the FABS
I grew up in the US in the 60's and this is how i remember the BEATLES lp's.If you are a true lover of the GREATEST band in the history of music. Well, you should be ordering this as you read this review!!!! I'll be ordering vol. 2 soon.

For Collectors like me
In 1987 The English version of the Beatles catalog was released in America on CD for the first time. Having been American and being used to the American versions of the Beatles catalog, I was a little disappointed.
I used to wonder if we would ever see the American version on the market again.
The British versions have nothing wrong with them, and I enjoy them alot. They are simply not the same.
To me the whole point is, many American and English versions differ. So if they were the same, there would be no point in collecting the American versions.
I enjoying hearing the sitar that is missing in Norweigen Wood or some of the differences the collections have.
I am a Beatles collector and will buy an entire CD for just a small instrumental difference or a small difference in lyrics.
To me this is what makes the entire collection worth while.
I like to hear the reverb in I Feel Fine or She's A Woman. I also enjoy the sound of the American discs. Over the years I heard the American albums and got used to hearing the songs in a certain order. When the English versions came out in 1987 I had to look a little harder to find my favorite songs, because the album song orders had changed. Rubber Soul and Revolver just were not the same anymore. I also have to wonder if the album that was released about 1982 called "Rarities" will be released. It will also be interesting to see if the Live album at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964 and 1965 will be released again.
I hope and pray that Capitol releses another volume with Revolver and possibly Yesterday and Today, as well as the few others that were passed over. This collection, as the heading says is for the collector who has to have it all.
The positive side of this is, it feels like an old friend has come back to be with you.........................Now I can remonisce about the 60's the way I remember them.

May I offer a suggestion for Capitol/EMI?
As an ageing fan who fondly remembers Beatlemania and occasionally feels a certain nostalgia for it all, I myself am not particularly interested in resurrecting all the hatchet-job releases we got on this side of the pond, although I completely understand long-time fans' desire to re-obtain the mixes they prefer. Too many of these albums make little stylistic sense and are, strictly speaking, jumbled and misleading versions of the real thing, although being The Fab Four, they're still good listening.

Please, Capitol/EMI, this is what I'd like instead:

1. A complete overhaul of the entire catalogue - all of the Parlophone LPs. Please supplement each album with contemporaneously recorded (or most appropriately so) 45 RPM releases and EPs and dump those hideous PAST MASTERS discs. So, for instance, RUBBER SOUL gets "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out", REVOLVER gets "Paperback Writer"/"Rain", PEPPER gets "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields" and MMT still gets "All You Need Is Love" and "Hello Goodbye". Just tack them onto the beginning or end of the disc. So simple. The early LPs would benefit greatly from this approach, too.

2. A proper remastering. Bring the volume of the guys' instruments back up where it's supposed to be. Correct the anachronistic imbalance in the voices which, in the present British discs, uncomfortably emphasizes the "lead" vocalist. (Their chorus was never intended to sound like that; it was the 1960s - not the 1980s.) Lose the bizarre fetish for "previously unheard details" like giggles and snapping fingers. (Who cares about that?) Please get rid of the fake stereo; mono is plenty exciting when it's properly mixed. George Martin knew that. The Beatles knew that. And the fans who purchased millions of 45s knew it, too.

3. And finally, please issue, as an adjunct to the complete British set, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (Go get George Martin's instrumentals from UA) and thanks for having done HELP! and RUBBER SOUL.

This is what we need.

PS. Oh yeah, remember the reverb in "I Feel Fine" and "She's a Woman", too!

The packaging complainers are NOT just being picky
Love the CDs and there's plenty to read about them elsewhere, but the packaging is really as crappy as you've read--you either have to pry the outer box open with your fingers and yank or whack the back of it to get the inner package out. Once you do that, it's just the opposite. On one of my first two handlings, all the replica albums fell to the floor and two of the CDs fell out since there is no internal sleeve to hold them in place. If you want to store the long box away and just use the inner, it can be folded in two and placed in your CD rack, but as a flimsy piece of cardboard with no information printed on the end. For the money, we deserved more.

Indispensible!
I bought this set (along with Vol.2) for the stereo mixes of all the Beatles' early songs, and was not disappointed. In fact, on many of the songs I was very pleasantly surprised! As you might expect, the sound gets progressively better from the first "album" to the last.

On "Meet the Beatles", for the most part, you hear the voice(s) on one side and the instruments on the other, which is probably the most that could be done with the original masters. Still, it's better than mono, with more audible detail and "presence". One caution: The transfer level is "hot", just a hair short of clipping, so better to turn down the volume control before pressing the Play button! That goes for all the CDs in this set.

The "Second Album" has the least satisfying sound. The "hot" transfer and lack of dynamics (did they use compression?) make for a feeling of relentless pounding that's a little hard to take after a while. However, many of the songs are in true stereo, with vocals in the center and different instruments on left and right, so they are still preferable to the mono mixes.

The sound on "Something New" and "Beatles 65" varies from one song to the next, but on several of the songs, the sound is quite remarkable, with a true stereo image, pinpoint clarity and fine detail. For example, listen to the nicely captured guitar stylings on "I'll Be Back" (from "Beatles 65"). Unfortunately, on one of my favorite songs, "I Feel Fine", I would have to describe the sound as "smeared"; for an excellent stereo transfer of this song, you will have to buy the 2-CD set "The Beatles / 1962-1966".

I got a new, sealed copy of this set from an Amazon "third-party" seller, at a deep discount, probably because it is one of the early releases with the "wrong" mono transfers. But who needs the mono mixes, anyway?

As for the packaging, which everyone seems to hate, I liked the mini original album covers, but would have preferred jewel cases - Volumes 1 & 2 could have been released on 4 CDs, at half the price, by leaving out the mono mixes and putting two albums on each CD, with the album covers pictured on the insert. So one star off for that. Anyway, for those of us who mainly listen to copies of CDs on HD or portable media, the packaging isn't such a big issue.

To sum it all up: Finally some decent stereo mixes of the early Beatles - thank you, Capitol!