With The Beatles -Remastered-

Waited 22 years, they got RIGHT...
When EMI and the Beatles decided to release their wonderful music to CD back in 1987, I was a happy camper. Then when the first four British release were in Mono, I was sad. It was kinda ironic. MEET THE BEATLES had "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "This Boy" were 'electronic rechannel' stereo, and the rest of the album was in true stereo. If the die-hard Beatle fans wanted to create there version of MEET THE BEATLES from CD's, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "This Boy" were in true stereo, and the rest of the songs were in mono. That's what I call BACKWORDS! As time went by, I was hearing about Mobile Fidility Sound Labs (MFSL). People who had the Beatles MFSL (released in 1978), burned them to their CD-R's, and capturing the Best Stereo Sound of The Beatles I have ever heard in my life. I compared the WTB 2009 Remasterd and the WTB MFSL CD-R and it is Very Close. The channel seperation was a little better on the MFSL CD-R, while the 2009 Remaster has a few of the songs lasting a 'half a second' to a second longer. Very Tight. Anyway, after 22 years of waiting of the official release of their cataloge is long over due. I'm extreamely happy that EMI brought the First Four in Stereo to light. I don't have PLEASE PLEASE ME, A HARD DAYS NIGHT & BEATLES FOR SALE yet, but I will soon and I will review them as well. 5 Stars for WITH THE BEATLES 2009 Remastered.

I own this (the single CD, not from the box set)
I actually own this exact product. I also own the older CD of this album and it was thin sounding. There is a strong improvement. It is in particular with the instrumentals, from my ear. There is still distortion in the vocals and I think that is as good as it gets. I love the songs on this album. It's always fun to listen to it. That's subjective. Its just good energy. This album is in Stereo (I understand this disc from the box set is in the original mono mix, yes?) and it follow the old idea of Stereo mixing (vocals on the right). That makes it authentic for the approximate period but it makes it odd to listen to in a car (obviously because you are sitting by the left speakers when driving and if you balance it for you, the passenger suffers). So, it has a novelty aspect some might not like. I understand. It just doesn't bother me that much and is actually kind of fun when you can almost completely isolate the vocals or the instrumentals .... Karaoke anyone? A little high for my range in my dotage. I had a problem where this disc (and the another remastered disc I bought) would not play on my PC but it was the drive on this stupid Dell. I had someone swap out the drive. It wouldn't even open and when I look in the drive itself, it looks like a blank disc. NOW FIXED... again, had to swap out the DVD drive. The bad drive was TSST corp DVD+RW TS-L532B

Yuk. Keep your original 1987 CD ... Or Mix to Mono !!!
If you don't like your main vocals to only come out of one speaker (Right), avoid this. It's really a shame you have to fork out $250 to get the first four CD's in mono. (Of course you get more, but those are the only ones you really need .. maybe Mono Masters too.) Back when they released the original CD's, the first four were Mono, then all the rest in Stereo, with good mixes as far as my ear could tell. The Past Masters also contained Mono mixes for some of the songs. I've been ripping these new 2009 CD's to the computer, and comparing back & forth. So far I've noticed a big improvement, except here. I literally hate this one. So my new plan is to keep the first four + Past Masters, and upgrade the rest. Hopefully in the future, they'll make those first four available in Mono by themselves. Update 9-13-09 I have tried the Mix to Mono suggestion a few other reviewers have mentioned. On a Mac I used Quicktime Pro to export each track to Mono. On a Windows machine, you could use a free program such as Audacity. (It only takes about 5 seconds for each track.) I have to say that this is a great idea. I realize we all have different tastes, and so each of us may prefer these albums the way we remember them. So if you can't afford the Mono set (I fit this category for sure), then this is the best alternative. I still hope EMI will make the Mono Masters available individually, so until then this will have to do.

Where is Meet the Beatles?
I too was very young when seeing the Beatles on Ed Sulivan, and as a previous post said "We all knew something special just took place". My sister and I jumped on our bikes and rode to the store the next day and bought Meet The Beatles in vinyl of course. Well, those grooves are deep due to constant playing through out my life. I want the same thing on CD with the tunes in the same order. My brain is programmed to hear them that way after listening to it a gazillion times. "With the Beatles" simply won't work.

Pure Joy.
Sorry to be so cliched, but "you had to be there." I was 13 in 1964 and I can't describe what these short, beautiful songs meant to me. There was such thoughtfulness, optimism and LIFE. Thanks, boys!