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Title: Collecting the Beach Boys on vinyl Post by: William Bowe on October 08, 2011, 10:10:01 PM I recently undertook to collect a complete set of original mono US pressings of all the Beach Boys' 1960s Capitol albums. While these are very fun to own, I was soon alerted to the fact (here and at Steve Hoffman's) that these are inferior to later reissues in terms of sound quality. So I've begun collecting a second set - the early 1980s green label reissues which seem to be considered the best available, and which indeed sound terrific on the evidence available to me so far. Unfortunately, the only albums in this series (which have catalogue numbers from 16012 to 16159) that are in mono are Surfin' Safari, Party!, Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, as well as the Be True To Your School album which the thieves at Capitol compiled from offcuts after they truncated a number of the other albums (and which sounds superb, even if it doesn't make sense as an album). As an aside, perhaps someone could suggest why they would have reissued "Dance Dance Dance" (Today!) and "California Girls" (Summer Days) in duophonic, when the other albums for which there weren't proper stereo mixes were reissued in mono.
The upshot is that I'll be left with quite a few albums for which I won't have an entirely satisfactory copy. i.e. everything from Surfin' USA through to Summer Days. I see current 180g vinyl pressings of Today! and Summer Days are available on the From The Capitol Vaults series, but I am unclear as to whether these are mono or duophonic. Clearly the cover of Summer Days replicates the 1960s duophonic issue, but a guy on Amazon who sounds like he knows what he's talking about swears the record itself is mono. Today!, I gather, is both a mono record and a replication of the mono issue of the sleeve, complete with T-2269 catalogue number. Can anyone confirm for me if this is all correct, and that it would indeed be worth my while to buy both? That would still leave me without good mono copies of everything from Surfin' USA through to Concert. Do such things exist? Were these albums ever reissued in mono after the 1960s, in any format? Title: Re: Collecting the Beach Boys on vinyl Post by: ? on October 08, 2011, 10:55:50 PM From the Vault Today and Summer Days are both mono. They sound great. Mark Linett posted on here that both were sourced from the current cd masters, but for what it's worth on my system the records sound much better than the cds do.
Title: Re: Collecting the Beach Boys on vinyl Post by: Andrew G. Doe on October 09, 2011, 05:06:41 AM I recently undertook to collect a complete set of original mono US pressings of all the Beach Boys' 1960s Capitol albums. Impossible. ;D Title: Re: Collecting the Beach Boys on vinyl Post by: William Bowe on October 09, 2011, 08:15:18 AM Quote Impossible. Grin Yeah, okay, you know what I mean ... Title: Re: Collecting the Beach Boys on vinyl Post by: jimmy1949 on October 11, 2011, 08:56:35 PM Got a perfect copy of Carl's 2nd lp for $3 today. :o
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