The Best Sounding Beatles CDs

"I own every MFSL vinyl and for the most part they suck."

Pretty much.

And I find their CDs to be bright and edgy. But I also find the same results with many of the Japanese imports. Europe, for some reason produces some very fine recordings. Original Parlophone was wonderful. Duestche Grammaphone and Telarc are also very high quality recordings. Some of the original RCA "Red Seal" were also good quality.

However, MFSL recordings always seem to exhibit one type of an issue or another. Considering the fact that they are suppose to be "Audiophile Recordings", I find it interesting that the Standard issue Parlophones blow the MFSLs out of the water.

>>Considering the fact that they are suppose to be "Audiophile Recordings", I find it interesting that the Standard issue Parlophones blow the MFSLs out of the water<<

I don't. MFSL, for the most part, is a marketing ploy. There are only a handful of their releases that best the originals. "Crime of the Century" comes to mind immediately.

OTOH, there are some real stinkers. I don't think it gets much worse than "Aja" and "Sticky Fingers" unless you happen to have the 8 track.

"I don't think it gets much worse than "Aja" and "Sticky Fingers" unless you happen to have the 8 track."

That statement would have 100% validity until you listen to the MFSL version of Al Stewarts "Year Of The Cat".

I think they recorded that album using a kerosene powered mixing console and transfered the music signal between two tomato soup cans with a piece of string as an interconnect.

They then transferred the signal to the master cutter using smoke signals.

That (at least) added a limited degree of warmth.

The US Capitol box set is very good.

None of the CDs sound as good as vinyl. The Parlophone cd's were released in 1987 when cd technology was young and most of the early cd's from that period did not sound very good. I think that the best sounding Beatles CD is probably Revolver followed closely by Help and Abbey Road. Also the first four on Parlophone, Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day's NIght, and Beatles for Sale were issued in Mono only.