Her voice is great - no question. The songs vary from good to mediocre.
This could still have been a great album if someone actually knew how to play the piano.
The piano thoughout sounds like it was programmed into a crude sequencer or played by a 6 year old. It really is that bad!
This album will have its moment of glory then fade into obscurity.

I put this on, skipped through a few tracks and decided I had been ripped off due to the poor video quality so I put it away.
A few years later and I put it on while I was working and realised that this is a pretty good series of performances, with a historic line up and actually very good sound quality.
Since then I put it on like I would put on a CD and find myself watching most of it anyway.
So the choice is yours, overlook this because of the video quality or enjoy what's there.
There is certainly much to enjoy and do note that several cameras were used with generally good angles.

The packaging is great. The mono mixes are certainly interesting and sometimes less distracting, especially on the earlier albums.

Having said that, with CD's limited resolution, even on the earlier albums, you often hear more of the mix, with greater clarity with the Stereo versions.

If I had to have one box only, it would be the stereo box.

Much less desirable is EMI's handling of this release. It's all very well setting a price and claiming a limited release but when the price subsequently drops and drops and drops (around £65 in some US outlets) to further squeeze the lemon for more and more sales all that is achieved is a serious devaluation of the boxed set market.

Who is going to shell out for a Pink Floyd Immersion set after this. I certainly won't.

Look, once something has been well remastered, as in the 25th Anniversary edition, then you can't expect much of an improvement.
In the end CD is a limited medium.
The hi res download however, especially the uncompressed one, takes this album to another level.
A word of warning though. It is a painful process to get to the point where you can listen to it.
First of all you need a player that has DVD-Audio playback.
Then you may find as I did that windows fails to uncompress the file. I downloaded a third party unzipper. The support line did provide another link but it wasn't any better.
Then I expected an ISO that I could just burn to a disc but no the download just uncompresses to individual track files.
The really painful part is then to download a free trial of a DVD authoring packing and then learn to use it - including having to make menus.
Fortunately at the end of this process I have a disc that auto plays and sounds great.
Good luck!

I have confined my original artificial sounding antique to the loft.

From the explosive opening drums to the beautiful mids and tight powerful bass throughout, this is a treat.

Instruments whether guitars, wind, bass or drums all sound better with and greater separation.

Similarly the vocal only intro to Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes sounds like you are there with singers - and then when those drums come in. This is demo material!

I would bet that the engineers, blessed with good ears and matching equipment, were mighty pleased with the remastering.

Many remasters leave me yearning for an SACD release but this remaster seems to transcend the limits of CD.

I am delighted with this issue. I can now enjoy the music rather than a merely sounds.

Enough people have said enough things about this album so I won't go over old ground.

I do want to add that compared to the original version, which was flat and listless, this is an altogether more dynamic mastering and a lot more enjoyable.

The EQ, having more lower mids, probably helps. If you enjoyed this album on vinyl but were dissappointed by the original CD you should definitely check this version out!

Trying to read up about this set left me uncertain as to what I would get - especially in terms of audio tracks. I have seen professional reviews dismiss this set as a bunch of CD's with a few video clips.

So to clarify, this what you get:
- A CD of each album with bonus tracks
- A DVD which contains stereo and surround tracks, video clips, the same bonus tracks as the CD's, and pics.
- The audio on the DVD is in two versions.
- If your player doesn't support DVD Audio, when you go into Setup you are offered DTS & Dolby Surround and Dolby Stereo
- If your player does support DVD Audio, and works like mine, when you go into Setup you are offered Advanced Resolution Stereo or Advanced Resolution Surround. When you play this layer you will see that it is 24 bit/96KHz.
Note that the bonus tracks on the DVD are in the same format as the album when playing the DVD Audio tracks the bonus tracks are also 24 bit/96 KHz

In case you are thinking of tracking down the pre-slipcase version and can't work out what it is, this is how it is designed:
The box opens like a book with a full width spine and two outer covers. Each of these covers looks like half of a box and when you open the package up a slip case holding the 6 double digipaks kind of floats inbetween the covers. As the case is taller than the digipack enclosure they have added a peep hole / slide show feature at the top. In one half of the main box you have an actual real brass door peephole. In the other half there is a hole running to the outer cover. This cover has a matt translucent disc with 4 band images which you select by turning a wheel (like Led Zep III). To view the show you hold the box up to the light, look through the hole and turn the wheel. Note that this is a funky novelty and not something that will make you go "wow isn't that brilliant". I had expected more like 20 images rather than 4. Apart from that it's a well put together box.

Back to the audio, how does it sound? Can't speak for the CD's (they are for iTunes or the car) but I have listened to the DTS tracks because a friend lent me some copies. They sound good but the high resolution DVD-A tracks sound amazing and if you have half decent ears you will be very pleased!

A 2 disc version and still no extended version of Two Tribes like on the vinyl album. A have SACD of Rage Hard which sounds great so I'll pass thanks. Ironically the Two Tribes on the SACD is almost the vinyl version minus the CD version - go figure!
Only given 5 stars because no-one should mark something down without owning it.

First of all I have to admit I don't have the Mono box. What I can say is that the two Mono tracks on Please, Please Me clearly demonstrate the 16 bits of CD struggling to provide clarity through one channel (x2 of course). I find the the other tracks much more thrilling to listen to. On my system at least the early albums sound amazing. Things just get better but different as one goes through the box. I haven't got all day to describe them all but I have been through all of them half a dozen times and am delighted.

I love the packaging. I'm not really a fan of mini LP sleeves, despite having a few. To me they analogous to model cars. The new sleeves, dispensing with plastic, offer a great package of artwork and text and are very high quality prints on quite glossy stock. Having a box of them is a treat. The outer box is especially glossy with a magnetic catch. I have put the paper outer sleeve of the main box away and can now get to the individual albums quickly.

I'm sure the Mono box is great and will have it's strengths but I wholly recommend this set.

Yes at the original price there wasn't much incentive to buy this. At what I paid for it I thought it was good value.

The material is all very familiar and everyone has their own idea of which are the best albums. I'm not even going to talk about the music apart from to say that all of the remasters are very good.

Apart from being able to buy an instant PF collection what you are getting is the collectible packaging. So what exactly is the quality like. Well its actually very good. the card mini LP sleeves are thicker than some I have come across (apart from OBC which is more like paper). Most of them are laminated over the artwork, and from Meddle and OBC are nice and glossy. The gatefold versions have 2 creases to form a proper spine. These seem to have been hurriedly closed in assembly so that one side has closed more than the other, causing the aforementioned misalignment. It's easily put right by applying a bit of pressure to the creases so that they all close properly.

In my set the single sleeves have not been cut too smoothly but all I had to do was run them across the smooth side of one of my wifes nail boards and they were sorted. it's good quality card and white all of the way through almost and the dust is like plasterboard.

OK so there is no book or extra liner notes so you are left with microscopic sleeve print to read. It goes with the territory of mini LP sleeves.

What I do find unforgivable is the way only the albums that originally came with printed inner sleeves have received inner sleeves now, although the ones you get are all printed with artwork. This means that the others are just stuffed into the poly bags and are constantly trying to roll out.

Other than that this is a great set and definitely my last before a high def version comes along.

I sold my Shine On set (when I thought we were all set to get SACD's of all the albums) but from the lack of the book this is a much nicer way to enjoy the albums.