Before his Archive Series, in 2009 Dr Ebbetts heard samples of the then-upcoming remasters, and he said:
He used this as justification to shut down the label, evidently considering it redundant.The fact of the matter is, the Dr. Ebbetts material does not - and will not - sound better than what is coming commercially in September. People I trust agree with me. The remasters sound remarkably well balanced, with solid, punchy bass, smooth mids and not-to-harsh, yet crisp highs. In comparison, many of the Ebbetts masters fall short - weaker bass, dimished mids, and often too-bright highs.
It's a given that the remasters will not please everyone, but they will be good enough to make the Ebbetts catalogue solidly inferior.
I don't agree. I much prefer his Blue Box Let It Be, for example, to the 2009 remaster of it - much darker and deeper.
To be clear, I am not saying every pressing is better than the remasters, but that it is wrong to say that the remasters are objectively better than the whole Ebbetts catalogue.
Does anyone share my view?
I also wonder if there was bias from the fact that he heard earlier samples, especially since his line - 'I made mine because the 1987 CDs were bad, but the remasters are brilliant' - eerily echoes EMI's and also many audiophiles now say that the 1987 CDs are better than the 2009 CDs in some cases.
But then it gets worse...
So the Blue Box DESS set is bad enough compared to the 2009s (which I don't agree with) that he may as well not have any catalogue at all, including foreign releases and so on???Suffice to say, I would not release the BLUE BOX set today if new remasters were already commercially available.
I would have no need.
And if my CORE SET is inferior, I don't wish to have the rest of the catalogue branded as such either.
Therefore, it is time to put it all on the shelf.
Again, it really does feel like someone at EMI has asked him to shut it down - something like 'we give you early access but you shut down your whole label.'
I just can't really think of any reason to shut down the entire thing, including stuff which was not covered in the 2009 remasters.
(He claims the US albums were covered by Capitol officially, which is true, but he conveniently forgets that Yesterday and Today never was with its original mixes, leaving his needledrops - or at least someone's needledrops - required to have those mixes...)