If you like the Beatles, the release of the early tracks from the pivotal band in their original mono form was cause for celebration. If you’re not a fan of the Beatles, you’ve stopped reading. On the offhand chance you haven’t, you might want to check out a fantastic presentation Sgt. Peppers Deconstructed  to get a sense of just how technologically experimental and engineering-focused the Beatles had to be in order to create the such wildly experimental tracks and totally novel sounds. But was the album mono, stereo, or both? What does that really mean and what influence does it have? Here’s more from Your Sound Matters:

In mild cases, the difference between the stereo and mono versions of a song or album can be summarised by the different mixing techniques used to give each instrument or part its own “space” in the mix.

There are, though, examples where things are a little more extreme. It’s not uncommon for the stereo version of a record to feature entirely different takes or a radically different mix, as engineers experimented with the format.

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