Spent some time listening on Stax headphones last night. If you know these recordings by heart having heard them so many times over the years, you can really notice subtle differences and details that way. The stereo remasters in the mono box set are definitely more "fun" to listen to with headphones. The various recording components (tracks I suppose) come in and out quite startlingly the way they were mixed. Hearing three distinct individual voices in harmonies on "The Word" was cool. ANd McCartney's bass in "Norwegian Wood" presented itself quite cleanly and nicely for example.
Also, with the stereo cuts in particular under the magnifying glass of a pair of good headphones, you can clearly hear that a lot of signal processing (compression/expansion/limiting?) was applied to the various tracks in various ways in order to produce the desired results. The result is that yes you hear a lot of differences including new details and nuances among other things (some recording/processing artifacts) that you did not hear before, but the listening experience can be a bit jarring and uneven compared to music played live and sounds very much like various tracks mixed together in a recording studio. Still, a revelation and a lot of fun to hear with these tunes from that particular stage of the Beatles career as well since experimentation in the recording studio is largely what they were about at the time.
Also, with the stereo cuts in particular under the magnifying glass of a pair of good headphones, you can clearly hear that a lot of signal processing (compression/expansion/limiting?) was applied to the various tracks in various ways in order to produce the desired results. The result is that yes you hear a lot of differences including new details and nuances among other things (some recording/processing artifacts) that you did not hear before, but the listening experience can be a bit jarring and uneven compared to music played live and sounds very much like various tracks mixed together in a recording studio. Still, a revelation and a lot of fun to hear with these tunes from that particular stage of the Beatles career as well since experimentation in the recording studio is largely what they were about at the time.