I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

I find it unlikely that Lennon's catalogue is possible to get to sound much better than the remasters a few years back did.

McCartney hasn't done the job since 1993, so probably a bit more to gain there, in terms of sound.

in terms of brickwalling

15 Apple Catalog lps to get remastered in October too

Badfinger - Ass, and it's about fucking time!

Haha, you said "Badfinger - Ass".

That's all very nice, but Apple really should get to a Singles box set, with the rarities etcet.

That Frank Sinatra one, the Brute Force one, and so on...

Bought the Mono box yesterday: It was an impostor box, all recordings in stereo, a couple jackets inside out/falling apart, CDs missing. Beware anything too cheap to be true--it probably is. I returned it okay, but am waiting on the real thing still.

How bizarre.

I still don't regret spending £150+ on that mono box.

unlike people who dropped £200+ on a plastic apple.

(I'd still be interested to hear those 24bit recordings though)

I tell you what!

That beatles mono box is going for around £50, consistently, on ebay.

Got one for meself (yesterday), obv it's not arrived yet.

How about Stereo? I still want one of those...

Amazon has some third-party mono boxes for $114.00 (USD). Doesn't seem too bad.

I'd stress about getting something like that posted. But then I'm a sad fetish-object fawner.

"Please, no don't mail it. I'll drive over. No, no, don't even touch it. I have gloves."

I still get a lot of joy out of the packaging of the mono box. Those little cds, packaged like little albums...it makes me smile every time I open it.

xpost Haha, yeah, that's me.

yeah, I'd wait to see it before celebrating...

people putting the mono box on Ebay with no starting price either have van loads to get rid of, or there are bootleg boxes going around.

I don't think we will see the +£200 scrambles of last year but seeing as they are all coming from the same seller, I'd be cautious.

let us know if it's kosher (which it should be coming from Muswell hill)

yeah i was all excited and a friend warned me he had gotten a cheap chinese bootleg of a season of the wire from ebay

I saw mono boxes in a store last week, guess they didn't sell out. $150 CDN.

Mr Veg said they did a second run or something? That's how he got mine for me for Christmas. Because at first I was like, "DUDE. How did you GET this??" but it turned out you could still get them. Which didn't lessen it as a gift or anything (cough)... :)

Those mono boxes are still new on shelves at a few stores here...

I risked £75 for one on Amazon. It looks like new, beautifully packaged etc (other than ugly big black sticker all over the back of the box, but even that looks official). Have been working my way through it slowly, reached Revolver and there's a noticeable flutter on the disc. I've never had a cd that sounds like this - silence plays as silence, but sound is accompanied by something like a flag fluttering softly in the wind - and I don't really know who to complain to.

The one I have, the 'sticker' is just a piece of paper, so you get rid of it and the whole box is a pristine white.

I'd compare your CD with some of the HQ mono rips on youtube... see if the flutter is there.

Or skip ahead and see if its on more than one disc....

Good to hear you are working through them chronologically, I was STRAIGHT into that white album.

then the next day a more measured approach..

oh an if anyones got 5 mins to kill.... http://bit.ly/dwXguc

49 out of 75 answered correctly in 8m:01s

Beatles IQ of 329.314

Latest:

auction cancelled by ebay. Moneys seized (in my favour)

and so on, and none

:( Bummer, dude. But glad you didn't get hosed.

I bought the real thing last weekend. This is quite the fetish object!

Beware cheap impostors on Amazon. One way to tell bootlegs (at least the one I got) from the real Mono Box:
__They aren't actually in mono.
__They don't have sealed plastic covers over each album.
__The discs inside are in square plastic sleeves, rather than next to paper sleeves and also plastic sleeves rounded at one end.
__Some of the album covers might be manufactured inside-out.
__The covers are smaller and the text on them unreadable.
__They don't include things like the poster for the White Album.

If you have a sticker directly on the box, it's probably a bootleg.

Attention young ladies! Attention young ladies!

Yesterday I saw two copies of the Beatles mono box going for £100 in the HMV "clearout" sale.

(This was in Reading Oracle, Mark G. I don't know if they'll still be there.)

I'll 'ave a butchers.

I don't have the link at hand right now, but adding to the 4th quarter "Apple Sloppy Seconds" reissue campaign is the remastered re-release of the Red & Blue comps.

http://www.thebeatles.com/#/news/Red_and_Blue_Albums_Remastered/

what kind of stupid clearance sale tries to offload the mono box???

I'm sure HMV has space for 2 boxes, they can just get rid of the thousand of obsolete-at-time-of-printing Ibiza 2010 compilations.

at under £100, I'd almost entertain the notion of buying a 'spare'.

That would be crazy, wouldnt it?.......wouldn't it?

Ooh, a fresh, hermetically sealed 'spare' untouched by human hands.

Good lord don't get me started.

Hm. My copy passes all of Pete's tests except for the big black sticker and, uh, the fact that I don't actually know if it's mono (I've only used the player with the speakers side by side!). I've heard that the booklet is likely to be either shoddy or missing too, and mine isn't. If it wasn't for Revolver still having that damn flutter...

My conclusion is basically that if this is a bootleg, it's so good it doesn't really matter. If the bootleg factory really is turning out copies with such crisp printing, beautiful colours, the Sgt Pepper cut-out moustache, etc. etc. they kind of deserve their ill-gotten gains.

Interesting spiel on that Red and Blue reissues page says the reissues 'broke chart records'. Anyone know how the mono and stereo boxes and reissued albums actually sold? It felt that they kinda quietly underperformed in the end. Did any one album hit the million mark worldwide, or was that never gonna happen? I wonder which particular chart record they broke.

Skip to the end of "Helter Skelter." The mono version doesn't have Ringo's "I got blisters on my fingers." The stereo version does.

I don't know about buying a spare Mono box, but I'm already considering getting the stereo box, to which my wife responded, "Isn't that a little excessive?" She's right. I'll get it in ten years when I literally have $200 to burn for the pretty light it gives off, and have already donated to several charities that year.

> Did any one album hit the million mark worldwide,

wikipedia page about the red album has some stats for germany - 2M sold.

Another good mono test is headphones.

The space before the count in and Lennon's 'Bye' on the Sgt Pepper reprise is noticably longer on the mono version, if that helps.

Interesting spiel on that Red and Blue reissues page says the reissues 'broke chart records'. Anyone know how the mono and stereo boxes and reissued albums actually sold? It felt that they kinda quietly underperformed in the end. Did any one album hit the million mark worldwide, or was that never gonna happen? I wonder which particular chart record they broke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_the_United_States

1973	The Beatles	1967–1970	Capitol		16× platinum 
1973	The Beatles	1962–1966	Capitol		15× platinum

Both sold less than Led Zep IV (23* platinum) which came out before them so I don't know what records they broke - maybe for compilations?

oh wait I read that as the Red and Blue albums breaking records, sorry.

mm yeah i was talking about da remasterz / boxes from last year. it'd be interesting to find out what say the top 3 reissues were saleswise for the individual albums. we've become used to the beatles breaking all sorts of records by now so i'm wondering what 'broke chart records' means in the context of that press spiel linked above.

Mine is mono - no blisters. It looks like it's a genuine set with one annoying flaw then - no bootleg's ever been put together as well as this.

“Okay - this is fine - any Beatles release is better than none. BUT: Magical Mystery Tour DVD? Let It Be DVD? Hollywood Bowl CD? Final Capitol Albums Box Set? I know that you need a release every christmas bit the 'Let It Be' movie hasn't been available since before I was born!”

Cosign.

And "The Beatles Christmas Album" (on Apple records, back in the day) as the final coda.

Found some reissues sales stats here: http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/ever-so-quick-beatles-question

UK:

Mono Box

Week one...........3,305

Weeks one - four...4,896

Total for 09.......7,534

Total to date......7,781

Stereo Box

Week one...........7,671

Weeks one - four...11,804

Total for 09.......27,524

Total to date......28,611

Please Please Me

Week one...........5,107

Weeks one - four...11,989

Total for 09.......27,395

Total to date......29,922

With the Beatles

Week one...........3,909

Weeks one - four...8,863

Total for 09.......22,360

Total to date......24,329

A Hard Day's Night

Week one...........5,529

Weeks one - four...13,502

Total for 09.......29,518

Total to date......31,758

Beatles for Sale

Week one...........3,390

Weeks one - four...8,323

Total for 09.......20,384

Total to date......22,378

Help!

Week one...........6,152

Weeks one - four...15,492

Total for 09.......31,180

Total to date......33,491

Rubber Soul

Week one...........13,202

Weeks one - four...30,884

Total for 09.......60,035

Total to date......63,676

Revolver
Week one...........14,567

Weeks one - four...32,700

Total for 09.......62,601

Total to date......67,171

Pepper

Week one...........17,830

Weeks one - four...40,027

Total for 09.......80,768

Total to date......86,530

The Beatles

Week one...........8,553

Weeks one - four...19,899

Total for 09.......50,431

Total to date......54,175

Magical Mystery Tour

Week one...........5,567

Weeks one - four...13,407

Total for 09.......29,269

Total to date......31,914

Yellow Submarine

Week one...........2,044

Weeks one - four...5,240

Total for 09.......12,437

Total to date......13,571

Abbey Road

Week one...........16,507

Weeks one - four...37,372

Total for 09.......72,791

Total to date......79,849

Let it Be

Week one...........3,992

Weeks one - four...9,452

Total for 09.......24,653

Total to date......27,065

Past Masters

Week one...........5,748

Weeks one - four...13,407

Total for 09.......21,832

Total to date......27,065

US:

1. Abbey Road, 272,220

2 Sgt Peppers: 211,856

3 The Beatles (White Album): 203,452

4 Rubber Soul: 160,642

5 Revolver: 138,380

6 Past Masters: 111,184

7 Help!: 106,568

8 Let It Be: 98,599

9 Magical Mystery Tour: 96,081

10 A Hard Day's Night: 93,245

11 Please Please Me: 73,489

12 With The Beatles: 67,405

13 Beatles For Sale: 64,373

14 Yellow Submarine: 46,460
'The Beatles' stereo box set (16 CDs + DVD) 112,564

'The Beatles in Mono' mono box set (13 CDs) 38,219

Abbey road considerably outselling Pepper in the US, but not in the UK.

pseudo limited edition blurring the figures for the Mono box.

Good to see they kept the plastic apple USB sales out of this

anyone know if the Mono really is limited or was that just the initial idea before Apple inc realised how much money could be made off it.

cause if it is limited, HMV have no right putting that in a clearance sale.

White Album is also considerably less popular with Britishers than Americans it seems.

MMT needs more love, IMO

listen to "Flying", "Blue Jay Way"