Please test this Tidal MQA track

[joel]

I was more referring to the piano here!

I hear it, and yes it does sound weird. Here’s another rather unpalatable thought. This comes from the Universal stable, right…?

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

My immediate thought was it sounded like watermarking, albeit extreme.

[miklats]

For anybody interested, the Verve catalog number is: AVRJ 8606-45.

You get a totally different sounding record.

[joel]

The other “interesting” thing is that this master was 96k. Not saying that’s wrong, but one might have hoped for 192k for something which was originally created entirely in the analogue domain. Or it could simply be that this master was created a while ago at 96k from the analogue.

[miklats]

I think all these digital releases were created from that “problematic” analog master tape.
I checked all the digital releases, downloads, SACD, MQA etc and the difference to that latest Vinyl Reissue is a given.

[joel]

Oh jeez, I thought this was a made-up joke!!! What I/we are hearing would seem absolutely consistent with a deteriorating tape.

[miklats]

Sorry, no joke.
Seems all the problems come from a problematic, failing master tape.

[NOA]

I don’t mean to come off as pedantic, but for me “frequency wobbling” (wow and flutter, speed fluctuations etc.) isn’t the same as “varying pitch”. The pitch of a given tone stays the same throughout the whole piece - despite the “wobbling”. What we hear in this recording doesn’t resemble a singer with intonation issues! The “wobbling” is easily audible in the MQA version (and in none of the other versions I know), but this CANNOT have anything to do with decoding issues. It rather sounds like a tape-related problem, but shouldn’t be confused with actual pitch drops or rises within the recording. BTW, the piano is slightly out of tune in all the versions I listened to and not only in the track under discussion

@HWZ you have it described correctly, 100% agree. All of your words sound very reasonable to me.

[NOA]

So no more headache to MQA decoding here, that’s the good thing!

Again thanks to all for catching up on this.

Happy listening!
NOA

[Paula_Dickerson]

sounds marvelous. I have listened to it many times. If there is a problem I would say the keyboards in the beginning sound unusual. The melody is quite catching. Recorded in 1964? Just goes to point out acoustic music is reproducible. Electronic not so much.

I am enjoying all the back and forth on SQ. hopefully, this will inspire the next generation of engineers/companies

[RobOK]

This thread interests me, as I like to understand what other people “hear” that I might miss. At :11 it seems a piano note is “off”, is that what people are saying is the wobbling? I am not sure that I am hearing wobbling. I’m listening to the MQA version through Explorer2 DAC to Senn headphones… I may start dreaming about the piano intro, i’ve listened to it so many times!

Can someone point to other points in the song where they hear something else?

Interesting thread…
Rob.

[joel]

This is terrible: the more I listen to the track, the worse it gets.

The most obvious things for me are:

1. Step change in the loudness/presence of the piano at 11 seconds.
2. Horrible pitch modulation (wow) in the piano at 18 seconds.

[Geoff_Coupe]

I am mightily relieved to say that I can hear the issues as well. I may not be a member of the Golden Ears club, but I can certainly hear tape wow and flutter and the fact that the piano (particularly in the intro) sounds “not quite in tune”.

Edit: I’ve just listened to the other TIDAL version (FLAC 44.1kHz 16bit released 19 May 1997) and I have to say that I do not hear tape wow & flutter, and the piano does not sound so badly out of tune…

[miklats]

Best solution would be to listen to the latest Verve vinyl reissue and compare to the different digital formats.
You hear 2 different recordings.

Or get an early 1960s vinyl lp. This also would do it.
I dont have Golden Ears. It is easy to hear.

[AndersVinberg]

Yes, quite obvious.
Wow at 26 seconds too.

[HWZ]

I may not be a member of the Golden Ears club

I don’t have Golden Ears.

Gold is terribly overrated - at least as a raw material for human ears…

[NOA]

Gentlemen, stopp listening at this track because it will follow you night and day.

It’s one of the most intimate albums that I know of, played with sheer musicality, and the recording is very pure, and although it’s not perfect in resolution and bandwidth, it’s so catching.

A good example versus the new high tech recordings after the sixties that are mixed and modified but do not catch your feeling at all.

[Le_Dom]

Yes I confirm the problem mentioned concerning this particular recent version in Hirez 24bits/96hHz.
I ordered this version a couple of months at Qobuz (not MQA) and it sounds the same. I think that the tapes used for this latest version have not matured well.
I have a DSD version and a CD version which are sounding perfectly without this strange pitch problem.

[erich6]

I was exploring Oscar Peterson’s catalog a few months back and ran into this album. I saw the Roon review was just two-stars; usually that would have caused me to skip it and listen to other ones but I checked it out anyway and really liked it. One of my favorites.

[erich6]

Where did you get the DSD version?