Remastered boxed sets – first look
Mono
Stereo
These are cell phone pictures from the new Beatlefest catalog
HMV in Japan has the new remastered stereo and mono boxed sets listed on their website for pre-ordering, but without images.
The pre-order prices roughly converts to:
Mono Box…….. USD 357,00
Stereo Box…… USD 311,00
What appears to be a difference in sizes of the boxes could be explained by the description on HMV Japan. They refer to the stereo box as “Long Card Box With Bonus Dvd”, while the mono box is just described as “Beatles in Mono”.
A mock-up I made based on the above two pictures, for size comparison
The stereo box contains the 12 original UK albums plus “Past Masters” and “Magical Mystery Tour”, and includes a DVD with mini-documentaries about each album. The audio for “Help!” and “Rubber Soul” were remixed for stereo by George Martin in 1987, and it’s these mixes that will be either utilized or mimicked on these discs.
The mono box gathers together all of The Beatles recordings which were mixed for a mono release. It will contain 10 albums with their original mono mixes plus 2 more discs of mono masters (covering similar ground to the tracks on “Past Masters”) As a bonus the discs for “Help!” and “Rubber Soul” also include the original 1965 stereo mixes.
HMV Japan Mono box
HMV Japan Stereo (Long Card Box With Bonus Dvd)
Dude, how much news can people give me about September 9 before I lose every remaining fibre of my sanity? The next thing is the Let it Be DVD. After that happens, I'll have spent half of my money on the Beatles and the other half on drugs to calm me down.
Still, this is awesome.
And, First.
So, the mono box set is more expensive for less cd's?
I'm not surprised the mono box is more expensive– they know they're audience, and the people who will pay for mono (like, um, me) will pay almost anything.
Theo, do you have news about the Let It Be DVD, or would it just be the next on your list of Beatles things to yearn for? 🙂
I wonder how the 1965 stereo mixes of Rubber Soul sound. I still think they'd have that weird drums in one ear, rest of the instruments in another sound to them.
I might buy one album just to see how it sounds, but I'm not going to waste my money on the boxed set until they release a properly re-mixed catalogue, something that could take another 22 years by the looks of it 🙁
Amazon's Canadian store lists both box sets (without pictures) for pre-order: amazon.ca/Mono-Box-Set-Beatles/dp/B002BSHXJA
No price on the stereo set but they guarantee the mono set for 289Canadian (~$264US)
The Beatles.com now has in the UK store both box sets. Kind of pricey compared to buying them individually – hopefully US prices will be cheaper.
digitalstores.co.uk/beatles/productdetail.jsp?MaxHits=12&Category=remasters&productPK=unittest-7aMihAZDD5X7UsnjqN3IEb-1
digitalstores.co.uk/beatles/productdetail.jsp?MaxHits=12&Category=remasters&productPK=unittest-wZ7SEgX5W5X7UsnjqN3IEb-1