Comments on: The Beatles: Rockband

By: cosmicjester

cosmicjester — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:18:43 +0000

My audio set up is not that great and I’m not an audiophile so I have had trouble hearing the differences with the new remasters.

One track I can hear it clearly though it “Here Comes the Sun”, the remastered version is brilliant, never sounded so good.

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:41:00 +0000

Are you suggesting that the boys don’t get the stereo remasters for their birthday?

By: jr

jr — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:53:43 +0000

QUOTE:”… audiophile wankers”. Are they by chance related to Ray’s Mac wankers?

By: Dave from Albury

Dave from Albury — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:43:08 +0000

I think you’ll find that there isn’t any compression used on CD, it’s just a digital waveform. However, you are correct about vinyl, it has almost unlimited ability to store frequencies, while CDs are arbitrarily capped at 22kHz.

It would have been much better if they had released these remasters on DVD audio disks, but that would have limited their market to audio nerds, and people who use their DVD player to play CDs.

It will be interesting to see what format they use when these are eventually released as downloadable content, because without the constraints of CD they could actually end up being the definitive version of The Beatles, which would seriously upset a lot of audiophile wankers.

By: jr

jr — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:40:52 +0000

But as any true hi-fi afficianado will tell you, CDs are nothing compared to vinyl. Evidently vinyl can store a wider range of frequencies.

Evidently the compression technology used to fill a CD is lossy.

By: Dave from Albury

Dave from Albury — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:18:33 +0000

I was wary of the re-issue too Ray, but having read about the amount of work put into restoring these tracks I am certainly going to approach them with an open mind.

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:09:02 +0000

Ray,

I too have the CD box set and am alarmed by the fact that every review that I have read of the new stuff absolutely pans our collection. They just dumped the original analogue onto CD without any work.

I have had a listen online to some of the new stereo releases and you can definitely note the difference. I have been a Beatles fanatic since I was 8 and thought that I new every note. I recently bought a decent set of headphones and started noticing things in the music that I had not previously heard and was amazed. The new stuff does that ten-fold. There are notes, riffs and bass lines that I never knew existed.

There is the sense that EMI are milking the last bit of revenue from CDs before that format disapears but there really seems to be a quality product that they are selling. The description given is it is like watching your favourite movie on video on HD for the first time.

My boys are about to turn one and I know what they are getting for their first birthday!

Lastly, who would have thought that someone other than his mother could put up with Dave for a decade?

By: jr

jr — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:26:04 +0000

What, let him loose? No way! With his ankle chained to the sink, the coffee’s always on.

By: Ray Dixon

Ray Dixon — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:40:10 +0000

I’ll have a listen later Dave, but are the re-mastered tracks really as good as everyone claims they are? I remember when they “re-mastered” all the Beatles albums onto CDs (I’ve got the set) and they were brilliant, but how many times can they keep re-inventing the wheel (or reheating the souffle as McCartney would say)?

I smell money-hungry Yoko Ono behind all this. Or is it Michael Jackson still making money from the song rights from the grave?

Btw, happy anniversary. Ten years? You should be eligible for parole soon.