Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review is for the newly remixed/remastered 50th anniversary version of the album. The extra disc is nice, but is mere icing on the cake. This review will focus on the album itself. When the album was released in 1967, most people still had mono systems, not stereo, so the most care was taken in mixing the mono version of the album. The band themselves were involved in the mixing process, and altogether it took three weeks to get the mix as they wanted it. George Martin then spent three days (without the band) throwing together a stereo mix for those lucky enough to have a stereo sound system. But things changed very quickly, and stereo became more prominent (and dominant) just a year later. The mono version of the album eventually disappeared and it's the stereo version that most people who've listened to this album have heard. As Giles Martin (son of late Beatles producer Sir George Martin) says in the liner notes: “Why even attempt it? The original Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was primarily mixed as a mono album. All care and attention to detail were applied to the mono LP, with The Beatles present for all the mixes…Almost as an afterthought, the stereo album was mixed very quickly without The Beatles at the sessions. Yet it is the stereo album that most people listen to today.” The thing is, the original stereo mix sucked. Seriously. Anyone who's compared the stereo mix to the original UK mono mix will tell you the stereo mix is flat and lifeless. There have been other attempts to re-mix the album (in 2009 and again in 2012), and they were improvements to be sure, but nothing like what we got this week with the 50th anniversary edition. Quite literally, you've never heard this album like this before. The new mix was done by Giles Martin and Sam Okell. What makes this mix special is they used the original analog tapes for every instrument, voice, and sound. When the album was recorded, they used a 4-track tape recorder. When the four tracks were filled up, they would mix them down to a single track on a new tape, and use the additional three tracks for additional sounds. They would repeat this process several times for each song, with each mix-down losing a little bit of audio fidelity along the way. For this new mix, Giles and Sam used the original tapes, the ones as they were recorded, before being mixed down, so that there was no loss in fidelity. Giles and Sam used the original mono mix as a template when re-mixing the new stereo version, so that they'd stay true to what the band (and George Martin) originally intended, paying homage to its balance and imaging. The end result is stunning. The first thing I noticed when listening to the new mix is there's finally a sound stage. The various instruments and voices are separate and distinct instead of muddled together. It's also a lot ballsier. The original stereo mix was flat and lifeless. This mix jumps out of the speakers. The drums have never sounded better (and, in fact, you can hardly hear them in the original mix), the bass is strong and clear, the guitar is bright, the vocals clear. I have the original stereo mix as well, and have done some A/B testing between the two. The difference is night and day. It's like watching the standard definition (SD) feed of a television channel on your fancy HDTV, then switching to the high definition (HD) feed. Boom. That's how it's supposed to be! Giles and Sam did such a good job with the mix that the new sound stage and fidelity doesn't sound jarring or out of place. It sounds like it meant to sound all along, but with a clarity that was technologically impossible at the time due to the limitations of the recording equipment.