just my opinion, of course)

 

It was the way the lathe packed them. I wasn't going to try and fill the disc as keeping from the centre is a good thing. 2 mins in the inner diameter would be about 15 - 20% of space, so your obsevation sounds about right. Other factors such as stereo width and LF and level dictate the space you have.

 

You are entitled to your beliefs

 

I called Capitol yesterday. Granted, they blew me off but I did call them. :/

Do any of these industry people read Amazon reviews? And maybe if Capitol's email address actually worked, they'd possibly get some complaints that way. What I find frustrating is that, outside of an Amazon review, there's no one to actually contact / email to voice my concerns.

Still waiting for a callback from Mr. Sheldon btw - maybe if he's aware of the issues, he might be able to look into it. I really don't know.

 

Thank you for your reply. By "LF" you mean "low frequency," am I correct? There is some serious low-end on my new Beatles For Sale: is that one reason why the cutting took up more area of the disc, and there is less deadwax space? Sorry for the "mastering for dummies" level of questions, just curious how you achieved what you achieved.

 

good on ya for calling them. I hope many many more will do the same.

what did they say in the act of blowing you off?

 

That has a lot to do with it. The spacing of the grooves is determined by the demand of the material for space. It's affected purely by the amplitude of the signal feeding the cutter head as read by the preview. You tend to get more amplitude in the signal from the loud bass.

 

I called their main number and got a rep / switchboard Op. I asked for CS and explained the issue, but the rep basically said that there was nowhere to send me and that I needed to contact my retailer, instead. I did stress the issues, the negative Amazon reviews and that this looks to be a potentially large issue, but the rep clearly didn't want to hear about it.

And this email ([email protected]) for Capitol doesn't even work - just comes back as undeliverable. It's like they WANT me to just give up and return this thing and not spend my money on the boxed set. Sad.

EDIT: Listened to all 14 LP's now. Eight lemons. MMT is noisy, VERY noisy as in "sounds like a 30 year old used record" noisy (so it would need exchanging). Two Lp's have non-fill, although I would consider them minor, and five others have non-fill / stitching that I would consider bad enough that I would want to exchange them.

 

Oh yes! With The Beatles is bloody FANTASTIC in this set! Not the best Beatles album by a country mile but, IMHO the closest thing we have on an official record to what the band really sounded like in The Cavern and the Hamburg clubs. Captures the early rock n roll / RnB Beatles sound perfectly, MUCH more so the PPM IMHO.

I have a soft spot for this album (my avatar is the giveaway I think) as it was the first Beatles LP I heard and subseuqently bought. Still have it, 1980 2-box EMI. I've always loved the cover too - IMHO the most iconic Beatles album cover pre SPLHCB.

But this new remastered LP is freakin' awesome - the bottom end is finally heard properly on a vinyl copy of this LP too. I LOVE IT!

 

What turntable/cartridge did they use?
It would have been great if someone purchasing the box set had opened it during the presentation.
You know the odds of there being a bad record or two inside would have been high and the rep could have witnessed it first hand.

 

Agreed.