Why do Beatles CD's have such low fidelity?

Nothing, as far as i'm concerned. I like it. But, I prefer the MONO mixes.

 

I agree at least for the singles BOX version of YS and ER. Great sound.

 

Agreed. It's like the amount of mistakes and continuity errors fans catalog in the LORD OF THE RINGS movies. There's a lot of fanatics who are going to rip apart someone's else's version of their beloved.

I believe that there are more gross errors in, say, the Verve Ella Fitzgerald remasters -- which are less excusable considering they're the second go-round for many of the titles -- than the Beatles CD catalog, but there aren't ten threads a day inspired by those mistakes.

 

Well, of course the tapes were transfered to digital. Since it's a CD we know that much I still don't know what Dave meant by "newly created production master tapes"..

 

Try to get your hands on the original Elektra CDs of The Game, News of the World, and Greatest Hits. They are far superior to the Hollywood discs. I also have a West German CD pressing of Jazz on EMI that is good. For A Night at the Opera, get the DCC gold CD or, better yet, the DVD-Audio disc (if you have a DVD-Audio player; the disc is amazing in hi-rez).

 

For Tthe Game, News Of The World & A Day At The Races the MFSL's are the way to go. The DCC of A Night At The Opera is essential. For the rest either the Japanese 1sts or the W, German originals. All IMHO though.

 

In the case of The Beatles CD's, a lot of the problem with the sound is from operator error.

 

They took the analog masters, or perhaps even LP production master tapes, I don't know which for certain, and put them through a digital medium adding NR and then back on to tape to be used as the production masters for all Beatles CD's except the original Japan pressing of Abbey Road which temporarily escaped this until they recalled it and put the new NRed digital production tape version out a few months after it's release. This is how I understand it to be, but I know there are others here who know this probably better than I do.

 

Agreed, one listen to the 1983 version of Dark Side Of The Moon throws old "inferior converter theory" right down the toilet IMO. Try too much peeing around with trying to make it better through digital manipulation as the culprit. Damn kids and their toys.

 

I've heard some kid toys that sound better.

I think these CD's were made for the 'new generation' (i.e. kids my age), and the folks at Apple Corps. figured that the kids of the future wouldn't want to hear hiss or open-sounding analog warmth, so they did away with it.

 

I recall early CD reviews that would complain if hiss was audible on a CD. It's not surprising that the labels responded with brute force noise reduction.

 

While I think the Abbey Rd CD is lackluster in every way I really don't think it had that much NR applied to it. Maybe some of the intros and fade outs were NR'd and maybe 2 or 3 of the tracks at most were NR'd but I don't think the entire thing was "smothered in NR" or anything. This hiss level on the JPN Abbey Rd isn't that different...

 

I would agree with you about the kids not liking hiss, but I can't imagine anybody not wanting 'open sounding analog warmth'. Obviously the hiss reduction was intentional but I'd have to think that the 'open sounding analog warmth' removal was not. In fact, I'm guessing that at the time these engineers didn't have a clue that there were any byproducts to their heavy handed hiss reduction practices.

 

Chris, compare it to the Japan CP35-3016 version and tell me this again.

 

This is the best plausible answer IMO as well Doug.

 

I have and the hiss levels aren't all that different. I agree that the JPN disc sound better and that parts of the '87 Abbey Rd may have been NR'd but I don't think the entire disc was NR'd.

 

You have to remeber though...just because there is even some tape hiss does not mean they didn't use NR and they definitely did. Any warmth that is on that CP35 is completely gone on the standard issue. Sounds much harder, though not an extreme volume difference, to me personally.

 

But this would seem to indicate that either they didn't properly monitor their work or they were simply unskilled listeners. I can't imagine that they heard these effects and decided that it was a worthwhile compromise.

 

Wanna tell us what they are? Start another thread, if you like. Might save some of us from buying those remasters.

 

I'm saying that for most of the tracks (not all) the hiss level is the same for the JPN Abbey Rd and the standard Abbey Rd disc. I don't think the entire disc was NR'd, just a handful of tracks if any at all. Yes, I do agree that the JPN disc sounds better.

 

But remember...NR was being heavily pushed at this point in time as the absolute best way to remove that annoying tape hiss that the kids ie. the majority buyers dislike so much so it's not all that surprising really. I have to wonder how these guys sleep at night knowing what they've done.

 

Dave, I still like the Elektra Queen CDs. The MFSL version of The Game sounds a tad bright for my tastes.

 

Actually, Norman Smith was still the engineer for RS. Geoff Emerick didn't start until Revolver.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Beatles discussion.

 

Linda Ronstadt? Linda Ronstadt? Linda Ronstadt?

 

I stand corrected!