24bit FLAC (The Beatles USB)
As you may have heard, The Beatles music is finally coming out digitally but not in the way most people assumed it would (as downloads on iTunes & AmazonMP3) but instead on this Apple (Beatles Apple, not Mac Apple) themed Beatles USB stick. Along with the 320kbps (high quality) mp3s, this USB stick also includes The Beatles entire remastered stereo catalog in 24bit FLAC and that's what interests me.
As you probably already know (since you're reading this blog on home recording) 24bit is the standard for digital mixing and mastering these days. It's not until the final stage that the music is exported to 16bit for CDs.
When The Beatles music was digitally remastered for the new box sets (and now this USB which is a digital version of The Beatles Stereo CD Box Set) it was done so in 192kHz 24bit quality but of course we ended up hearing it in 44kHz 16bit quality (on the CDs.) These CDs still sound fantastic to my ears, but certainly I'm curious to hear the music in it's full quality.
The 24bit FLAC files included on this Beatles USB are not full quality, they are only 44.1kHz but they are still the highest quality versions of these remasters now available because they are 24bit rather than the 16bit that is on CDs.
There's a chance that The Beatles will eventually go the Blu-Ray route like Neil Young's Archives and include the full 192kHz 24bit files for our listening pleasure, but for now The Beatles USB represents the audiophile peak for The Beatles stereo catalog.
Tags: The Beatles
March 10th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
I’m a big Beatles guy too. Awesome. The remasters are amazing. To me they sound far better than most of the mainstream crap coming out these days. And I don’t just mean the music and the songwriting - I mean the sound.