Please Please Me -Remastered-

Remastered version a vast improvement
There's only so much that audio engineers can do with material that was frankly rather sloppily recorded four and a half decades ago. Back in the 1970s, I owned a high-end audio store, and as familiar as I was with the Beatles' U.S. releases, I still purchased all the Beatles LPs on British Parlophone anticipating the "real thing." However, none of those LPs, including this album, were anything great in terms of fidelity. The sound was generally thin, brittle, weak, and lacking in detail. The U.S. versions, with all their weaknesses, were better. But keep in mind that high-quality audio systems were very rare in 1962, and the engineers did the mastering, equalization, etc., with "record players," not audio systems, in mind. It should not be surprising that the early Beatles' recordings didn't hold up so well on top-quality audio equipment. Whatever else they have done to their manufacturing capability over the past few decades, the British have remained extremely important in terms of audio engineering. Bowers & Wilkins 801s are still damn fine speakers a quarter century after they first appeared. The British masterings of Frank Sinatra's 1950s output simply blow away the American versions. While the American engineers worried about removing hiss, the British engineers went after capturing the music, the comparison to modern digital recording be damned. What the engineers have done with this album, and I assume the others, is dig as deep as they could into the master tapes and get us as close to the music as possible. Beware that this is not as close as possible to the sound that we heard from our GE or RCA portables. It is what we wish they could have sounded like back then. It is the Beatles reworked for the modern age and, to my mind, very successfully. Compare this remastered version to the old LP or the early CDs. It's no contest. It's not a matter of whether the harmonica sounds squeaky or the voices on occasion sound hard. That's on the tape and can't be changed. It's a matter of detail, and balance, and definition, and capturing the music. Eight remastered CDs arrived today. I can't wait to hear the rest.

Very Pleased With Please Please Me
I grew up in the '60's with two older sisters and Beatles music was the soundtrack of our home (along with Frank Sinatra from our parents!) Just got the remastered Please Please Me yesterday. It's fantastic. For the first time, I can really hear Paul's baseline and the vocals are clearer than anytime before. Wonderful to hear a slight "fluff" of the lyrics on Please Please Me that makes John laugh on the phrase "Come On! Come On!"...never caught that before. Even if you opt to buy the cd's individually (which it what I'm doing-it gives you something to look forward to!) the remastered collection is well worth it!

Please Please Me doesn't quite please me
The 2009 stereo remaster is leaves me with mixed feelings. Some of the mixes are good, "Ask Me Why" comes to mind as does "Twist And Shout", but the new stereo mix of "Please Please Me" is not very good. It sounds tinny and a bit distorted. I wish they would have included the mono version instead. I'm lukewarm on "I Saw Her Standing There." It sounds a bit tinny to me as well.

not quite perfect.
Been waiting for the offical stereo version of this CD for years. I already had a stereo version from other sources. This doesn't sound that much better than what I already had. But the big flaw on the newly remastered version - is that there isn't a good version, in stereo, of the specific cut, Please Please Me. The harmonica is way distorted making that cut unlistenable -- they should have stuck with the way less distorted mono version (they still used the mono versions of She Loves You and I'll Get You for the remastered Past Masters). Stereo or not -- they should have picked the better version. Guess they will fix that for the 2022 rerelease.

The Beatles Remastered-Simply,no,majestically a masterpiece body of work!
I've been listening to the Beatles since I was old enough to know what music was. My older sister was, and is, a huge Beatles fan and bought every album and single that was released here in the U.S.. I can remember as a small child, my sister and I getting ready for school listening to the Beatles blasting on our RCA TV console record player. The stereo my mother had won on the TV game show Let's Make A Deal. The school day mornings were ours, our parents were off at work already, so we were free to escape into the world the Beatles had created. Later on when my sister had her own record player, don't tell her, when she was away I would sneak into her room and listen on headphones to her prized collection. I became very intimate with all of the songs the fab four shared with me. Their music so inspired me that I became a singer, songwriter, producer etc.. Thank God for the Beatles' music. Cut to 1987 when with great anticipation the Beatles finally released their music on CD after many years of legal wrangling. As has been stated before, they didn't live up to the sonics I had remembered. Gone were the clicks and pops, but so was the magic and excitement I so cherished. They sounded very flat, mushy and overly compressed. It was still the same songs but as heard through a filter. Now in this glorious age of technology and even more compressed volume wars of the digital era, they have been finally res erected. Everyone, including me, who cared about the great legacy that is the Beatles were skeptical. Would the powers that be try and please the masses that are used to overly hyped, compressed, CDs and MP3s? Or would they treat them as the musical historical documents that they are? Well worry no more! The rematsered Beatles albums are a revelation! I can honestly say I am very impressed. To my ears, these sound much better than I have ever heard these songs. As I have read from others, I have heard things in these recordings that I have never heard before after intently listening to these songs ever since their original release. The clarity is startling in it's honesty. Most musicians would be horrified to hear their vocals and playing with such a microscope after being used to having things so meshed together by the past mediums' masters. These aren't your ordinary musicians as the world knows. It is jarring at first to hear these recordings that we have loved for so long. They sound like the same songs but so clear that they sound different. The first thing you notice is that you can now hear the bass and drums with much more clarity and authority. Next I noticed the vocals of such amazing resolution that you can really hear their spit and snarl. I can go on, but you are wasting time reading my ramblings. Go out and get your favorite album and have a listen. Or just find some money and buy all of them, if you are a Beatles fan you will be glad you did. Simply,no,majestically a masterpiece body of work.