Stereo separation differences on various releases?

[alphabeatles]

The way I see this, DESS rips have so much murky lineage and controversy, why not instead stick with less dramatic and known rippers such as PBTHAL, Dr. Robert, McCannon, soumac, vinywall, even our very own MrBeatleg and such?

[Kando]

I won't belabor the issue, but I have not had that much of an issue with DESS material, other than the MFSL versions, and I am hesitant to throw DESS under the bus for things I have not been able to verify myself. In addition, when I began collecting material, such as is posted on here, DESS was almost the only provider that I knew of, or was able to contact, in order to gather material from. The only other was SilverDisc, from which I had already obtained all of that I knew existed of MR at the time. Additionally, at the time I gathered all of the previously mentioned material flac sharing was not a thing to my knowledge, but even if it had been I would have preferred to get the silver discs versions instead, in .wav form.

That all being said I am more than interested in gathering the very best versions of all the material covered on this great forum, and I have been more than busy downloading a lot of material that I will be going through when I get the time, lol. My hat goes off to everyone on this site who have worked so hard to put together all the great material that they have, audio and video. I am also still learning more and more each day about the great catalog of material that is out there regarding the Beatles. I certainly hope this site outlives me, and continues to provide enjoyment to future generations of Beatles' fans. I also hope that in at least some small way I will be able to somehow give back to this forum for all that it has given me.

[alphabeatles]

I won't belabor the issue, but I have not had that much of an issue with DESS material, other than the MFSL versions, and I am hesitant to throw DESS under the bus for things I have not been able to verify myself.

If his releases sound good, then they have merit on that level for general enjoyment. But as accurate representations of the purported original vinyl, who knows-!! Especially since his releases have been "bootlegged" and redistributed. As such these titles are not scholarly reference material.

[Kando]

If his releases sound good, then they have merit on that level for general enjoyment. But as accurate representations of the purported original vinyl, who knows-!! Especially since his releases have been "bootlegged" and redistributed. As such these titles are not scholarly reference material.

I completely understand some of the general concerns regarding the DESS series, and that is why I do not go around touting its praises, or plan to. I simply do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. I simply want the ability to do my own comparisons in order to have my own personal library of what I think is the best sounding material, IMHO, nothing more. I certainly do not plan on doing any scholarly studies, as that is for those 'above my pay grade', who have much closer ties to the actual source material, and probably significantly more knowledge of it. That is a large reason why I love this forum, and why I appreciate so much all the work that everyone here has done.

[Lord Reith]

I think Ebbetts releases sound good. His rips have less tracking distortion than many of the other rips around. I really can't stand it when I play a rip and you hear distortion increasing towards the centre. In those cases, I just hit "delete" immediately.

The issue really just is that people thought he wasn't using eq for some reason and that made a nonsense of all the comparisons with the 87 cds. I mean, if you proceed from the assumption that the vinyl rip you're comparing is flat eq, then when you hear differences to the cd you're comparing the only conclusion you can draw is that the cd is messed with.

And as I've tried to impress on people many times, A-B'ing leads you into treacherous waters. There is absolutely no point in A-B'ing anything unless you are measuring something quantifiable. Does it have less/more distortion? Is the speed constant on both? Does one have more bass than the other, and if so, at what frequency? Is one known to be flat and the other undetermined? There's nothing to be gained by comparing two recordings and trying to say which one sounds "better". Your ears like your taste buds are heavily influenced by a whole range of things that are subjective to you. For example, if you boost the treble on a recording and then play it and the flat version to someone, there is a 99% chance they will say they like the brighter version more. But is brighter "better"? On a different day, playing the flat version would sound far preferable. The whole reason we have a loudness war (on steroids) on streaming is because of what your song sounds like coming after someone else's. Your mix may actually be perfectly good, but if it directly follows on from someone else's song that has been loudified and brightened, yours will sound like crap. That's just because treble and loudness are like sugar to our ears. But it doesn't mean either of those are a good thing.

[Kando]

I pretty much agree with you on all points. Personally, I would wish to have the absolute best sounding flat transfer of the original source. I respect those who do remasterings/remixes on here, but in doing so they also acknowledge that is exactly what they are. I find some of them quite interesting. I especially am fascinated with the ones that clean up the audio portion (video as well) of live Beatles shows/concerts. It makes a world of difference to me watching them with the improved sound and video.

I am just glad that I now have several more sources for the Beatles' recordings, to go along with the few I already had. As for the DESS material, I pretty much concentrated on just the stereo material, and the only ones I thought were really less than they should have been were the MFSL and US Capitol series. Almost sounded like DESS had detuned the MFSL ones in accordance with some people's complaints about the smiley face eq'ing of them. The US Capitol series did not sound as pure either, but to a lesser degree than the MR versions I had. There was somewhat of a slight graininess/harshnes to both of them. Not sure if he made these earlier with somewhat inferior equipment, or what, but he did admit at one time that he had made some serious upgrades to his system and that is why he was supposedly issuing so many upgrade releases. Unfortunately none of them included the two series I have mentioned. I also have his Blue Box series after the upgrades and I have to say that they sounded markedly better overall in just general sonic terms. Not saying they are the best, or anything, just that they sounded more like I expected a decent transfer to sound like.

[masterjedi]

I just wish we had honest direct to digital transfers of the first 4 stereo UK albums, and (mono and stereo) Y&T and MMT.

[RalseiDeltarune]

The way I see this, DESS rips have so much murky lineage and controversy, why not instead stick with less dramatic and known rippers such as PBTHAL, Dr. Robert, McCannon, soumac, vinywall, even our very own MrBeatleg and such?

Haven't had much issues with my DESS copies; although I'm pretty sure that his US set isn't from original pressings. (If they aren't please let me know & offer an alternative to search for!)

[Kando]

Haven't had much issues with my DESS copies; although I'm pretty sure that his US set isn't from original pressings. (If they aren't please let me know & offer an alternative to search for!)

I would only say/repeat the following, and this is all in regards to sound quality only: The MR MFSL versions beat the DESS ones hands down, while the MR US versions are also better, but not to as nearly a large degree as the MFSL versions. Now, that being said, I am speaking primarily about the stereo versions in regards to the US series. I have not really done much critical listening to the mono ones, and that is from where I have heard most of the complaints. Additionally, the comparisons I have have made are between very early MR silver disc clones from SilverDisc, and the DESS ones are silver discs direct from DESS.

If wanting to compare for yourself I would suggest downloading all the MR releases that Cliftdean74 has put out. I haven't had a chance to do any critical listening to them, but they are sourced from direct discs from MR, so they should sound quite good, and give you a very decent comparison. I was quite happy that he released so many versions of their recordings, so that I could have a rather comprehensive library. As far as other DESS releases go, I managed to acquire other silver disc versions of a number of highly regarded bootlegs, some time back, and the DESS versions of the same material tend to sound every bit as good on the whole. But in general, I only regard DESS somewhat highly because that was the only place I could acquire a large number of unique versions of the Beatles' recordings. Trying to contact other beatleggers seemed to be pretty much impossible, lol. Now a days though, thanks to sites like this, it is far, far easier to put together a great collection.

[Lord Reith]

The MFSL lps were unnaturally bright. Those engineers who did them must have been compensating for high frequency hearing loss. A common problem I think.

Really you just can't get any better than the original UK lps of any era up till 1987. I don't think Die Beatles is any big deal. People have tried to give it faux credibility by claiming it is from an earlier generation tape, but it's just an eq job which sounds different to the UK but not necessarily any better. Same with the super bass-boosted German Revolver. What was the point of that then?

I'd just like to see The Beatles albums released again exactly as they were. It's okay for fans to remix their stuff as it's ephemeral and will be forgotten. The record company's job should be to preserve the original artistic vision.