beatlpleas

On Please Please Me, Which Is More 3-Dimensional, Mono or Twin Track?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

With all due respect to George Martin, we’ve played a number of mono pressings of Please Please Me in the past twenty or so years and have never been particularly impressed with any of them. The monos jam all the voices and instruments together in the middle, stacking them one in front of the other, and lots of musical information gets mashed together and simply disappears in the congestion. 

But is twin track stereo any better?

Yes, when you do it the way Norman Smith did on Please Please Me.

Twin Track stereo (which is actually not very much like two-track stereo, I’m sure Wikipedia must have a listing for it if you’re interested) is like two mono tracks running simultaneously. It allows the completely separate voices to occupy one channel and the completely separate instruments to occupy another, with no leakage between them.

On some stereos it may seem as though the musicians and the singers are not playing together the way they would if one were hearing them in mono. They are in fact recorded on two separate mono tracks, the instruments appearing in the left channel and the singers in the right, separated as much as is physically possible.

Stuck in their individual stereo speakers, so far apart from one another, the members of the band don’t even seem to be playing together in the same room.

That’s on some stereos, and by some stereos I mean stereos that need improvement. Here’s why.

Three-Dimensional Mono?

In the final mixing stage, Norman Smith added separate reverb to each of the two channels, sending the reverb for the sound recorded in each channel to the opposite channel. This has the effect of making the studio, the physical space that The Beatles appear to be in, seem to stretch all the way from the right channel, where the Beatles’ voices are heard, to the back left corner of the studio, where the reverb eventually trails off.

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Please Please Me on MoFi – Another Disgracefully Spitty Half-Speed

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Sonic Grade: C

If you own the Mobile Fidelity LP, do yourself a favor and buy one of our Hot Stamper pressings. (Actually any good British import pressing will do.)

What’s the first thing you will notice other than correct tonality, better bass and a lot more “life” overall?

No spit!

As we’ve commented elsewhere, because of the wacky cutting system they used, Mobile Fidelity pressings are full of sibilance. 

As I was playing a British pressing of this record many years ago, maybe by about the fifth or sixth song it occurred to me that I hadn’t been hearing the spit that I was used to from my MoFi LP. You don’t notice it when it’s not there.

But your MoFi sure has a bad case of spitty vocals. If you never noticed them before, you will now.

We discuss the sibilance problems of MoFi records all the time. Have you ever read Word One about this problem elsewhere? Of course not.

Audiophiles and audiophile reviewers just seem to put up with these problems, or ignore them, or — even worse — fail to recognize them at all.

Play around with your table setup for a few hours and you will no doubt be able to reduce the severity of the sibilance on your favorite test and demo discs. All your other records will thank you for it too.

Especially your Beatles records. Many Beatles pressings are spitty, and the MoFi Beatles pressings are REALLY spitty. Of course MoFi fans never seem to notice this fact. Critical listening skills and a collection of MoFi pressings are rarely if ever found together. For reasons that should be obvious to anyone spending time on this site, you either have one or the other.

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Listening in Depth to Please Please Me

More of the Music of The Beatles

More Reviews and Commentaries for Please Please Me

The Beatles’ first album is nothing short of amazing. It’s clearly the best recording of their first five releases.

Naturally, it’s a founding member of our Top 100 Rock and Pop List, along with five other Beatles classics: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road.

Please Please Me (in awesome twin-track stereo no less) captures more of the live sound of these four guys playing together as a rock and roll band than any record they ever made again. (Let It Be gets some of that live quality too and makes a great bookend for the group.)

If you are interested in digging deeper, our Listening in Depth commentaries have extensive track by track breakdowns for some of the better-known albums that have gone through a number of shootouts.

For most of the major titles by The Beatles, scores of shootouts have been done, with our earliest efforts stretching all the way back to 2005.

Side One

I Saw Her Standing There

Like any of the boys’ most radio ready singles, this song tends to be a bit bright. If this track sounds at all dull, there’s probably no hope for the rest of this side.

Misery

This track should sound lively and punchy. The best copies have excellent bass definition and superb clarity, allowing you to appreciate how the wonderful bounce of the rhythm section really energizes the song.

Anna (Go to Him)

Does it get any better? This is the real Beatles magic baby!

Chains

Note that the vocals on this track are not as well recorded as they are on the track above. As a rule they’re a bit edgier and not as transparent.

Go back and forth between the two songs a number of times and we think you will hear exactly what we mean. Although this difference is more audible on the better copies, it should still be noticeable on any Hot Stamper pressing.

Side Two

P.S. I Love You

Another track with a bit of that “mixed for radio” sound. On most pressings this song tends to be bright, thin, and grainy.

Baby It’s You

Listen carefully to the middle eight section — you can hear the rhythm track levels turned down at the first bar and then back up at the last.

Some of the most Tubey Magical sound on the album — we love this song!

This is the real Beatles All-Tube-Recording-Chain Magic, Parts Three through Seven. Every track from here on out is killer.

Do You Want to Know a Secret

Even richer and more Tubey Magical. How can it be this good!?

If you know someone who doesn’t understand why anyone in his right mind would still bother with a turntable and old records in this day and age, play these songs for him. No CD can begin to do what a good pressing of this album can do.

A Taste of Honey
There’s a Place
Twist and Shout

Further Reading

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The Beatles – Please Please Me (German)

More of The Beatles

Reviews and Commentaries for Please Please Me

  • This vintage import pressing of the Beatles’ debut album boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides have superb presence, clarity and size – they are bigger, bolder and richer, as well as more clean, clear and open than most others we played
  • 5 stars: “Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh [and]…it’s easy to get wrapped up in the sound of the record itself without realizing how the album effectively summarizes the band’s eclectic influences. There’s a love of girl groups, vocal harmonies, sophisticated popcraft, schmaltz, R&B, and hard-driving rock & roll, which is enough to make Please Please Me impressive, but what makes it astonishing is how these elements converge in the originals.”

Folks, if you’re looking for an amazing Top Quality copy of the first Beatles release, here it is! Big and lively with superb presence and energy, this is EXACTLY the right sound for this music. The album itself is nothing short of amazing. It captures more of the live sound of these four guys playing together as a rock and roll band than any record they ever made afterwards. (Let It Be gets some of that live quality too and makes a great bookend for the group.) (more…)

Letter of the Week – “It’s like hearing this music for the first time…”

More of the Music of The Beatles

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

WOWOWOWOW the Please Please Me Beatles is something else. Huge 3D sound, totally organic and clear, never would have expected this from this record. Mind-blowing, so much energy, silent vinyl… great disc from you. It’s like hearing this music for the first time and being back in the ’60s for the privilege.

The hard stereo separation doesn’t even bother me.

C.

Dear C.,

It doesn’t bother me either! Which is why I wrote this commentary and followed it up with this one.

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Letter of the Week – “I just had a chance to listen to the Please Please Me record you sent me. WOW!”

More of the Music of The Beatles

More Reviews and Commentaries for Please Please Me

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,  

I just had a chance to listen to the Please Please Me record you sent me. WOW! It is sooo much better than the tinny sound I remember. The tonality of their voices is incredible. And there’s background detail that I never heard before. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “The records are so good I cannot concentrate on anything else while they are playing.”

More of the Music of The Beatles

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently: 

Hey Tom, 

In the fall of 2007 I ordered my first Hot Stamper from you, Please Please Me. Since then I have bought several more Hot Stampers from you, and occasionally you or Todd have written me asking how I like them. I have always replied saying I haven’t listened to them yet, because I’m waiting to buy a good enough turntable to do them justice. 

Good news: I now have a very good turntable.

Even better news: I have now listened to the first few Hot Stampers, and the combination of my new turntable and your Hot Stampers is heavenly.

The records are so good I cannot concentrate on anything else while they are playing, I just have to listen, and I want them to go on for ever.

The detail and clarity are breathtaking and it’s difficult to believe the sound can be really that good, but it is. It’s like the musicians are there in the room, it’s amazing.

For example, Please Please Me and McCartney’s Unplugged are stunning, but in truth all the ones I’ve listened to so far are stunning. I’m really looking forward to listening to the rest.

Please keep on finding those Hot Stampers. (more…)