Beatles Mono Box Set listener review

Let me start with WOW and continue on.  I am amazed at the stuff that the stereo mix of the early LPs hide!  Some of the music behind the scenes is sort of hidden by the stereo mix.  I get a larger sense of the musicality of the Beatles from the mono mixes of the songs.

I decided to use my Qinpu tube amp and my PSB Alpha T-1 speakers to hear the most from these CDs.  I am amazed at how front and center the sound is!  I am very happy that I got the mono box set instead of the stereo one!  How revealing, I am hearing things that I never heard on their songs before; and I am a HUGE Beatles fan, and have listened to these songs at least 1,000 times each before! 

Instead of the opposing vocals responses being in the other channel, they are behind the vocals.  I am impressed and what a difference in the interpretation that the listener would get from experiencing these songs the way that George Martin and the Beatles meant them to be heard.

Why CD and not the LP box set.  I do not wish to have these wear out from playing them a hundred times each, LP is still a fragile format and I would only get the LP box set after acquiring the CD box set to listen to over and over.  To pull out the LP mono box set would be a special treat and I may only listen to it a half a dozen times or so as that special treat! 

I love LPs, however I understand their limits, and each time you play them you wear them out just a little bit.  I do love things that last forever, thus the CD box set.

I also feel there is less distortion in the output in the mono versions.  I have noticed, now after hearing the mono versions, that there is a bit of strain as the mix equalizes the channels in volume and makes the vocals sound a bit strained.

Highly recommended!  Best in class!  I have acquired the Meet the Beatles US release in original mono on LP and I am very excited to listen to it when it comes with my Grado mono cartridge.  I will listen to it on the Tube Amp and PSB combination and compare.


It may be time to get a higher end Mono cartridge.  I like my Moving Coil Denon cartridge for Stereo, I should get something just as good for Mono.



Keep Listening!

Jeff

Qinpu 2.5Wpc Flea-Watt Tube Amp and PSB speakers

I love having options!  I took this little Qinpu Flea-Watt amp at 2.5 Watts Per Channel on vacation to drive a set of Polk mini-monitors.  It did a great job!  It went quite loud and sounded quite good.  I use this amp at home usually to drive some Paradigm mini-monitor V.5s.  It again, does a great job.  However I installed banana plugs today on my speaker connectors for two of my speakers, (One set of my speakers does not recommend banana clips when bi-amping), and I moved the speaker wires from the Paradigm to the PSB Image 6Ts.  It sounds awesome!

The banana plugs make moving the speaker connections just about as easy as using a speaker selector switch, with no electronics in between.  I will listen and see at some point if there is a difference in sound when connecting my speakers directly to the amps and moving the wires instead of using the Adcom speaker selector switch that I have hooked up to two of my amps currently.  I have been using the speaker selector switch for some time now.

I was surprised by the amazing sound earlier this year when I used the Qinpu with the PSBs so I decided to re-visit the combination in case I was just dreaming.  I was not, the sound is quite excellent, albeit not very loud coming from this combination.  I listened to a couple records and so far have been very impressed with the depth and sweetness of the sound.  At lower than loud volume levels the sound is captivating, nice and warm and very revealing.  Quite a bit of bass from this little amp!  The highs are sweet and solid, and not too bright; I was worried about the sound being too bright from this low power amp.

I am going to listen to the combination of the Qinpu and the PSBs for a week or so and see if I still think it is sweet sounding.  As of today, I think it sounds just a little bit better than my McIntosh MC250, which sounds pretty nice with the PSBs.



Thanks
Jeff


Update 03/23/13:
This little tube amp has impressed me so very much and turned me onto tube technology.  I decided to upgrade to a more powerful tube amplifier, the new one has 7 wpc.  This Quinpu amp will be moved to my office and travel with me as my vacation amp as it is an awesome little amp!  Beware, this is a gateway drug type of device, once you hear it you will be amazed at the detail and great sound this little amp gives at modest volumes.  Well worth the price at $150.

Take a stereo on vacation?

Yes, I take a stereo and a radio on my vacations.  I alter what I take based on who I am traveling with and where I am going.  I find that having music available to be played at a decent, good sounding volume level is a necessity when traveling.  I was able to get a couple days of listening in on both of my summer vacations this year.  I get a bit tired of only having the music they play on the radio in northern Michigan and need a variety!  I also take one of my Zenith Trans Oceanic radios, either the 3000-1 or the 7000 series radios.  I like the reception from both of them as I can pick up AM and SW from all over the place! 

When I go up north to the cabin I take my small flea-watt amp and a pair of Polk mini-monitors to listen to.  Placement of the speakers is a bit of a pain in the butt.  I choose the Polk's as they are front ported and can be placed up against a wall, if necessary.  I use my laptop with a music streamer DAC to play the music.  I find the sound pretty good for such a smallish setup.  The 2.5 Watts of the tube amp play the Polk's to a pretty decent sound level.  The sound is pretty good too! 

When I travel with my best friend to play video games and listen to music up north in a house we rent. I take my Sherwood 70WPC integrated amplifier and my pair of Paradigm Mini Monitor V.5s with a pair of stands.   I also bring my laptop and the music streamer, of course.  I find the sound pretty satisfying and it goes quite loud.

I have relegated the Sherwood to duty in my garage system, so I cannot bring it this year.  What I am going to do this year on guy's weekend is take the Paradigm's, a pair of stands, my Hafler pre-amp and my Parasound HCA-800II power amp.  I still plan to bring the laptop, but I want to be able to choose other sources like when I take the Sherwood.  I don't want to be switching cables all over the place, so I will take a couple decent cables to connect media players to the pre-amp and play different types of music than what I have on my laptop.  I expect the sound to be vastly improved as the Parasound is a very clean sounding amp, it is newer and it has 100WPC.  I certainly won't be able to turn it up all the way with the Paradigms, but with their decent efficiency they should go quite loud and sound very clean! 

What do I listen to when I travel?  I try and switch it up a bit, so I listen to some old Jazz, Rock, Soul, Funk, R&B, and Oldies.  I have some old radio shows that I have recorded over the years and they are fun to listen to as I have digitized them.  I have also digitized some of my old Cassette tapes that I made years and years ago.  I did this to basically be able to listen to them for years to come as cassette lifespan varies from brand to brand of tape.  I have music recorded on old El-cheapo tape, but mostly I have the old Memorex tapes then I upgraded to using Maxell High-bias tapes , some TDK's and Sony's along with some Scotch and Denon tapes that I started using when I realized that they would last longer.  Quite a bit of my tape collection is over 30 years old and they still play.  I bought a Nakamichi CR-1A tape deck a few years back to allow me to record from these old tapes.  I still had the first tape deck I purchased until a couple years ago, but it wasn't even that good when I bought it.  I plan to digitize my tape collection over the next few years.  That will take a while as I have hundreds of tapes. 

Why do I take a stereo on vacation?  Pure enjoyment!  I have found that I am less stressed out when I get some listening time every couple days.  Otherwise I get crabby and I am in a hurry to get home.  Listening to music is one of my favorite things in this world!  Thank you to all who make music, without it life would certainly suck a whole lot more!

Keep Listening!

Jeff