'The Beatles' - The White Album Listening Thread - Your thoughts

[sjcorne]

What I found really interesting is on the new "Jethro Tull This Was" disc the rates are "Dolby - 437 Kbps vs. DTS - 1.5 Mbps" and they stay static during the whole album? Thoughts???

Certainly not an expert (to me the quality of the surround mix is prioritized over all this tech stuff), but I would assume the static bit rate on the Tull disc has to do with the fact that it's a lossy codec (DTS 96/24) rather than the lossless DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD used on the Beatles.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

Right now on amazon $109.14

 

[milt]

What you're reading is the bit stream into the DAC, not what is coming out of the DAC as that is an analog stream.
You could look at it in terms that Dolby is a more efficient codec than DTS.

 

[Which_One_Is_Pink]

Well I ended up cancelling my $150 pre order due to financial reasons (Nov. was a killer surround month moneywise and so darn close to Christmas too) but I just reordered at $102 and should have it Wednesday Hooray!

 

[ar surround]

Well I ended up cancelling my $150 pre order due to financial reasons (Nov. was a killer surround month moneywise and so darn close to Christmas too) but I just reordered at $102 and should have it Wednesday Hooray!

As they say, "Good things come to those who wait." (But don't wait too long because look what happened to the price of those AF titles!)

 

[windhoek]

I'm not sure it's a bargain per se, but The Beatles White Album box set is currently £99.99 here on Amazon UK.

 

[Strilo]

I am severely late to this party. I had to cancel my pre-order back in November, due to financial reasons. However, I was able to use tax return (thanks Taxman!) to pick up this astounding and incredible release. With Pepper, I felt a huge nostalgic pull to listen to it as I had commonly experienced the album when it was new (to me). Seeing as it was 1986, I had my mother's record recorded to a cassette tape and listened commonly in headphones on my Walkman. Because of that, I first listened to Pepper in the new stereo mix in my Sennheiser cans. For the White Album, I just jumped straight to the 5.1 mix on my sound system. I was almost numb the first listen. I loved it, but it was the second listen where I really was stunned at how GOOD this thing sounds. The audio quality... the sonics... the detail... the clarity and accuracy. And even though I also love the surround mix of Pepper, I absolutely agree that the White Album is a much more active, and discrete, surround mix. Two listens last night at higher levels, plus a third listen at low levels when my housemates were home. I have so much to explore for sure, but overall I'm utterly in love.

And seriously I've never cared for Revolution 9, but holy &@$% it sounds insane in 5.1. It's almost a surround demo track! More to come as I (belatedly) explore this release.

 

[Strilo]

Question for those who have lived with the content for longer than I. For the stereo mix I will use in iTunes, on my phone, etc, should I just rip the CDs? Or should I pull the hi-res stereo mix off the Blu Ray and then create ALAC files that everything can play?

 

[esimms86]

If you can play ALAC on your phone then why not go for it? The sound quality of these mixes certainly warrant it.

BTW Onkyo HF Player allows you to play hi res on your phone.

 

[Strilo]

I can make ALAC from the CDs or from the Blu Ray. I was more asking about the quality of the source... That maybe the CDs are louder than the stereo mix on the Blu Ray or whatever.

 

[skherbeck]

I am severely late to this party. I had to cancel my pre-order back in November, due to financial reasons. However, I was able to use tax return (thanks Taxman!) to pick up this astounding and incredible release. With Pepper, I felt a huge nostalgic pull to listen to it as I had commonly experienced the album when it was new (to me). Seeing as it was 1986, I had my mother's record recorded to a cassette tape and listened commonly in headphones on my Walkman. Because of that, I first listened to Pepper in the new stereo mix in my Sennheiser cans. For the White Album, I just jumped straight to the 5.1 mix on my sound system. I was almost numb the first listen. I loved it, but it was the second listen where I really was stunned at how GOOD this thing sounds. The audio quality... the sonics... the detail... the clarity and accuracy. And even though I also love the surround mix of Pepper, I absolutely agree that the White Album is a much more active, and discrete, surround mix. Two listens last night at higher levels, plus a third listen at low levels when my housemates were home. I have so much to explore for sure, but overall I'm utterly in love.

And seriously I've never cared for Revolution 9, but holy &@$% it sounds insane in 5.1. It's almost a surround demo track! More to come as I (belatedly) explore this release.

You thanked the taxman, ha ha! The tax return is the biggest government scam ever invented... so we can get a little bit of our own money back at the end of the year and feel better about getting reamed all year long... if taxes never got taken from our paychecks, and instead we got a tax bill at the end of the year, not only would we not thank the taxman, but maybe... just maybe, people would stop voting for politicians who keep raising taxes!!

Sorry... I get grumpy this time of year.

 

[Strilo]

Oh trust me, I said that with full irony!

 

[jimfisheye]

I can make ALAC from the CDs or from the Blu Ray. I was more asking about the quality of the source... That maybe the CDs are louder than the stereo mix on the Blu Ray or whatever.

The files on the bluray will be the full quality version. A CD (by nature of the format) has the audio reduced to 44.1k sample rate and further, to 16 bit. There may be nothing else done but it is VERY common for the CD version to be first limited/compressed and boosted and often also treble eq boosted before the downsample and bit reduction.

Now, sometimes you might want a compressed and treble brightened copy that also uses less disk space for portable device or car use! (Some people seem to like that anyway...)
So maybe you want to rip those CDs to get exactly that.

But the fullest quality unaltered copy of the stereo mix will be on the bluray and will be 24 bit.

This release features the multichannel surround mix on the bluray slightly compressed and brightened actually. (Some of us were disappointed with that.) So, the stereo mix is probably hyped even on the bluray in this case. The stereo mix from the 24 bit USB stick release is sure hyped to death! (I haven't compared the stereo mix from the bluray though.)

 

[Strilo]

I am wondering about taking that stereo mix from the Blu Ray and encoding it in ALAC at whatever resolution the normal Music player and iTunes can play.

 

[jimfisheye]

I am wondering about taking that stereo mix from the Blu Ray and encoding it in ALAC at whatever resolution the normal Music player and iTunes can play.

Normal music player apps and even iTunes support full quality 24 bit 96k files.
Apple was just trying to compete with FLAC with their ALAC format which is basically identical. They disabled FLAC playback in iTunes to push that. (Then kicked the ball away and still haven't started selling in ALAC in their online store but that's another story!)

 

[esimms86]

You thanked the taxman, ha ha! The tax return is the biggest government scam ever invented... so we can get a little bit of our own money back at the end of the year and feel better about getting reamed all year long... if taxes never got taken from our paychecks, and instead we got a tax bill at the end of the year, not only would we not thank the taxman, but maybe... just maybe, people would stop voting for politicians who keep raising taxes!!

Sorry... I get grumpy this time of year.

“Let me tell you how it will be/Ah, ah, Mr. Wilson/That’s one for you, nineteen for me/Ah, ah, Mr. Heath...”

 

[Strilo]

Another 2 listens tonight. I think I prefer the Dolby-True HD on my system.

 

[Albert Dagger]

The stereo mix on the CDs is virtually identical to the BR stereo mix. There’s some minor limiting, yes. No differences in EQ or compression. I doubt very much you can hear a difference, when the two mixes are level matched.
If you are not interested in the 5.1 or the extras, I wouldn’t spend money on the blu Ray version and just get the CDs!

 

[MrSmithers]

“Let me tell you how it will be/Ah, ah, Mr. Wilson/That’s one for you, nineteen for me/Ah, ah, Mr. Heath...”

It's funny in the 1991 "Live In Japan" version the lyrics are 'updated' to ah, ah Mr Major/Mr ?/Boris Yeltsin/Mr Bush... I thought that was kinda cool...



If we could get Revolver released in surround and sounding as good as this album, wow!

 

[Strilo]

The stereo mix on the CDs is virtually identical to the BR stereo mix. There’s some minor limiting, yes. No differences in EQ or compression. I doubt very much you can hear a difference, when the two mixes are level matched.
If you are not interested in the 5.1 or the extras, I wouldn’t spend money on the blu Ray version and just get the CDs!

Oh I'm EXTREMELY interested in the 5.1 mix, and I already have it... LOL! I will stick with the ALAC tracks I imported into iTunes from the CDs stereo mix.