9:09 this morning I’m on line at my local Best Buy, to pay for the remastered Abbey Road CD. This morning at 9AM is when the Beatles remastered catalog went on sale. The promise of the remastered CDs is better sound than the last Beatles CDs, which were released in the 80′s. There’s one customer in front of me paying for the Beatles mono and stereo CD box sets. I ask him what he’s paying for the mono set, as I pre-ordered it from Amazon and wanted to see if there was any advantage in my doing so. Turns out, the prices are about the same but he tells me he got the last box sets in the store. Huh? Five minutes after the store opened? A clerk I asked said they had about 10 of each box set and they sold out immediately. I guess it’s good that I ordered ahead. By the way, Amazon sent me an email a couple of days ago saying that more mono box sets than originally planned for would be produced.

So, I get the stereo Abbey Road CD spinning–after warming up the system for 45 minutes, of course–and compare it to the ’87 CD release. The Beatles made Abbey Road in stereo only and so it’s not included in the mono box set–ditto Yellow Submarine and Let It Be. The results of the comparison are mixed. The new CD sounds cleaner, which is good, and it’s louder, which is neutral. But, something in the performance has been lost, resulting in a less engaging sound.

These differences were apparent immediately. On “Something,” you can hear on the very first notes of electric guitar that it’s lost a bit of bite and edge–as if it’s been squelched a bit. At 1:48 into the song you also notice that McCartney’s bass seems to stop short of the depth and resonance it reaches on the ’87 CD. I suspect that it’s largely this lack of snap and definition and dynamics in the bass that makes this new release of Abbey Road fall short. It’s apparent everywhere. The music loses some propulsion.

It’s always a pleasure to hear the overall sound of a recording become less murky. It’s like looking through a window after a thin film has been wiped away. I could imagine that if the bass didn’t suffer so, this new CD would be an overall improvement over the ’86 release because of its cleaner sound. Instead, the new CD has an overall flatter sound that is less attention-getting. If you’re in the market for one of these CDs then, based on how they compare in my sound system, I’d say the ’86 release will be more entertaining.

I’m fortunate to have the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) pressing of Abbey Road on vinyl. Now that’s high resolution! This LP sounds as different from the CDs as they do from one another, and it’s certainly more musically involving than either. Neither CD has anything on it. There’s a rumor that remastered vinyl of the Beatles’ albums is on the way. I hope it’s at least as good as MFSL’s Abbey Road.

By the way, by all accounts, the Beatles’ mono remastered CDs are where the real sonic improvement, over the ’80′s CDs, is to be found. I should be getting that box set in a few days. Stay tuned!