kstublen

The Beatles = The White Album

EDIT: And yes, you should get $35 worth of Gift Cards after it's all said and done.

cungar

Be interested if any of the early buyers would like to try a double blind test with the new CDs and the 87 originals. Have someone in your house switch them and let us know how often you choose the right one.

Rypro 525

well i'm gonna try something.
Play back to back to back the 2009 remaster, the Love version, and the 2001 remaster of "All You Need Is Love" and see which is prefered out of all of them. As far as I'm aware, the 2001 remaster is the version on "1", and thats just the 87 version with a volume boosting right?

bub2000

Any idea on how many Stereo sets there are? I was planning on getting it around christmas/boxing day... Will there be many left?

Quake1028

I don't think the stereo set is limited. I could be wrong.

SkullOrchard

My guess is that there will be plenty of sets available for the holiday season.

GHackmann

In the interest of science, I grabbed an ABX app off the Internet and tried it with a couple of tracks from The White Album. I guessed right 7/7 times on "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and 7/8 times on "Helter Skelter". And the ABX app automatically normalized the volumes of all the tracks, so it wasn't just that they increased the volume on the 2009 version.

To be honest, the difference on "Happiness" wasn't huge. The percussion and vocals were a little clearer if you were listening closely, but not by much. My guess is that you wouldn't notice the difference unless you were specifically looking for them. "Helter Skelter" was a big improvement, though, big enough that I'm surprised I guessed wrong once.

So there's a couple of data points, at least.

(Edit: FWIW, All Songs Considered just had an interview with the engineer who did the remastering. He said that the differences would be obvious on the earlier albums and in places on The White Album, but most of the improvements on the newer tracks would be subtle.)

slop101

I did that, and they're fitting okay, but a few of the plastic pages are starting to tear at the outside seam. weak sauce...

Supermallet

Hmm, I'll have to check for that. The instructions said I can lock the digipacks into place with the hole in the outside flap, and when I unlatched one, the flap looked a little warped. The idea is that you don't have to unflap them to get to the CD, since the CD is stored separately, but I find it difficult to access the disc without removing the digipack. I imagine the replica LP's will be easier.

palebluedot

I was sure there was a non fold-down mono Abbey Road. I remember there was a CD floating around that someone made form a mono Abbey Road LP and this was not a fold-down.

ctyankee

There are fold-down Abbey Road floating around as well as re-mixed fold-downs and supposedly a Brazilian Mono. However, the party line is that Abbey Road was planned and executed for stereo. If true, then the Brazilian mono isn't much different from a fold-down as how do they deal with things like stereo reverb etc? If there was an original mono I'm sure they would LOVE to sell it to us - making it pretty convincing there is none. That said, Abbey Road in stereo is certainly a highlight for me of the entire collection.

cracksky

Just the packaging, DVD and Quicktime files. The digipacks will be replaced by jewel cases when the initial supply runs out.

kstublen

They'll be replaced with jewel cases? Really? I think I might actually go back and pick 'em up in jewel cases every so often, for completion-sake. The digipaks are awful and damaging to the discs.

slop101

Yeah, the problem with these digi-packs is that who/whatever puts the discs inside them, is jamming them too far in, until the disc hits the sealed side of the pouch, not only opening the seal but getting the glue onto the disc.

bub2000

So will the contents of the big black box be jewel cases then?

Jay G.

Pre-ordered the mono box back in August, and selected Super Saver Shipping. Yesterday Amazon sent me notice that it shipped. It arrived today.

Looking at the order, Amazon apparently shipped it via A-1 Courier Services.

I'm wondering if Amazon is upgrading the shipping on all the pre-orders. Anyone else besides me and TomOpus get their order faster than they paid for?

Shiv Shankly

Amazon upgraded my normal 2-day Prime to overnight, which was nice. I assume that they would have shipped Monday otherwise without the holiday.

Buttmunker

So now I would be able to hear the song Long, Long, Long on the White Album? After all these years, the wax will be out MY ears, TOO??

For the White Album, Mono e Mono is recommended, right? In fact, ALL the albums are recommended for Mono?

MBoyd

I've had super saver shipped courier 4-5 times in the past when I lived in Dallas. I think it depends on if your city has an Amazon warehouse/hub or not. I noticed mine shipped from Coffeyville KS.

Drop

If you want to hear the albums the way The Beatles produced them you want them in Mono all the way up to The White Album. Abbey Road and Let it Be are only available in Stereo. Yellow Submarines Beatles tracks are available on Mono Masters, but if you really want George Martin's instrumentals you need the stereo disk. Also Past Masters is the only place to hear The Ballad of John and Yoko and Old Brown Shoe

ctyankee

What app did you use?

Hokeyboy

After giving the matter due consideration, I decided to place the CDs and the booklet inserts into the "Box of Vision", and leave the digipaks in the original box that housed the stereo set. I think it looks "cleaner" in the BoV to just have the CDs and inserts. Plus now I've justified to myself why I have to keep the black "shoebox" as well (it's a lovely package... the shoebox, too).

Being the obsessive Beatle collector type, I've got a hankering to rush out and buy the Red/Blue albums, 1, the Anthologies, Live at the BBC, etc. just to fill out my BoV!

Oh, and before I placed the CDs in the BoV I ripped them as both FLACs and VBR MP3s. That way I can hear the full uncompressed audio on my soundsystem and have reasonable copies to load onto my iPod. I *LOVE* my BoV, but it would be something of a pain to open that sucker up and reach for CDs anytime I want to listen to, say, "Mr. Moonlight" or "Long, Long, Long". And buh wha?

Kavalier

I ordered both of the box sets late Tuesday night from Amazon, when I found them available again. I used Super Saver Shipping, as is my habit. (Cheap!)

Yesterday I checked the order status obsessively - no movement, even though at the time of the order both items were listed as in stock (if memory serves). So I changed the status to 2 day shipping. The delivery dates changed - moved up. But when there was still no movement after a few hours, I experiemented with the shipping speed option. When I moved back to two-day shipping, the deliver date moved to October.

This morning I decided to ship as items become available. A few minutes later, the stereo box set changed status to "Shipping Soon."

They are both still set at Two-Day Shipping, for a total cost of $15.96. Even though the stereo box set is shipping soon at two-day shipping, the delivery estimate is September 29, 2009 - October 7, 2009.

By the way, I signed up last week to be notified when each box set became available. I received my stereo box set notification only this morning, more than a full day after I discovered it was available. I still haven't received my mono box set availability email.

whaaat

The Brazilian mono Abbey Road and Let It Be are fold-downs of the stereo.

Drexl

That's hilarious. I love the comment about George being the best dancer, which is clearly a nod to the stunt double in his "Got My Mind Set on You" video from 1987.