DCC Archive Beatles CD Question(s)

I'm new to this forum and have a couple of questions about Beatles CD releases.

Has anyone heard or know anything about mono releases of Abbey Road and the White Album on the Quarter Apple label?

Does anyone know where to get copies of Mirror Spock or FSL transfers?

I understand Dr. Ebbett's transfers are very good (just got his new e-mail address and am waiting to hear back from him). Any other recommendations on decent Beatles CD releases would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for the help

Mike

 

Stay far away from any "mono" versions of Abbey Road. That album was never mixed to mono. Any "mono" versions are just fold-downs of the stereo mixes.

 

Stay far far away from the Quarter Apple releases. They suck outright. They have pops, crackles, and SKIPS. Some of them were sourced from scratched vinyl, which is ridiculous, since there are plenty of nice vinyl Beatle records out there. Did I say Avoid Quarter Apple? Just wanted to make sure I did.

 

I have the MONO version of the White Album, although I was not prevvy to whom released it when it was passed to me. It's close to "perfect" and it does NOT sound like a needle drop at all. I like it very much.

As far as the Abbey Road MONO, eh, yeah right! Mono my butt. How to make a fool part with his $30 bootleg money.

 

What does "fold-downs from stereo mixes" mean?

 

Means that you take both left and right channels and mix them into one channel. It also means that the Mono product was not sonically different than the stereo content-wize.

Anyone can do this. Some recievers have a MONO switch for this idea, sometimes.

 

I have the "Original Monaural Recording" white album boot. It's very good.

 

Thanks for the explanation. As far as the mono switch goes I have 2 old receivers with that feature, one a Harman-Kardon (c.59/60)and the other, a Lafayette 226C (early 60s?) which actually has a blend knob that blends from stereo to mono. I'm getting ready to have them refurbished w/new caps and tubes.

 

I agree. This is the best of the mono bootlegs of Beatles stuff. They were also beautifully packaged. I have Revolver, Sgt Peppers, and the White Album. All of them better my Japanese red vinyl box set mono versions.

Fred

 

i have legit mono LP copies of "rubber soul", "revolver", "sgt. pepper" and the "white album"; along w/ "MMT" on mono CD. i may get flamed here but, mono is the way to go on these titles since they were mixed for mono.

later, chris

 

Well...they were mixed for stereo as well...

 

I have the mono "Revolver" LP and there are substantial differences from the stereo version. In fact, I prefer the mono.

Now, all I need is a cleaner copy of what I can do because my vinyl is very noisy. No matter what I do I can't get it clean without artifacts.

 

I have all of the "Original Mono Recording" Beatles titles except Abbey Road and Let it Be. Those two were never mixed for mono, so they are just "fold downs",so why bother? To my ears these CD's beat the Japanese red vinyl and UK 80's LP reissues hands down. Definitely not needle drops here.

 

Say what?

If they aren't lp xfers, then what are they? Reel-to-reel tape xfers?

Surely you aren't saying that these are from "master tapes", are you?

 

Hey Fabfourfan,

As far as these mono versions on CD go. I can only evaluate by what my ears tell me. These to me are the best sounding ones out there I've heard yet. Definitely too good for being sourced from reel to reel tapes, and there is no surface noise whatsoever. I've listened to all of them through headphones as well. See if you can track down any of these "Original Monural Recording" titles. Then you'll see what I mean.

 

FYI on the original post. Turns out the info I got was wrong. The CDs I was told were available were NOT Quarter Apple but actually "Original Monaural Recording" discs. Based on what I"ve seen here in reply to my original question, I'm going ahead and getting the White Album. Unfortunately, the only other CDs available are Abbey Road and Let It Be. And those discs are in mono, so they must be fold downs.

Cheers,
Mike

 

JC,

Sorry if the intended meaning of my previous post was not more explicit!

I got the White Album "Original Monaural Recording" cds in December, 1977.

On both cds, you can hear the rumble between the tracks, and you can hear the rumble change between the sides.

Therefore, it is revealed to be a 'needle drop', however pleasant it might otherwise be.

Sorry for not being clearer in my first post.

 

The OMR White Album, at least the copy I had, *WAS* CDRs! Be careful! Return policies are not good on these types of releases...

 

I just wanted to chime in here a rousing post of support for the Dr. Ebbets CD's.

I've heard the American Capitol Releases and am anxiously awaiting the UK ones.

He is a pleasure to deal with and the quality of these discs are amazing.

Fantastic Product.

 

How can one not play CDRs, exactly? Yeah, some older players (and some newer players) won't necessarily play them all, but to not play ANY?


BTW, I think I read on here people raving about Beat's old "Capitol Versions" series. ARe those really that good? Because they always looked kind of mercenary to me (even though I enjoy much of Beat's later product).

-D

 

Many DVD players can't play CDR's (including my one year old 300 dvd Sony carousel).

My understanding from reading about this on usenet is that only dual-laser DVD players can play CDRs.

Here's list (don't know how old/complete it is) of DVD players that CAN read cdrs:
http://www.redrobe.com/dvd/vcd.html

Last here's a blurb that someone posted on usenet:



The lasers are different. CD-R dyes reflect a different wavelength
than DVDs. For a DVD player to read a CD-R, it requires a second
laser. Many newer DVD players do come with the additional laser for
CD-R media. You'd want to look for the words "dual-laser" or
"dual-optics".

CD-RWs, on the other hand, reflect a wavelength that's very close to
that of DVDs. It's not exactly the same, but some single-laser DVD
players will "accept" it.

Interestingly, there are confirmed cases of high-quality CD-R media
being successfully used even on single-laser DVD players.
Specifically, some have had success with Mitsui "gold" CD-Rs on their
single-laser DVD players, when every other type of CD-R failed.

[ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: Holy Zoo ]

 

That's the problem here. I'm using an older, single laser DVD as a transport and it won't play any CDRs. I just recently got the same info about trying CDRWs and I'm going to give that a shot.

The unit's a Panasonic A-120 and I've got it gong through an MSB Link II with the opamps upgraded. The pairing is magic and every other combo I've tried falls far short. I didn't set out to use the thing as a transport. I had an old Denon 1520 in my system when I started upgrading. I got a good price on a Link II and tried the Denon through it. Not much better. For the hell of it, I put the A-120, (which I was using strictly for DVDs through the TV) and I couldn't believe how good it sounded. Only down side has been the CDR problem. I've now got a Pioneer DV-434 which does the CDRs just fine but doesn't do anything else quite as well as the Panasonic. So, the Pioneer is now the TV unit and the Panasonic stays as the CD transport.

Associated equipment is a very heavily modified Foreplay preamp, VTL ST-85 amp (with Svetlana EL34's) and Maggie 1.6QR's. The system is pretty revealing of even minor changes, especially in the reproduction of strings, vocals and the like.

Guess I'll have to live without the CDRs until I can scrape together the bucks for a better transport or stand alone player.

Again, thanks for the info.

Mike