The Beatles USB Features MP3s and 24bit FLAC

For years now Beatles fans have been waiting for legendary 1960s band to catch up with the times and release their classic songs as mp3s which could be bought and then downloaded at digital music retail stores such as iTunes, and as of the writing of this article that wait goes on.

But The Beatles music is being released digitally (as both high quality mp3s and audiophile quality FLAC) for the first time on December 8, 2009. It's just being done so in a much different way then most people expected. Instead of making the songs available for download, they are including them in an Apple themed USB stick!

Before I move on I want to quickly point out that by Apple I mean the Apple that The Beatles formed in the 1960s, not the computer company that is famous for making Mac computers and iPods and for selling digital music on the iTunes store.

The Beatles USB Stick includes all of The Beatles remastered stereo albums (the same remasters that were included in The Beatles in Stereo CD Box Set) as 320kbps mp3s and 24bit FLAC files (which are superior in sound quality to CDs.) It also includes digital versions of all of the visual content that was included in the stereo box set; all 13 of the mini-documentaries (one for each studio album) and the extended liner notes.

According to Apple/EMI (who are releasing this product) this is a limited edition item with only 30,000 being made, although I'm sure many Beatles fans are skeptical of that claim because there was a similar claim made about The Beatles in Mono Box Set which doesn't seem like it had much truth to it. Although, it did sell out rather quickly and there is probably a very good chance that this USB stick will also sell out.

Clearly, with it's release date in December the marketing team is hoping that this will be a big Christmas seller and considering that it's already quickly climbing Amazon's best sellers list, that does seem likely. In fact, I do expect it will sell out before Christmas Day so it's probably a good idea to order it early if it's something you feel you must have.

One selling point to this USB stick is that the mp3s included are not only high quality (better than the ones sold at the AmazonMP3 store and the iTunes store) but they are also DRM free (unlike most of the music sold at the iTunes store.) DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and it's basically a pain in the butt for the customer.

Definitely the biggest selling point for audiophiles are the 24bit FLAC files which are included along with the mp3s. FLAC stands for "Free Lossless Audio Codec" with "lossless" really being the most important word there. This means it's a type of compression which loses no audio quality. And since these FLAC files are 24bit (in comparison to the 16bit files that are on a CD) they have a higher sound quality than the CDs and (as of now) represent the highest quality versions of The Beatles stereo remasters available.

The digital remastering was done at 192kHz/24bit and CDs are 44kHz/16bit. These FLAC files are 44kHz/24bit. You may be wondering is it possible to hear those 192kHz/24bit versions? Not at this time. But it is possible that such a release will be made in the future. Neil Young recently released a lot of his earlier music in that super audiophile quality as a part of the Neil Young Acrchives Blu-Ray set and it's certainly imaginable that The Beatles will do something similar at some point. But for now these 44kHz/24bit FLAC files are as good as it gets.