Abbey Road Anniversary (1LP)

About This Product

Standard vinyl LP pressing. Digitally remixed 50th Anniversary edition of The Beatles' musical masterpiece. This Abbey Road release features the new stereo album mix, sourced directly from the original eight-track session tapes. To produce the mix, Giles Martin working with Sam Okell, was guided by the album's original stereo mix supervised by his father, George Martin. It is time to experience Abbey Road again!

Product Details

Brand

The Beatles (Artist) Format: LP Record

Manufacturer

The Beatles (Artist) Format: LP Record

ASIN

B07VNS48HD

Customer Reviews Summary

We've had a few surround mixes of The Beatles over the years, including the excellent 2004 DVD-Audio release of Love feating a 24/96 5.1 MLP track, the fanmade 5.0 mix of Abbey Road using the stems from Rock Band (lossy), then we saw tracks from multiple albums get a 5.1 mix with the 1+ release, a 5.1 mix of Peppers in the 50th box set in 2017 and a 5.1 mix of The White Album in the 50th box set in 2018.With Love we got a terrific, immersive surround mix - but this was mostly mashups and many have pined for the catalogue to get similar treatment where possible. Because an album like Please Please Me was recorded to two track, even stereo sounds silly and mono is the only way to go. You won't get a good surround mix of tracks from PPM with discrete elements. WIth 1+ we hoped we would see some of the studio material get decent surround mixes but the mixing was VERY tame unfortunately, and it was widely met with criticisms that it was nowhere near as adventurous as Love.Peppers50 arrived and they weren't limited to the four track master because they add access to all the pre-bounce multitracks in pristine condition, or as pristine as 50 year old tapes can sound (and if you're heard it, the clarity is amazing). Unfortunately Peppers50 wasn't as adventurous as Love had been some 13 years earlier and the stereo mix suffered from aggressive dynamic range compression. In 2018 The White Album arrived and solved a couple of these issues, the mix was more immersive and the unlimited vinyl cutting files were included on the Blu-ray as the 2018 stereo mix (24/96), negating most reasons for choosing the more expensive medium if you additionally wanted the surround mix. Revolution 9 is really good in surround as is the album's opener, great clarity and fidelity and gone is the aggressive mastering found on Peppers stereo mix.Well now it seems they got everything right and it's all come together in this amazing Abbey Road 50th package.1) The mastering is terrific, fully dynamic and sounds great cranked (vinyl and Blu-ray)2) The non-limited 24/96 vinyl master is included on the Blu-ray as the 2019 stereo mix, so if you are format agnostic you can get the Blu-ray and listen to the vinyl's source material directly3) They have given us a Dolby Atmos mixNow Peppers50 had a limited screening engagement for the Atmos mix Giles and Sam Okell created and it was lauded, a Sound on Sound article advises they created the Atmos mix AFTER the 5.1 mix, so the 5.1 mix is not a folddown of the Atmos mix. The 5.1 mix was not as well received. It's entirely possible the Atmos mix got as much about Peppers right as they've done here with Abbey Road. It doesn't just sound good, it blows away all the other Beatles surround mixes and takes its place upon the highest tier of all surround mixes - it's truly that bloody good!I listen on a 5.2.4 Atmos system using modules for Atmos rather than direct ceiling speakers but the effect of Atmos tracks still comes across well with my ceiling being at the perfect height for this type of set-up. All throughout, the effects are wonderful. This is a really nice big mix with wonderful fidelity and terrific placement in the soundfield of all elements. Many emotional moments throughout, as a surround fan and a Beatles fan this truly is a gem. I love The Beatles and enjoy my 2014 all analogue-cut The Beatles in Mono vinyl set, I enjoy the 24/44.1 stereo remasters as well and feel they missed the mark with the 2012 stereo vinyl set by cutting from the existing 24/44.1 stereo masters created in 2009 rather than going back to the original analogue tapes like they did with the 2014 mono set and the 2014 releases of the red and blue albums. I'm format agnostic so I enjoy all the main supported formats as well as older formats like DVD-Audio and SACD that occasionally still see releases via audiophile lables like Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. But Dolby Atmos (and other object-based audio codecs) provide a wonderful canvas for studio material and Giles and Sam have nailed Abbey Road.Fave tracks? Well, there are so many, but boy oh boy does "Sun King" sound really sublime in Atmos, the jangling guitar refrain/answer that really sounds like it was an influence on Nick McCabe and some of the excellent early shoegazing stuff from Verve/The Verve, wonderful mix here. The End, stunning. Goosebumps. Goosebumps many times throughout the entire album.What a treat, and what a perfect album for the team to finally nail every aspect of the mastering and mixing of the surround mixes.Now we can only hope for an eventual standalone Blu-ray of the Atmos mix of Peppers to see if that one improves.