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.