Labor of ''LOVE''

I'm not an audiophile, but it will be hard to listen to the standard CD after being immersed in the 5.1 surround version.

GILES: It's a trap, becoming obsessed with 5.1. I prefer the stereo.

SIR GEORGE: I know you do. People can get both versions and make up their minds. I'm very proud of the 5.1. I think it's better.

GILES: The stereo is better to me — being more old-fashioned than my very modern dad.

SIR GEORGE: MONO is better! [Laughing]

It's too bad you didn't do a third version of this, then, in mono.

SIR GEORGE: [Laughing] We should have. It's funny. When we were doing Sgt. Pepper, they spent three weeks mixing the mono. That was the one they considered important. Then they said, ''You do the stereo, George — it's nothing,'' and left me alone to do it. So I spent three days on that mix. That's the one everybody listens to, and they had nothing to do with it!

GILES: [Kidding] You only had four tracks to play with! Why did you need three days?

Retirement doesn't seem to have diminished your enjoyment of the process at all.

SIR GEORGE: Creating music, it's such a joy. When I first went into Abbey Road Studios in 1950, I went into a toy shop. That feeling never went away.