So, What is the Verdict on the Beatles Box Sets?

The Beatles? Were they the group McCartney was in before Wings? Talk about obscure bands!

I'm sure the 48/192 downloads they'll be selling in a few years will smoke the current CDs. my cynical self sees this as marketing: the boomers, the biggest market for the Beatles, are good for one last milking (as in buying expensive box sets) before CDs are total history. don't get me wrong: this release was overdue, what with the earlier generation of Beatles CDs done over 20 years ago, and by all accounts, sound significantly better, but CDs are about to be supplanted by hi-rez downloads. check out the sales #s for CDs.

Musicslug,
I can't say you're wrong but it won't be happening for me. Just a nasty old Luddite I suppose.

I;m always a bit puzzled by the many posters on various fora who complain about the music industry's desire to make money. Isn't that what they do? There is obviously a great desire among many (but not all) people for remasters that improve the sound of classic music -- recent sets by the Beatles and Neil Young (and many others) are examples of music that was readily available but that has been recently been redone with clearly improved sound. People who like this music and care about the sound quality will buy these as their budgets permit; those who don't won't and shouldn't. But why fault the music industry for supplying a product that LOTS of people want?

I'm far more critical of the music industry's decisions to market crap music to the masses and not give more adventurous bands a shot than I am about their occasional efforts to give those who care about sound a bit more quality in their old favorites.

Sure, in an ideal world, music would be free and the artists and those who produce the physical (or digital) product would be compensated in some other way. But we live in a world where money is exchanged for goods and that's not gonna change any time soon.

Re possible future hi-rez downloads, what's wrong with that? And why should the availability of a format that relatively few people are using now prevent people who currently like cds or vinyl from getting the music in the format they currently use? I would agree that it would be preferable for all the formats to come out at the same time. But at least as far as hi-rez downloads, the market for those might not yet be enough to make it worthwhile for the biz to put those out.

I can't wait for hi-re downloads. That'll make used cds cheap as dirt!