US Beatles EP CD Box & UK CD Singles Box

Just received my nice UK CD Singles box--nice complement to my US EP CD box. Thanks to this forum for turning me onto these items. Got the UK box (sealed) for $113.00, including shipping. It as 110 pounds new when I was in London this summer.

I decided to do an A/B on the some of the (mostly early) tracks that are common to the two sets. I played Please Please Me, Love Me Do and I Feel Fine. Guess what? The UK versions sound better. I was surprised because SH has said that both sets use the same tapes, so it could just be mastering differences between the US-pressed CD's and the UK-pressed ones. And, yes, by the way, each and every UK CD says "Made In UK" on it.
Each CD EP has the Capitol logo on it, as does the box.

Very interesting.

 

5" or 3"?

 

Larry, if it was the 3" box he would have paid one hell of a lot more money for it!

mud-

 

How much does the 3" go for now? (I have one)

 

Me too. Last time I saw one on Ebay: $500.

mud-

 

It's the five inch box in both cases, although I will brag that I do have the rarest of all the 3 inchers, the SFF/PL reversed a/b "sides". In the nice snap pak too. UK version I think. Onyl played it once or twice. SFF plays fist, PL second--that's the mistake and hence, the rarity.

 

I have that one as well not learning of "rareness" until the other day from a thread here.

mud-

 

In actuality, only the U.S. 3" of SFF/PL is rare as it had a limited production run. The U.K. cd was produced in quantities comparable with the other 21 titles.

 

Hi Dave, mine is the US version.

mud-

 

If it's a plastic snap-pak, then it's the US version. The UK ones were all cardboard except for the plastic hub & they didn't snap shut. Also, I still don't get what's going on here, because SFF has ALWAYS been the A-side, and the UK CD singles both have it as the A-side (3" & 5"). All records ever released also have it as the A-side. US radio just flipped it.

 

Nice score Mud! I bought all 22 titles at the same time and had no idea as to the rarity of SFF/PL as compared to the rest of the titles. It was only when I tried to help my college roomate complete his collection (he had 21 of the 22), did I realize just how scarce the title was.

The first four to six titles of the series are definitely the most common. I still walk into cd stores today and see these brand new in the bins (the longboxes are a bit worse for wear however).

 

Larry, bottom of this page:

http://www.rarebeatles.com/photopg3/cdsing.htm

I lifted this from another thread. Originally posted by Anthology123.

mud-

 

Dave, so did I. As they say, "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in awhile."



mud-

 

Cool!!

 

Absolutely! Like Dave above (GuyDon) I can honestly say, "I didn't know that!"



mud-

 

Slightly off topic.

How's the sound quality of the UK EP CD set? Is it same as the US one?

 

I have the EP & Singles boxes from the US and they sound different in common songs

Country of origin has nothing to do with sound quality.

It's in the original masters, not country of origin.

Where they are pressed does not matter.

 

They are IDENTICAL

 

Exactly, and I think the masters were different in this case (between the single and EP boxes). I've heard the singles box used the CD tapes, while on the EP box used better sources, similar to what the blue/red CDs are made from...

Ryan

 

This is the exact opposit of what I am hearing. My UK singles box smokes the US EP box. It's th EP box that sounds like it is mastered from copy tapes. The UK box sounds fresh and alive....as much as CD's can, that is.

 

I've got a UK singles and a US ep set and I find I prefer the ep's sound quality. I doubt in this case it's where the set was pressed.

 

Steve,

I was refering to the US pressed (british) EP box. I think this thread basically began asking about the sound quality of a US pressed vs. UK pressed set.

 

Steve:

All I did was compare the tracks which are common on my US EP box and my UK singles box. There is no question that the US EP box is US, because there are Capitol logos on the spine of the box as well as on each and every CD. Also, each and every CD says "Manufactured by Capitol Records. Printed in USA." on it. Each and every disc on my UK singles box says "Made in UK" on it.

Having said that, I compared some of the common tracks--Please Please Me, Love Me Do and I Feel Fine. The UK box versions of these songs sound better. That's all I said. From that point, the thread evolved into a couple of different discussions, as you can see.

Since starting the post, I have played a few more tracks from the UK singles box--Hey Jude, Revolution, Come Together. You shoud hear the bass in Come Together. I auditioned a pair of Spendor LS/35a's (did I get the model # right?) a week or so ago, using the shop's US Abbey Road CD. Sounded awful. The UK CD singles version of CT is simply amazing. I have never heard the bass in this track like this before--I felt it in my stomach!

 

The UK CD singles were NOT no-noised but the Abbey Road CD was.

Makes a big difference, huh?