The Beatles are one of very few groups who have not made their music available for online download. At this point I’m not sure that any other major label band hasn’t done it. When the news came that in December of this year The Beatles music was finally coming out as mp3s I think most people probably assumed that it meant that their music was going to be available but that is not true, instead they are releasing The Beatles USB.
The Beatles “Apple” USB stick includes the remastered Beatles in Stereo box set except clearly in a far different form than DVD and 16 CDs. This one USB flash drive that you can easily hold in your hand contains all of the same music and all of the same visual elements as the much larger box set.
It includes all of the remastered Beatles stereo tracks in that box set two times because it holds 320kbps mp3s and 44.1kHz/24bit FLAC files. I’m certain you know about mp3s (and 320 mp3s are the highest quality that mp3s come in) but what about the FLAC, what what is FLAC? Simply put FLAC files are considered to be “lossless” and this means there is no loss in sound quality like there is with mp3s. And because these FLACs are actually 24bit instead of the 16 bit files that are on compact discs, they are of higher quality than CD.
This means that this Beatles USB now contains the highest quality versions of The Beatles stereo remasters! That may change if there is a DVD or Blu-Ray release in the works but at the moment this is the big cheese for audiophiles when it comes to The Beatles music in stereo.
What about the original mono mixes? Sadly they are not included on this USB memory stick. You still have to buy The Beatles Mono Box Set to hear their music in mono.
