2019 Beatles UK Singles boxed set (Was: "Beatles Mystery Boxed Set")*

I'm trying to figure out how much overlap there is between the singles box and the Mono Masters set. Are there any mixes that are identical? At first glance, it looks like I would be buying Mono Masters for these tracks as the rest are in the singles box in mono already. Sorry if this is obvious, just trying to clear it up before buying these songs again (and again and again) if I don't need to.

This Boy
Kom, Gib Mir Deine Hand
Sie Liebt Dich
Long Tall Sallly
Call Your Name
Slow Down
Matchbox
Bad Boy
Yes It Is
Only A Northern Song
All Together Now
Hey Bulldog
It's All Too Much
Across the Universe

 

Looks correct except This Boy and Yes It Is are also in both sets. All would be from the standard mono mixes.

 

Mono Masters is the only place where you can get dedicated mono mixes of those four songs (from the aborted Yellow Submarine soundtrack EP), so if you're a completist, it's worth it for those tracks. (The mono YS album was folded down from stereo at the cutting stage.)

 

Thanks for the info!

 

So I bought the box on Amazon (with which I can return it if I'm not happy).

Thoughts (not in any particular order):

Pressing quality: These were pressed VERY well. They're all quiet, with no tics or pops, aside from one, "I Am The Walrus", which has a few repetitive tics as it fades out. Otherwise nothing.

Regarding warps, 4 of the 23 have some somewhat significant warping. My center record weight flattens them to where they play fine. They would probably play okay without them. I'm not sure whether to get another set to try to swap out those 4. If I never sell this set, then it doesn't matter. If I ever think I might, I might want to make sure I have they're all good to play. But again, the quiet vinyl for 23 discs is pretty impressive.

Sound quality: The first five or so discs don't sound very good. Add to that the use of album versions rather than the original single versions of a few of those songs is frustrating (I'm not an expert on that aspect of The Beatles, just something I read about.). "Please, Please Me' sounds muffled and the overuse of reverb renders it muddy. The sound quality does get better, but the top end on many of them seem muted, and there's a slight bass boost on most of them (without the great bass extension that you get with the 2014 Mono Masters 3LP set). The result of the slightly muted top end and the slight bass boost ends up taking away some of the excitement of listening to the originals, even if the top end of originals can seem a bit bright (It's really the upper midrange that get the boost).

It's funny that volume levels and tonal balances can change from side to side. The bass in "Lady Madonna" is a bit too much; and it seems as if it was cut too hot, distorting just a bit at times. Same with "Penny Lane". And "Baby You're A Rich Man" sounds odd, almost as though it's out of phase. The midrange sounds sucked out, and the bass lacks the impact that it has on the Mono Masters (or the stereo German Horzu), sounding as though its impact is backwards rather than forward.

One of the glories of the original 45s I have is "Revolution", the flip side of "Hey Jude". John's guitar riffs just punch through the air. The recording has a tremendous amount of presence. The copy in the Singles box provides most of that impact, but lacks a bit of bite on the top end. Still, it's really good overall. "Paperback Writer" should have a somewhat similar sense of impact with the famous guitar riff. It's a little polite sounding here. It's good, but my original UK is better.

The glorious revelation here with this set is the stereo pressing of "The Ballad Of John And Yoko". It sounds terrific, almost demo quality. Alas, I don't have an original. It was one of the singles I did not buy when it came out in the US. Nor have I purchased a UK version of it. It has never been one of my favorite Beatles songs, but it does sound great here. I just don't have any comparison.

"Let It Be" sounds really good. "You Know My Name" is a bit too bassy. It always had strong bass, but it has a bit too much here, and along with the toned down top end, makes its balance tilt a bit too much toward the lower end.

Overall, I'm fairly positive with the sound of this set, but don't expect it to sound as great as the 2014 3LP Mono Masters set. And compared to original UK singles, they vary with regard to whether they match or are not as good. The vinyl is much quieter than you'd get on an original UK single, but I don't think, of the original UK singles I own, any of them are as good, though some come close.

The producers of this set might have been trying to recreate the sound of the original singles, but they're not identical. In some ways, they might have improved upon them. In others, they're worse. Either way, most of these songs exist in better sounding versions, so for purely sonic reasons, this set is not one to turn to.

Packaging Quality: Overall it's pretty impressive. The box, itself, is really beautiful. It's very thick cardboard with thick glossy paper, probably pressed at Stoughton or someplace of equal quality. It's a little weird to have thick cardboard sleeves for each of the singles, when the originals would have simply been inside glossy paper. The printing quality is decent. It's often not the sharpest, and one of them is notorious for having used a poor quality scan (I mean, you can easily see the large pixels - WTF, it's sort of insulting to the legacy of The Beatles. They might have obtained this scan from a fan who had an autographed sleeve signed by all four Beatles, but they should have tried harder to get a better scan from that fan, if that was indeed the case).

It's interesting and pretty cool to see these different sleeves from different countries' releases. Again, I wish the printing quality, overall, were a notch higher. The informational booklet inside is a paperback printed on glossy paper. Some good stuff inside, but I would have liked to see a hardcover book as the LP sets have had. Small complaint, but it's another aspect where this set shows that they didn't quite pay as much attention to the small details as they had with the Beatles In Mono set.

At $~230, I wouldn't recommend this set in terms of value, although no doubt it has some worthy aspects to it. At $133 through Amazon, I think it's worth having if you're a big Beatles fan. It's probably not a set you're going to return to because of the sound quality. The Beatles In Mono set sold out because it was both historically important and beautifully done in terms of sound quality (In spite of having some individual pressing issues). The 2012 stereo box set and well as this one have sold as well because while they both look impressive, the sound quality of both are not top notch.

So if you were to ask me if whether to purchase this set, I'd say 'yes' if you were looking to explore the life of the releases of these singles from all over the world. Historically, it's a very interesting release, and I have learned quite a bit out of buying it. But if you're looking for the best sounding set of these singles, you could do better (and some have cited a World singles box release from a couple of decades ago as being better, although I haven't heard it myself). For $133, we're talking under $6 per single. That you get the handsome box and informative booklet, it's a solid purchase.

 

Note: I meant to say that the stereo box set and this Singles set have not sold as well due to that the sound qualities are not top notch sound quality, unlike BIM set.

 

$115.89 at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VQ9YLHS

 

Wonder if it'll go any lower? And I thought getting it for around $160 from UDiscover during one of their sales and using a 20 percent off coupon was a great deal!

 

These replicas haven’t gone up in price, over time, like the mono replicas.

 

According to Honey, a price tracker site, the box set was $184.17 on May 5th. So it is a $68.28 price drop in 4 months. Will not be surprised if it falls lower than $100.

The Singles Collection (23 x 7" Vinyl Singles)

 

Wow. Well I'll be. I bought this at $133 and I thought that was a good price (and it was). But this price is sort of ridiculous.

 

Amazon must be sitting on a boatload of these sets. To think I own two sets. One opened for playing and the other still sealed. I think one copy of any Beatles release will be my quota in the future!

 

115 is 5 bucks per disc so it's getting better.

 

Some indie stores could have sets sitting on their shelves at $150-$160. Which I believe was original dealers cost.

 

I managed to get it for 99 dollars Canadian as a pre-release on amazon.ca.

edit: i was wrong, it was 199 CAD, which isn't that great.

 

I paid 199 Canadian and have regretted it ever since.

 

I did the same thing; bought an extra because I like this set so much. I still wish I would have bought an extra mono LP box set and I didn't want to miss out again.

Now it looks like even if I sold my extra singles box, I'd take a loss!

I'm starting to think that I may not get rich by collecting records...

 

$200.78 for me, they're okay.

 

I think Fremer’s review terribly hurt the sales.

 

So while i am a sucker for Beatles product, if i already own the Mono vinyl box and the stereo Box on CD, is there any major reason to have this except its cool and being a completest?

 

Yes, indeed.
But there is another thing as well: people seem to want what they can't have. I think that when this box set is not available anymore, we will see threads like the ones they made about the mono box, crying because they are not on print and expensive and why didn't they buy it while they were on print, and calling names to people that bought more than one because it's their fault that now they can't buy the box.

 

Agreed. And I still don't think they sound even as close to as bad as he had described.

 

They were not mastered to optimize the sound. They were mastered to sound like the original releases, which were not high fidelity. Still, they sound pretty good. And it's a cool set to visually poke through.

 

I highly doubt it, only a fragment of potential buyers would have read that !

 

I dunno. Vinyl isn’t a large market—the “vinyl revival” among millennials is nowhere near as big as the hype, and they aren’t buying Beatles releases anyway. The small niche of people who would buy a 45rpm Beatles singles re-release box are the same people who would be familiar with Fremer.