The Best Ways to Listen to The Beatles | Page 6 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Went through this thread expecting to read tons of entries about vinyl setups but seems it was headphones and earplugs most of the time. I personally much prefer the “room experience”, I’ve never been a big fan of headphones and I stopped listening to music on Apple earplugs when going out a while back.

I started listening to The Beatles on CDs, I remember this holiday when I was 9 or 10 in which I would play Past Masters Vol. 1 nonstop and would drive my father and uncles nuts even though it was my father who introduced me to The Beatles! Hahaha Anyway… Having been born in 1990, it has been CDs and then iTunes all the way for me. I did have some cassettes and a Walk-Man during my childhood but that was in my pre-Beatlemania era. It wasn’t until November last year when my father and I finally bought a turntable when I started to get into the vinyl revival. I wasn’t planning on doing so, though. One of my best friends just got into vinyl when his Dutch mother brought from the Netherlands a pack of LPs for him a year ago or so. This friend, being a bit of an audiophile and having a balanced interest in art and engineering (and a wit for it) got himself an Audio-Technica turntable and plugged it into his amazing Home Theatre stereo system (can’t remember the company here). Since then and after acquiring more and more LPs he has been bragging about the superior dynamic range of vinyl records. As I said, I never planned getting into vinyl, and when going to his place I wouldn’t distinguish a big difference between his Born In The USA or The Doors vinyls and the ones I would play in my computer on iTunes which I had imported through the CDs my father and I had. Once I even played The Beatles 1 album CD on our Samsung DVD/Blu-ray player plus 5.1 channel Home Theatre and to me All You Need Is Love sounded even better than his Beatles Grootste Hits vinyl. And then it came this time when another friend of mine asked me if I was into vinyls. He was selling his ENTIRE records collection… at less than 1 dollar each. Hell, the way inflation and devaluation is going with our currency down here in Mexico you could say almost half a dollar… Each and every one of his father and grandfather’s old records… Still after that I wasn’t interested in getting into vinyls hahaha But I told him of this friend who would be delighted to go through his collection and so it came the day when we went to his place. Once there I asked him if he thought any Beatles would come out. When he said he was sure there would be something by The Beatles I immediately said “They’re all mine”. My friend protested: “You don’t even have a turntable! You say your CDs sound better than my scratchy, hissy records!” “I don’t care” I said, “They’re The Beatles. I get them. I’ll buy a turntable”. And thus it was that I made myself with what I’m pretty sure is a Double Fantasy first pressing, an Imagine which I would also consider to be a first pressing if it had the original sleeve instead of just a plain white sleeve and last but not least, maybe less valuable for collectors but not less lovable for me at all: The John Lennon Collection, Mexican pressing thus having the songs’ titles translated into Spanish in the cover but hey! it’s John’s music that matters and be sure it sounds great! They all play really well except for a few jumps on, alas, I’m Losing You in Double Fantasy … Heck, did it have to be a John’s song?? Out of all the Yoko’s songs on the record…

Anyway, this all leads me to what I wanted to ask in the first place. I’m sorry for making this such a long post. Thank you if you’re still reading. I won’t take much long. I hope the Overlords don’t take this to the “What records have you bought recently?” thread…

Concerning the best way of listening to The Beatles… My friend has convinced me. Vinyl records sound fantastic and I love the whole ritual of putting the record on and watching Revolver revolve… My father and I bought one of these “vintage” turntables that can also play CDs, cassettes and even have USB ports plus radio and what not. My audiophile friends called me out saying I should have got an Audio-Technica like theirs, being one of the best entry-level turntables out there and yes, their records sound better than mine. I feel my turntable makes my records sound too high-pitched while my friends’ Audio-Technica sounds much more “round”, full, balanced and complete. I have recently plugged a pair of Logitech Z313 Stereo 2.1 to the turntable and while it sounds better and there’s a much wider dynamic range, the high-pitch is still there in all of my records. The turntable also has some background noise, my friend has told me it affects the sound quality deeply. Anyway, my biggest fear is that it may make harm to my records, I read out there that playing a record in a Crosley is like if you were scratching it with a razor and while my turntable is not a Crosley, it looks a lot like one of those “Vintage” Crosleys out there… So any input from you guys would be most appreciated. One already bad thing is that I can’t find the company anywhere. The turntable has this icon on front that reads something like “Voltale retro” in golden words on a black background but there is no place on the Internet where I can find any reference to that. For what I remember the box read something like “Nostalgia Music System” or something like that and I can’t find the receipt nor the manual right now. As soon as I find something I’ll let you know. I just hope I can keep playing my records on it before having the money to get a better one and a better sound system. Indeed I want to make myself with the best way to listen to The Beatles… on vinyl! Anyway, that’s it for the moment, I’m new to the forum so I guess I’ll head to the proper section where to introduce myself. See you there, folks, cheers everybody!

P.S. Bongo and trcanberra, as you’ve probably read, I’m from Mexico. Mexico City born and bred. I’ve lived my almost 26 years here and I can assure you it’s pretty much a regular capital city. It has its slums and also its posh and trendy/Hipsterish areas where you can feel you are in Paris and New York if you want to. Is there crime? Yes, there is, but it’s pretty much a safe city all in all. All that stuff you hear about Mexico happens more in the provincial areas of the country. Lots of Americans, British, Europeans and people from other parts of the world live here and find it quite a nice and likable city to live in 😉 Cheers!

Reviving this thread:

Listening to the Beatles, in my case, with a tube amp of the era (I’m not only a Fab Four fan but also a tube amp collector). Could be a Scott LK-72 with my Lenco  B-52 TT, through my iPad going in an old Voice of Music tube amp or with my Fisher X-100-2 feed with my computer…

Big horn speakers could help too when I want to crank up the volume. Back in my young days, I listened to the Beatles through a lot of so-so components like a mono cassette recorder, a cheap Walkman or even a really cheap all-in-one with a TT built-in.

The important thing is to listen to their music, whatever source or component quality you have, but it helps when you have something to really discover all the little details. For this goal, you need at least a decent sound system in my point of view.

I realize it’s been a while I didn’t heard them through my headphones, to do list…

Patrice