I recently played my big sister’s original American copy of the 1966 Beatles album Revolver.* It’s in mono, and I was surprised by how good it sounds, considering the damage it endured. Here’s ‘Good Day Sunshine’.
Monitoring the playback with Audacity, I was impressed with how dynamic the sound is. There’s no compression going on here.
For comparison, here is the official online copy of the song.
Looking at the peaks, some loudness compression was apparently added to the recording. The 2009 mono Beatles set reportedly was transferred from the master tapes with dynamic range left intact, so perhaps this is a YouTube effect.
Okay, so let’s find out. What about ‘Good Day Sunshine’ when played from the Beatles 2009 CD mono box set? No loudness compression is confirmed.
* A 60-year-old record on a 50-year-old turntable, with a 30-year-old cartridge and a relatively new stylus.