When the new batch of Beatles vinyl came out a few weeks ago
I took home Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour to check them
out. My first impression was sort of ho-hum. I played my American Apple
pressings and by comparison they seemed better, but just sort of. Then I
started seeing various reports in the press about how either good or bad they
were. There seemed to be no consensus about how these highly anticipated
reissues really fared compared to other issues on vinyl. So, Twist and Shout’s
vinyl guru Ben Sumner and myself decided to subject the reissues to some
clinical testing and determine what we really thought. We went over to my house
to avail ourselves of a decent stereo and then I subjected Ben to a blind
listening of five different Peppers and four Mystery Tours. To
avoid fatigue, we chose to listen to just a limited amount of music from each
album. We played “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “With A little Help
From My Friends” from the former and “Strawberry Fields Forever” from the
latter. We fortified ourselves with pizza and some red wine and then dove in.
With Pepper, we played two different American Apple
pressings, the new version, Ben’s first pressing British Parlophone version and
finally the CD from the ’09 box set. We found that we agreed across the board
with each other and the results were interesting and a bit unexpected. Both of
the American Apples had a louder, more compressed and more radio-ready,
exciting sound. When we played the original British copy it is safe to say it
was a revelation comparatively. The field of sound broadened, there was more
space between the instruments and the lows seemed lower. It was subtler and
showed the album to be the avant-garde masterpiece it was. In my notes abut the
American versions I wrote “No wonder America fell in love with the Beatles.”
Those louder, slightly more compressed versions somehow took your attention
away from the nuances and pushed these great songs to the front of the sonic
field sounding like instant hits. When we played the new version in direct
comparison, it fell squarely in between these two experiences. It lacked the
beautiful delicacy of the original British and it also toned down some of the
over-amped excitement of the American mixes. The down side was some of the
vocals and drums sounded a bit muffled, but the positive side was we both
agreed that these were actually pretty good versions that the average consumer
could comfortably buy knowing they are getting a very respectable version of
this classic material.
The Mystery Tours were an original American Capitol
version, the new version, the highly coveted German, Apple (Horzu) version and
again the CD to finish it off. By choosing “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which
has always been in true stereo, we sidestepped the whole stereo vs. duo phonic
debate. Our results were similar to the Pepper experiment. The original
Capitol jumped out of the speakers, again tamping down the subtlety and pumping
up the excitement. The real revelation of the entire evening was the German
version, which offered this psychedelic masterpiece in the most detailed and
gorgeous presentation I’ve ever heard. It captured that ineffable quality that
vinyl buyers crave. Some call it warmth, Ben says it is just a heightened space
between the instruments, but it is the thing that lovers of the medium crave
and seek out. It is also the thing that many digitally produced modern albums
lack. Once again the new version fared pretty well also. It lacked the jaw
dropping delicacy of the German, but it was a better sounding record than my
original Capitol.
-Paul Epstein
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