- Home
- Equipment Reviews
-
Amplification Digital Integrated Mono Block Preamplifier Phono Solid State Tube Analog Sources Cartridges Tape Tone Arms Turn Tables Digital Sources Digital Disc Players DACs Music Servers Streaming Music Services
-
Accessories Power Conditioners Room Accoustics Racks & Stands Audio Software Other iPod iPod Speakers iPod Headphones iPod Transports Headphones Over Ear On Ear In Ear Headphone Amplifier
-
- Audio News
- Event Reports
- California Audio Show, San Francisco
- Consumer Electronics Show
- T.H.E. Show
- Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
- AXPONA
- Salon Son & Image
- Hi-Fi Show & AV Expo
- High End
- Lone Star Audio Fest
- Capital Audio Fest
- TAVES - Toronto Audio Video Entertainment Show
- AK Fest
- Home Entertainment Show
- New York Audio $ AV Show
- Open House Events
- Spotlight
- Music
- The Columns
- 2023 California Audio Show
Latest Reviews & Audio News
-
FinkTeam KIM stand-mount speakers Review
(April 25, 2023) -
PureAudioProject Quintet15 10” Coaxial open-baffle speaker system Review
(April 11, 2023) -
Taket-Live super tweeter and WHDPURE woofer enhancer Review
(March 30, 2023) -
Mahler Symphony No. 4: A child’s vision of heaven
(March 6, 2023) -
Conrad-Johnson releases ART88 triode reference preamplifier
(March 1, 2023) -
Hana Umami Blue moving-coil cartridge released
(February 28, 2023) -
Stage III Concepts Ckahron Ultimate Statement XLR interconnects Review
(March 3, 2023) -
Iconoclast by Belden Series 2 speaker cables Review
(February 8, 2023) -
Townshend Maximum super tweeters Review
(February 3, 2023) -
Aspen Acoustics Grand Aspen speakers Review, Part 2 – conclusion
(January 7, 2023) -
Bricasti Design Launches the M1 Series II Dual Mono Converter
(January 3, 2023) -
Aspen Acoustics Grand Aspen speakers Review, Part 1 of 2
(January 7, 2023) -
Heaven and Earth – Cappella Records CR424 SACD Review
(December 28, 2022) -
Kan Sound Lab Mewon TS-001 ribbon super tweeter Review
(December 1, 2022) -
Grado Labs Opus3 moving-iron cartridge High Output version Review and Follow-up on the Music Hall mmf-1.3 turntable
(November 21, 2022)
-
Categories
-
Amplification Digital Integrated Mono Block Preamplifier Phono Solid State Tube Analog Sources Cartridges Tape Tone Arms Turn Tables Digital Sources Digital Disc Players DACs Music Servers Streaming Music Services
-
Accessories Power Conditioners Room Accoustics Racks & Stands Audio Software Other iPod iPod Speakers iPod Headphones iPod Transports Headphones Over Ear On Ear In Ear Headphone Amplifier
Site Sections
Copyright ©1996-2023 All Rights Reserved.
Popups Powered By : XYZScripts.com
It was more than 40 years ago today, 16 years old and cruising in Mom’s ‘62 Biscayne. That 5 button radio would get quite a work-out. “I want to hold your hand”, “Please Please Me”, and the other 1963-65 Beatle’s songs were left on only after a search for the Stones, the Who or the Kinks.
A few years later, played in the dorm on a GE Wildcat, Sgt. Peppers, and Magical Mystery Tour were fun with herbs but didn’t have the same power as Beggars Banquet or Electric Ladyland. By the time The White Album came along we couldn’t think of the Beatle’s as legitimate hard rockers.
Anyway, that’s why, until recently, there were no Beatle’s in my music collection. Almost 40 years (YIKES!) later, at a recent record show, I came across an import Magical Mystery Tour at a great price and decided to get the Troika: Sgt. Peppers, MMT and The White Album.
After I got them home and cleaned them, it occurred to me that I had never, not once, listened to this music on an “audiophile” system. What a different experience! Of the three, Sgt. Peppers offers the most remarkable “sound”. All the scoring for brass band comes across clear and live-sounding. The effects, still in their infancy, are not so over-blown as on MMT. They have a real connection to the music. There is presence, the instruments and sounds seem to exist in space and the whole, together with the Beatle’s voices and instruments, create a musically satisfying experience that sounds as “live” as any “audiophile” tracks.
I’ve read that George Martin pioneered the use of the recording studio as another musician beginning with Sgt. Peppers. All the over-dubs, effects and multi-tracking were done in the face of stiff opposition from EMI. And these were the first Beatle’s albums to be produced in Stereo.
Of the three, Magical Mystery Tour is almost forgotten. The self-indulgent extraneous noises were off-putting even to we consciousness-raised students. And that’s too bad because I hear some of the best written Beatle’s songs. “The Fool On the Hill” and “I Am the Walrus” on side 1 and the entire second side: “Hello Goodbye”, “Strawberry Fields”, “Penny Lane”, “Baby You’re A Rich Man”, and “All You Need Is Love” are self-contained classics that need none of the embellishments that surround them.
The White Album makes less of a statement in terms of production; it’s just a lot of really great songs. The only one of the three that I and my friends took seriously back in the day. The one that usually found it’s way to the record player at 4 A.M after a long night of study. “I’m So Tired” was a kind of theme song for those of us that somehow kept our eyes on the educational ball while concurrently indulging in various psychedelics.
Perhaps at the next C.E.S. or R.M.A.F. they’ll play John, Paul, George and Ringo to death. That would be a nice change from Barber and Krall and the 1812, wouldn’t it?