The Beatles USB Stick

The Beatles are one of very few groups who have not made their music available for online download. I’m pretty sure they are the only band that has sold millions of albums that isn’t included on iTunes.

When the announcement was made that The Beatles music was going to come out in mp3 format most fans just guessed that this meant that they were going to be sold as downloads but that is not true, instead they have gone another way: The Beatles USB Flash Drive.

The Beatles “Apple” USB flash drive contains the remastered Beatles in Stereo box set except of course in a far different format than 16 CDs and 1 DVD. This Beatles USB memory stick that you can hold in the palm of your hand includes all of the same music and all of the same visual elements as the much larger box set.

The USB includes all of the remastered Beatles stereo tracks in the box set twice because it has 320kbps mp3s and 24bit FLAC files. I’m certain you are familiar with mp3s (and the 320kbps mp3s in this USB are of very high quality) but how about the FLAC, what are they all about? Basically these FLAC files are considered to be “lossless” which means there is not a loss of sound quality like with mp3s or other “lossy” formats. And because these particular FLACs are 24 bit instead of the 16 bit files that are on CDs, they are actually of higher quality than CD.

What this means is that The Beatles USB flash drive contains the best quality version of The Beatles remasters! This might change if they decide to release these remasters on Blu-Ray or DVD but at the moment this is the holy grail for audiophiles when it comes to The Beatles remasters.

What about the original mono mixes? Sadly they are not contained on this USB stick. You still have to purchase The Beatles Remastered Mono Box Set to hear their music in mono.

Harold Joshua Quesenberry recommends reading this Beatles Blog for lots of cool Beatles trivia and for the latest on The Beatles Remastered Box Sets.