[calvinus]

Almost every audio clip, even those uploaded by official sources, seems to contain very noticeable artifacts. For example, in the following there are two within the first 5 seconds:



Can someone confirm this, because I'm hoping the problem's not my sound card or headphones.

 

[MindsMirror]

It's in the recording, I hear the two pops/clicks in the left channel in the first 5 seconds. It sounds like that first ~2 seconds was looped 3 times, the pop/click is a discontinuity artifact from where the end and beginning are stitched together.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Yes, it's the recording, so nothing to worry about. I confirmed by checking other links.

 

[calvinus]

Yeah, it seems so prevalent that I wonder if it was intentionally done to encourage upgrading to paid streaming. I remember RIAA being accused of similar tactics back in the days of Napster.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Yeah, it seems so prevalent that I wonder if it was intentionally done to encourage upgrading to paid streaming. I remember RIAA being accused of similar tactics back in the days of Napster.

I almost never encounter these glitches on YouTube. Usually they are the fault of the uploader because they didn't know what they were doing and somehow ruined the audio. (This more often manifests in bad audio quality in general, like it was compressed to 10 kbps or something.) In this case it appears to just be the recording itself, though I could be mistaken.

 

[MindsMirror]

It's very noticeable on headphones because there is almost nothing else in the left channel. On speakers I did not hear it since it's covered up by the sound from the right. This track was recorded almost 50 years ago, headphones weren't popular back then so it might have gone unnoticed.

 

[Music Alchemist]

On speakers I did not hear it since it's covered up by the sound from the right.

It was very audible on my speakers.