Stereo Remaster Box Sets (2009, 2012)

By 2009, the Beatles' catalogue had been available on CD for over 20 years, and although they sound pretty good, a modern remaster was anticipated to give new life to the official worldwide catalogue. On September 9, 2009, a box set with all remastered albums was released on CD, along with a disc of all mini documentaries found on the individual CDs. The catalogue had ben digitized at a very high resolution (24-bit/192kHz) before being remastered and "brought back" down to the CD resolution of 16-bit/44kHz.

A few months later (On December 7), an apple-shaped USB stick version was also produced as a limited edition, featuring downloadable high-resolution files at 24-bit/44kHz, as well as the documentary movie files and album artwork files.

THE (UNFAIR) VINYL BOX SET CONTROVERSY

A vinyl box set has also been released on November 13, 2012. This release has had its load of (unfair) criticism because it was not produced through an "all analogue signal path"; it was instead made from the same digital remastered source as the CD set. That being said, people have been quick to falsely claim that it is simply the "CD on vinyl". Yes, the vinyl collection has in fact been prepared from the same source files used for the CD set, but they used the high (way-above-than-CD) resolution digitized master tape files (24-bit/192kHz), from which a dedicated vinyl master has then been prepared and cut; far from a simple "CD on vinyl." The set also came with a superb book describing each album in detail.

Finally, the whole catalogue was reissued on vinyl again through DeAgostini mail-order services (these could not be ordered directly to Canada, but were easily obtainable online), and these feature a different new cut from the same source. It is said to sound better than the 2012 set, and some albums have noticeable differences (Pepper without the inner groove ending).

All in all, the CDs were made in Canada and are listed below (though more recent reissues are most likely EU Universal pressings imported to Canada), but the LPs and the USB stick have been prepared in the EU and imported to Canada. LPs are still available separately as of today.