I just listened to the complete WHITE ALBUM tonight via my USB stick 24/44.1 version as played through my Meridian SooLoos via my Meridian 861 v.6 pre/pro in SUPER mode [Meridian's version of hyper synthesized discrete].
My Impressions: LOVED the entire album and even Revolution No. 9 as played through the Super DSP mode was.....well, indulgent and hyper discrete.....but hey, it WAS the early 70's. Sound~wise, it was compressed but then I lowered the volume 1 notch [from 66 to 65] which did alleviate the shrillness...a bit. But I really DO believe the absolute masters were NOT touched.......that the USB stick was probably derived from a 192/24 1:1 from the original masters and the 192 oversampling rate was downsampled to 44.1 to accommodate all those 17 Beatles albums on 1 USB stick.
I wonder aloud whether DSD 256 [QUAD DSD] from the ORIGINAL master tapes has ever been attempted and if so, how it would compare with the PCM masters.
I do NOT recall any shrillness nor compression while listening to the same tracks via the LOVE album. Those cuts remain smooth as silk........and without ever being privy to hearing the absolute masters, it would seem that ONLY Sir George himself knew what they sounded like and attempted to replicate that exact sound when remixing the LOVE album.....something I DO hope Giles replicates when doing The White Album's 5.1 [and Dolby Atmos] remixes.
A reverie of mine....I wish Sir George himself had remixed the entire Beatles catalogue in 5.1. I think they would've been, in a word, DEFINITIVE!