Get the record straight on the Capitol duophonic

Of the 98 songs on the first 8 Capitol vinyl lps there were 8 duophonic fake stereo) recordings

Except for "Ticket To Ride", Capitol did not have stereo versions of the other 7. The 7 did not appear on a Parlophone studio lp and were not available in stereo until the Past Masters (though some were on a variety of compilations).

People knock the duophonic, but take a good objective listen to them.

The US movie sound track for "A Hard Days Night" though fake stereo was not a Capitol recording

Here are the Capitol lps and the songs that are duophonic

Meet The Beatles
- I Want To Hold Your Hand
- This Boy

2nd Album
- She Loves You
- I'll Get You
- You Can't Do That
Possibly "Thank You Girl" - have conflicting info

Beatles 65
- I Feel Fine
- She's A Woman

Beatles VI
- Yes It Is

Help
- Ticket To Ride (an EMI stereo version was available)

[quote=cfmoore;863943]Of the 98 songs on the first 8 Capitol vinyl lps there were 8 duophonic fake stereo) recordings


People knock the duophonic, but take a good objective listen to them.


QUOTE]


Having listened carefully, first in 1968 and most recently six minutes ago, I can confirm they are terrible. She Loves You sounds marginally better, and I Want to Hold Your Hand sounds so awful in its conventional stereo mix that this is also an improvement, but the rest, particularly You Can't Do That , I Feel Fine and She's a Woman are a disgrace. A lot of the other tracks on Second album are further ruined by some tweaking of the echo knob at Capitol, this is what makes Thank You Girl sound suspect, but it is a genuine stereo mix, the mono one lacks a lot of the harmonica.

I posted about the duophonic for a lot of people believe that all or most of the Capitol stereo are duophonic and this simply is not so.

I need to correct the number of songs on Capitol through Rubber Soul is 91 (98 is the EMI total). Take out the 5 instrumentals in "Help", leaves 86 Beatles songs on Capitol studio lps.

The duophonics of "She Loves You" and "I'll Get You" are the best available stereo recordings anyhwere for these duophonics are the only stereo option. Both have never been and will never be available anywhere in true stereo for the master EMI tapes are gone. Maybe, with todays technology a better fake stereo can be made.

"You Can't Do That" is on the EMI "Hard Days Night" lp.

As to the sound quality of duophonic, no more posting from me about which song or lps sounds better then another. Sound quality is a personal opinion.

Besides, it is obvious we ALL love the Beatles music.

If some one did not know which were the duophonics, I doubt a listner could identify which are which. I say this for the duophonics do not stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the songs. The tone quality blends in the other true stereo recordings.

People quite blindly trash Capitol albums but that time stereo was a new concept and the best techniques were yet to be discovered.

And still, they had 4-tracks but made UK Rubber Soul stereo what it is.

Brits sucked at stereo mixing too.