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

Those spectrograms look to be fully modulated, not compressed. If you've even seen one of a compressed file, it's unmistakeable.

Yes and No. Depending on how hard you look.

Unfortunately, there are several forms of "limiting" used in compression.

"Hard Limiting" is when the signal bumps up against the max number of bits and the waveform flat tops and is truncated. (yes there are many examples of this on modern pop CD and fortunately no evidence of Hard limiting on the Beatles Stereo).

"Soft Limiting" is a more benign kind - here the waveforms are altered when they exceed a certain peak level at which point they are rounded off. This still creates lots of odd harmoincs and evil distortion but is is not as nearly as bad as hard limiting.

=> Judging by what people hear and by comparing the waveforms to the Mono in the article I linked to - it sure looks like they added compression....judisicously perhaps but in keeping with the punchy modern mastering "best" practices compression sound nevertheless.

Of course, a full post mortem will require someone with a PC to go through and compare the waveforms in more details but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and poops like a duck...it probably is a duck. It sure looks like we got the prototypical duck poop modern mastering applied on the Stereo versions - restrained and carefully refined duck poop, perhaps, and certainly not nearly as bad as many modern recordings...but some may notice a distinct bad odor.

Upon closer inspection, enlarged, the right channel of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" does look clipped/compressed. There is no contour to the peaks that is seen on the 1987 version. It'd be interesting to compare with the original tapes, rather than the '87 CD.

I'm still looking for information comparing the four 1987 mono CDs to their 2009 counterparts. Is there any data comparing the compression for these releases?

I think this quote from the Pitchfork article pretty much says it all. I mean is anyone really gonna sit there and say someone else's version of the album is better than the artists'? By that logic why don't we have someone update and rewrite the _The Great Gatsy_, or _Tender is the Night_, or add some touchups to Monet's Water Lilies? After all technology's better now right? Add a little color saturation, a few ticks of brightness in Photoshop. Yeah that's the ticket. The thing is a lot of people would see these changes as improvements.

But I'll give Pitchfork credit. It's not the first publication I'd expect to give a someone even-handed treatment to the Beatles remasters.

Given their audience and the technology of the time, for much of the Beatles' run, the band themselves considered the mono mix as the "real" version of the record and devoted more of their attention to it. Mono mixes were prepared first with the involvement of the band, and in some cases, George Martin and EMI engineers completed stereo remixes of the albums later, after the group had left the studio. So mono, first off, presumably hews closer to the intentions of the Beatles themselves. It's what the Beatles had in mind, their vision of the records.

Wireless, I don't disagree with your conclusion about the the mono/stereo Beatles' mixes, but your logic is flawed. If it's not, then anybody listening to Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, etc. on their home stereos have deviated from the artists' intent. They never envisioned their music not being played in proper concert halls.

The original artist's intent is not always the standard. Even Dylan admits Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower" is THE version. Same with Aretha doing Otis' "Respect". For much of Miles Davis' recorded output the band played and left the studio while Teo Macero compiled and edited the tapes into finished songs. Besides, wasn't George Martin the 5th Beatle?