Apple Music I found a track with distortions on Apple Music (and iTunes Store)... thoughts?

[videosoul]

TL;DR: there is a track on Apple Music / iTunes Store which has distortions that aren't on the original CD, and despite me proving this to Apple, they are denying there is a problem.

Please bear with me, this is going to be a long one, but I'd love to hear some other people's thoughts on this. Am I going mad?!

When lossless became available on Apple Music, I decided to turn it on (ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz). I wanted to spend a bit of time listening to some tracks that I think are particularly well mastered, to see if I could appreciate the difference. I wasn't really expecting to... but was hopeful!

Anyway, one of the tracks I listened to was "Just Good Friends" by Michael Jackson, from the album Bad. When I was listening, I noticed some very subtle distortions at some points. They are subtle, but they were enough to jarr and bother me every time I hear the track. I decided to question Apple about this, whilst simultaneously checking to see if these distortions exist on the original CD. I hunted around on eBay for a good condition original copy of the CD from the first year of release, and sure enough: no distortions! Also, the version on Apple Music is quite a bit louder. This leads me to think that at some point, the track has been made louder, and has perhaps clipped at a few points. Whatever the reason, the point stands: the version of the track on Apple Music has some subtle distortions that are not present in the original CD version, and this, I believe, is an issue.

Below is my full original email to Apple, which includes links to extracts of the track in question. Followed by the reply from Apple, and my latest email to them.

It's worth noting that I also tested this with a non-lossless version from Apple Music, and the issue is the same there.

I'd love to know other people's thoughts on this. It may seem petty, but I like this track, and it's annoying always noticing these issues! Am I the only one hearing the issues?! Am I going mad?! Or can others hear them too?

Cheers!



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APPLE:

Thanks for your response.

While we were unable to find any distortions initially on the song uploaded on Apple Music, please send a video recording of the songs being played on Apple Music, YouTube and from the CD (if you already received it), including the parts showing the distortions.

Once you have the videos, kindly attach these on this email, and I’ll forward these to the Engineering team so that we can continue with the investigation.

I thank you for your continued patience. Please keep in touch, as I want to ensure this issue gets resolved for you.



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MY NEXT EMAIL TO APPLE:

Please bear with me, this is going to be quite an in-depth message… and I would gratefully appreciate it being dealt with with the same seriousness and attention to detail as I have taken to assemble all this.

My concern extends beyond just this particular track. Although I don't think I have noticed similar issues with any other music, yet, I am concerned that there may be a fundamental flaw with the way some music is processed for Apple Music, by perhaps boosting loudness (or, worse, adding compression / limiters), thus, in rare cases, causing distortion artefacts such as I have discovered here.

It’s no secret that there is a “loudness war” out there, with some streaming services and some mastering studios using heavy compression or loudness boosting to give the effect of more “punch” in music tracks.

Of course, the problem may not be caused by Apple Music / iTunes Store itself, it could actually have occurred earlier in the chain, for example with the version of the track supplied to Apple by the label or whomever supplies the original source files. However, the below is, I think, proof that whenever this occurred, it is at some point after the original CD master was made, and thus not a feature of the original recording.

I’m going to share the below on some forums too – I’d be gobsmacked if no one else out there has noticed this. I’m technically minded, and work in professional media, but I don’t profess to being an audio mastering expert: I know there are many audio nerds out there with idiotically expensive hi-fi systems who claim to have golden ears, and would notice this issue in a heartbeat! Haha.

Ok, so, I have received the copy of the CD I bought, and I can 100% confirm that the issue I originally reached out to you with is not present on the CD.

The CD I have bought is a copy of the album “Bad” by Michael Jackson. Catalogue # EPC 450290 2. Also marked with CB 821. The barcode is 5099745029020. The code number on the disc itself is DIDP-10645 11A2. I believe that it’s an original 1987 release. It's in perfect condition.

I am listening to the CD via an external CD drive (actually, a CD drive that originally came in a PowerMac G5, but now housed in a USB enclosure) connected to my iMac.

The track with the issue is “Just Good Friends”.

When I “Get Info” on the tack from the CD in Apple Music on my Mac, I see the following:

I can confirm that no EQ preset or volume adjustment is enabled:

The version of the track I am using hearing the distortion in is the one supplied via Apple Music. I have removed the downloaded version, to ensure that each time I play it is streaming a fresh copy from the cloud (though I do wonder if it’s still using a cached version… though, unless someone has magically replaced the file since we last spoke, this shouldn’t be an issue!).

When I “Get Info” on the version of the track from Apple Music on my Mac, I see the following:

I can confirm that no EQ preset or volume adjustment is enabled for this one either:

In the Apple Music preferences, for Streaming, I have Lossless Audio turned on with “High resolution Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz)” selected.

I also noticed the issue before Apple Lossless Streaming became available.

It’s worth noting at this stage that when I originally noticed the issue, I was using an amplifier which supports up to 96 kHz 24-bit. I was listening with professional reference grade speakers (PCM DB1S+). The amplifier was connected to my iMac via optical digital (my iMac is one of the last to support the optical output via the 3.5mm headphone jack… a sorely missed feature of newer Macs!).

When I was listening via that amp and speaker setup, I had the Mac's Audio MIDI setup output set to 96.0 kHz 32-bit Float.

In order to hopefully prove to you that the version of of this song on Apple Music has some distortions that are not present on the original CD version, I have done my best to make a recording to demonstrate this with the available equipment I have. I don’t have access to any dedicated audio equipment, but I do have a camera with professional audio recording features, so I used that. I didn’t try to record with a microphone what was coming out of the speakers – that would have been pointless, as far too many additional artefacts would be introduced. Instead, I took the output of the computer, and fed this to the input of my camera. Here is my workflow:

1. Mac with Apple Music with the two versions of the track (one from Apple Music Lossless, one from the original 1987 CD).
2. Analogue cable going from the 3.5mm output of the Mac (stereo mini-jack) to left and right RCA/phono connectors, which are then being converted to XLR to go to the inputs of the camera on which I’m recording.
3. Output volume of the Mac set to two notches below full.
4. Volume of Apple Music set to max.
5. Camera set to Line level input. Input gain set to 0dB. No limiters enabled.
6. The camera records 48 kHz 24-bit Linear PCM audio as part of it’s video files. The files I have uploaded are with the video compressed to save space, but the audio set to pass-through to retain it’s original recorded quality. I used Apple Compressor for this.
7. For the Apple Music version, I had Audio MIDI Setup on the Mac set to 48 kHz 24-bit to match the camera I was recording to.
8. For the CD version, I had Audio MIDI Setup set to 44.1 kHz 16-bit to match the source CD.
9. I pressed record on the camera, and then play on the Apple Music version. I then created a separate recording for the CD version.

Here are the details of the audio file I recorded (from the files captured on the camera):

Here is the recording of the playout of the Apple Music version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s_igKExlIxL1zZRi719HJmPCt_9g2QrP/view?usp=sharing

Here is the recording of the playout of the CD version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o-GgyNbdn2oOdzEz1VbtLCQNNvUVcWUZ/view?usp=sharing

The first thing to note is that the version on Apple Music is about 7.2dB louder than the version on the CD! This immediately makes me wonder if at some point this version has been made louder for some reason, and accidentally clipped. The question is: has this boost in it’s volume been done by Apple, or previously with the file that Apple was supplied? Either way, it is wrong, and it can easily be assumed that this is the cause of the distortions.

This can be seen in the screen recordings below. I took the files that I recorded to my camera and put them into the editing software DaVinci Resolve. Here you can clearly see that the the version of the track that is on Apple Music peaks at about -14.3dB, whereas the version on the original CD peaks at about -21.5dB.

Screen recording showing peak volume level of the Apple Music version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IEwnbWL-Z6FD8qZwTkajN8u1Gd-zaWSf/view?usp=sharing

Screen recording showing peak volume level of the CD version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FoBbUKwYkPVvxjm18z4JPMtmpxxPmWcg/view?usp=sharing

Now to clarify the points of the version of the track on Apple Music with distortion. As stated previously, they are very subtle, but enough (I feel) to be a) a problem (not an accurate representation of the original recording) and b) an annoyance. Especially when listening with headphones, I find the glitches really stand out, and are jarring.

If you carefully listen to the Apple Music version of the track you can hear distortions at the below times. I’ve done my best to specify when they appear on the Apple Music version, on my recording of the Apple Music version (which obviously has a different time code), and what lyric is appearing at that time. I would describe the distortions as a very fine crunchiness or “crinkly” sounding effect to the peaks in the vocals.

Apple Music	My recording from Apple Music
0’15”	00’16”	The last “na” of the “nah, na na nah| bit.
1’43”	01’43”	The word “trust” of “Never trust first impressions”
1’50"	01’51”	The word I “tried” and “hide” of “I tried to hide this affair”.
1’53"	01’54"	The end of the word “affair” from “I tried to hide this affair”.
1’59"	02’01”	The word “asking” from “Even if she’s asking you to stay”.

As I stated above, none of these subtle distortions are present in the original CD version of the track!

For reference, here is the CD version of the track (CD inserted into an external CD drive attached to Mac, and AIFF file uploaded directly from the CD): https://drive.google.com/file/d/12p7p5wbRb-_ft7QJsu1cYhL7vNvCfo6H/view?usp=sharing

Armand, you stated previously that you "were unable to find any distortions initially on the song uploaded on Apple Music”. Respectfully, I strongly feel that the above evidence I have supplied is irrefutable proof that there are in fact distortions in the Apple Music version, and if you/your team are not hearing them then I can only assume you are not listening carefully enough, or you didn’t really know what to listen for. Or, perhaps the hardware you are listening on is suppressing the distortions through further compression (for example, this could be possible if you are listening on bluetooth headphones or speakers, which would compress the audio further before it reaches your ears). Or, maybe, for some weird reason, the version you listened to on Apple Music is pulled from a different source to the version I am listening to?! But I find that hard to believe: even if for geographical reasons it was being streamed from a different server, it’d surely still be the same source file.

I hope that upon very careful and critical listening you are able to now hear the distortions I am hearing, and also hear that they are clearly not present in the original CD version.

I really look forward to hearing back from you on this matter. At least, in the first instance, to confirm you have received all the above.



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REPLY FROM APPLE:

Thanks for your response and I hope you’re having a great day today!

I definitely appreciate the extensive explanation and the steps you had to take to confirm the audio issue you found on the song “Just Good Friends” on Apple Music.

I have also relayed these to our Engineering team, however, we are unable to access the videos since these were uploaded on Google Drive.

Please attach the videos on the other email that I will be sending. This email has a link where you can attach or upload the videos.

I will wait for your reply. Once we have the information required, we will be better equipped to resolve the issue and get you back on your way.



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NEXT REPLY FROM APPLE (AFTER I SUPPLIED FILES VIA THE APPLE SUPPORT GIGAFILES UPLOAD):

Thanks for waiting for my response.

Upon checking with the Content review team, they weren’t able to find any issues with the song. It is possible that the distortions you noticed from the Lossless version of the song may have been intended and was part of the original content that was uploaded to Apple Music

If you find a preview satisfactory and then purchase the item and find the overall quality unsatisfactory, let us know. We take the quality of the items on the content uploaded on Apple Music seriously and will investigate any issues that you have.

We recognize that no one is better qualified to provide feedback about this service than the people who use it. You can share your feedback with us on this page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-music.html

While you will not receive a response from this department, please be assured that the advisors who review all of our patron's concerns do take these matters seriously. The more feedback we gather on these issues, the better and more likely to incite changes. Your efforts to share your feedback are very much appreciated.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. I'll be more than happy to assist you with whatever you need.



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AND SO, I REPLIED WITH:

Thank you for coming back to me.

I appreciate you coming back to me… but, well… honestly… I can’t say I’m surprised to get this sort of response. In the 20 years or so that I’ve been using Apple computers, I’ve had numerous interactions with Apple Support, and have become quite used to this sort of half-hearted, dead-end, and useless response. You’ll not that I have another ongoing case with Apple that has been going on for over a year and a half now, and is still unresolved, and still lacking in quality support.

I find it simply unbelievable that after I have gone to painstaking efforts to prove that the version of the track on Apple Music does definitely have some distortions that are not present on the original CD version, you are now telling me that none of your supposed experts can hear them. Simply unbelievable.

Having said that, I do appreciate that the distortions are very subtle. As I explained before, I absolutely do not claim to have “golden ears”, but I do have both professional and academic experience in this area. I also am fortunate enough to have professional quality monitoring speakers and good quality associated equipment.

I wonder: what equipment did your content review team listen on? The reason I ask, is because I can almost guarantee that if they listened on the built-in iMac speakers, laptop speakers, or bluetooth speakers or headphones, they almost certainly wouldn’t have heard the issues at hand. It is highly likely that the issues are subtle enough that bluetooth bit rate compression, or device built-in speakers would cloud the distortions, and make them imperceptible.

I also wonder, have your content review team used, for example, spectrum analysers to look at the shape of the waveforms at the specific points where I have noticed issues? Or, indeed, other such equipment that can “see’ the issues I am talking about objectively, and not subjectively as different human ears might?

Regarding your point:

It is possible that the distortions you noticed from the Lossless version of the song may have been intended and was part of the original content that was uploaded to Apple Music.

I find that, frankly, ridiculous. Can you think of a single good reason why someone would want to remaster a perfectly good track to include distortions?! I can’t! As I have stressed with great precision, the original CD version of the track does not have these distortions. Now, I can believe that the track may have been intentionally remastered to make it appear louder (for example, with compression and loudness boosting). What may be possible is that the distortions are an unintended side-effect of this, and maybe were not noticed prior to the adding of the track to Apple Music. If this is the case, the question is, at what stage was this done? Because, if it was done by Apple, then the fault lies with Apple. If it was done done before the file was supplied to Apple, then why are these distortions not present on the original CD? The version of the album on the iTunes Music store is advertised as being the same as the original CD version – but it is not! I have provided proof of this.

Either way, whenever this happened and whoever’s fault it is, the fact remains that there is a version of a track on Apple Music and the iTunes Store that is being sold as the same as a particular CD, and yet they are not the same. Not only are their volumes different but also (likely an unintended side-effect of this volume alteration), one of them has distortions. Thus, there is a problem here.

You go on to state:

If you find a preview satisfactory and then purchase the item and find the overall quality unsatisfactory, let us know. We take the quality of the items on the content uploaded on Apple Music seriously and will investigate any issues that you have.

Well, that is exactly what has happened, and exactly why we are in this conversation now! As such, you clearly still have further investigations to undertake.

I very much consider this case unresolved, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

 

[peterpayne]

Hi.

Simple explanation: the "Bad" album on Apple Music and iTunes is not the original one, it's a remaster from 2012. Probably those distorsions you mention are not that noticeable with a lower quality like the standard iTunes Plus 256 AAC, but they are when you play the files loseless. Of course, the 1987 CD should be perfect (and also quieter).

It sucks... but it's the way it is, sadly with streaming you're caught in whatever version the record company wants to offer.

 

[EuroChilli]

I finally found a vinyl album by Sixto Rodriguez at my local record shop, a new white pressing from 2019, for €35. The album was first recorded in 1969. When I play the record, there's a very distinct drop in volume halfway through the last track on side 2. It is very obvious, to anyone. My iTunes version is fine, as is all my other music; 250 vinyls and 22k iTunes songs.

Now I did consider taking the album back, and the shop will have probably refunded the money, but then I would not have the album I'd been looking so long for. You do not easily find a white vinyl album by Rodriguez. Yes, I paid money for it, but I don't consider it a loss. Yes, you are paying a whole 10 bucks a month for Apple Music, and if this was happening on all tracks in Apple Music, by all means, let them know about it. But, is it really worth it to be spending so much time on something like this? Life is short.

 

[darngooddesign]

...I find that, frankly, ridiculous. Can you think of a single good reason why someone would want to remaster a perfectly good track to include distortions?! I can’t!

I have no comment about your larger issue, and I'm not saying this is what is going on, but there are people who value maintaining any audio imperfections of an original recording. A different 'remastered and rereleased' version would have those issues cleaned up.

 

[EuroChilli]

I have no comment about your larger issue, and I'm not saying this is what is going on, but there are people who value maintaining any audio imperfections of an original recording. A different 'remastered and rereleased' version would have those issues cleaned up.

You should hear the live recording of Simon & Garfunkel's Reunion Concert in Central Park in September 1981. Simon starts singing a whole bar too soon in The Boxer...I have squandered my resistance....but, they left that 'mistake' in the recording, even though they probably could have taken it out.

Now when it comes to Jackson's synthesised analog music, from the 80's, some subtle distortions would not seem out of place, to me anyway. I would consider it par for the course. In my opinion, this is what makes music music, where a lot of modern stuff is just too perfect.

They still make vacuum tubes for guitar amps today because the required distortion still can't easily be replicated with modern digital tech.

The wife and I went to Fleetwood Mac live in Werchter, Belgium some 2 years ago. I will pay money for that recording, if I can find it, even though, to be honest, Stevie and Christine had/have almost lost their voices. It's still music, to my ears.

 

[darngooddesign]

Simon starts singing a whole bar too soon in The Boxer...I have squandered my resistance....but, they left that 'mistake' in the recording

That's a different kind of 'mistake', even if Apple releases a remastered version of that live recording they wouldn't remove that because it's part of the concert itself. A similar thing would be people who value an early mono recording, with all their audio "defects" (air quotes are intentional) in addition to a remastered stereo recording of the same album. Apple may not have a defect-free version of your track to replace the one with defects because the label has to provide it.

 

[videosoul]

Hi.

Simple explanation: the "Bad" album on Apple Music and iTunes is not the original one, it's a remaster from 2012. Probably those distorsions you mention are not that noticeable with a lower quality like the standard iTunes Plus 256 AAC, but they are when you play the files loseless. Of course, the 1987 CD should be perfect (and also quieter).

It sucks... but it's the way it is, sadly with streaming you're caught in whatever version the record company wants to offer.

Thank you @peterpayne, I totally hear what you're saying, but if that isn't the case, it isn't advertised as such. In fact, there is, separately listed, the 25th Anniversary version on Apple Music too. Surely that is the remastered version?

 

[videosoul]

I have no comment about your larger issue, and I'm not saying this is what is going on, but there are people who value maintaining any audio imperfections of an original recording. A different 'remastered and rereleased' version would have those issues cleaned up.

@darngooddesign That's only if the distortions were present in the original recording, and they are being preserved for authenticity. That, I would understand. However, in this case, they are not present in the original, and so are clearly (seemingly) a mistake introduced in the remastering process.

 

[videosoul]

But, is it really worth it to be spending so much time on something like this? Life is short.

@EuroChilli True! Haha.But I had some time to kill, and I care about integrity, and things being "done properly". What I'm actually now more annoyed about is not that the distortions are there in the first place, it's that Apple Support are fobbing me off, and claiming there simply is not an issue, and that there are no distortions, when I've clearly proved, with evidence, that there are. That is now my main issue.

And that "being fobbed off" is now tied in with my pre-existing frustration with Apple Support, as I have another ongoing issue, with Photos, that's been going on for over a year and a half now, and I keep getting passed around to different support people when, seemingly, it gets too difficult for someone to handle anymore... yet instead of connecting me to someone more senior, I am just moving sideways, having to start all over again, and not making any progress. Meanwhile, 20,000 or so photos are "held hostage" in a broken Photos app. Anyway, that's an unrelated issue! haha

 

[darngooddesign]

@darngooddesign That's only if the distortions were present in the original recording, and they are being preserved for authenticity. That, I would understand. However, in this case, they are not present in the original, and so are clearly (seemingly) a mistake introduced in the remastering process.

We don't know what the track which the label sent Apple sounds like. It's possible that the label decided its not worth fixing an issue only a few people have noticed.

 

[EuroChilli]

I'm also thinking about The Beatles Naked album, where with modern tech they've managed to remove almost all the extra orchestral stuff the producers wanted added but the band not. What we have now is a 'naked' version of what the band apparently originally wanted.

 

[videosoul]

We don't know what the track which the label sent Apple sounds like. It's possible that the label decided its not worth fixing an issue only a few people have noticed.

You're absolutely right. This may be the case. But, if that is the case, Apple Support should tell me this... rather than do what they currently are doing and insistently claim that there is no difference between the two, which is nonsense. They wouldn't even admit that one is louder than the other.

Also, I am wondering if perhaps the mistake was made after the track was supplied to Apple. This may be less likely, but it is possible, and if so perhaps it might be part of something more systemic. I know I'm not the one out there who dislikes the whole "loudness war" nonsense.

 

[videosoul]

I'm also thinking about The Beatles Naked album, where with modern tech they've managed to remove almost all the extra orchestral stuff the producers wanted added but the band not. What we have now is a 'naked' version of what the band apparently originally wanted.

Yeah, that's a very interesting example. But that's a whole other world of remastering. Something very niche and specialist.

 

[EuroChilli]

But I had some time to kill...

Havn't we all...

I'm with you on this, I too care about integrity, the least they can do is simply acknowledge what you have proven, in great detail. Maybe it is in fact intentional and part of the original recording, but the reps you've been dealing with don't know that. A communication breakdown, at Apple?...

I won't go into it too much, but I still have a Big Sur Music app missing album art problem after migrating the library from iTunes on an old machine. I spent a bit of time on it, but have since given up because all the actual music and playlists is still there. And, if I really care for the art, I still have access to the original version of the library on the 2011 MBP it's been on for the last 10 years, complete with all the art.

 

[videosoul]

Havn't we all...

I'm with you on this, I too care about integrity, the least they can do is simply acknowledge what you have proven, in great detail. Maybe it is in fact intentional and part of the original recording, but the reps you've been dealing with don't know that. A communication breakdown, at Apple?...

I won't go into it too much, but I still have a Big Sur Music app missing album art problem after migrating the library from iTunes on an old machine. I spent a bit of time on it, but have since given up because all the actual music is still there. And, if I really care for the art, I still have access to the original version of the library on the 2011 MBP it's been on for the last 10 years, complete with all the art.

Yeah, a sort of "oh yeah, that's interesting, well spotted... but sorry, we don't know why this is and there isn't anythign we can do about it" would a much better reply!!

Your music issue seems similar to my issue with Photos. A hangover from migrating from Aperture years ago, but only discovered last year, and hundreds, if not thousands, of my photo edits are broken. Frustrating. Obviously not a priority.... over the last yea, I've only come across maybe two other people online with the same issue!

 

[EuroChilli]

Yeah, a sort of "oh yeah, that's interesting, well spotted... but sorry, we don't know why this is and there isn't anythign we can do about it" would a much better reply!!

Your music issue seems similar to my issue with Photos. A hangover from migrating from Aperture years ago, but only discovered last year, and hundreds, if not thousands, of my photo edits are broken. Frustrating. Obviously not a priority.... over the last yea, I've only come across maybe two other people online with the same issue!

To be honest, I don't think there is much more to be done about the Jackson distortion, instead, maybe try embracing it and moving on ;-)

So, to continue going off topic; I think we have another great argument for backups, and preferably with Time Machine, as it's included with your Mac, for no extra charge Wife and I each still have our 2011 MBP's, but we now have M1 Air's for anything online, and easier travel; the lightness, and battery life blows me away. The old machines stay at home now and still run Aperture and iPhoto, on external 24" monitors, with multiple redundant backups of all the 'puters on more than one drive kept in 2 separate locations. Got a new 8TB Seagate desktop for €150, and a few other portables. Spending about €500 on external HD's is worth it when you want to safe keep well over 100k photos, and over 1TB of video spanning 50 years.

 

[darngooddesign]

I won't go into it too much, but I still have a Big Sur Music app missing album art problem after migrating the library from iTunes on an old machine. I spent a bit of time on it, but have since given up because all the actual music and playlists is still there. And, if I really care for the art, I still have access to the original version of the library on the 2011 MBP it's been on for the last 10 years, complete with all the art.

Can't you just manually update the files with artwork from discogs, for example?

 

[videosoul]

To be honest, I don't think there is much more to be done about the Jackson distortion, instead, maybe try embracing it and moving on ;-)

So, to continue going off topic; I think we have another great argument for backups, and preferably with Time Machine, as it's included with your Mac, for no extra charge Wife and I each still have our 2011 MBP's, but we now have M1 Air's for anything online, and easier travel; the lightness, and battery life blows me away. The old machines stay at home now and still run Aperture and iPhoto, on external 24" monitors, with multiple redundant backups of all the 'puters on more than one drive kept in 2 separate locations. Got a new 8TB Seagate desktop for €150, and a few other portables. Spending about €500 on external HD's is worth it when you want to safe keep well over 100k photos, and over 1TB of video spanning 50 years.

I hear you, but without wanting to divert this conversation too much, that wouldn't exactly help my issue.

I do actually have backups from my Aperture days still.

The problem is, that I only noticed the fault about two years after switching from Aperture. By this point, my photos library had grown and changed massively. The photos with the errors and the photos added since are far too integrated and intertwined. To revert to a backup from that time would mean losing everything I have done since. And because of the nature of the issue, I have no way of separating out the affected files from the unaffected files. Fortunately I haven't lost any of my original source photos. It's very complicated... as I said, over a year and a half of dealing with Apple Support and still no solution, despite numerous back and forths with senior engineers.

At some point I'll go into the full specifics on another thread here in case someone can help!!

 

[EuroChilli]

Can't you just manually update the files with artwork from discogs, for example?

I could, and I still have time on my hands right now, but not enough to do some 500 albums. I may still do that though, if I'm extremely bored, one day. I have had to pull art from Discogs for some of the more obscure vinyls I've digitised. When Discogs didn't have it, I just took a photo of the album with my phone. Yep, that's what I've been doing with lockdown time...capturing records using the Audacity app, in real time, then manually scrubbing and entering each and every track, one at a time. Took me almost an entire day to do just one album.

 

[EuroChilli]

I do actually have backups from my Aperture days still.

I figured you would have and that I'm probably preaching to the choir. Yes, maybe discussing such a complicated issue in another thread is a better idea.

 

[darngooddesign]

I could, and I still have time on my hands right now, but not enough to do some 500 albums. I may still do that though, if I'm extremely bored, one day. I have had to pull art from Discogs for some of the more obscure vinyls I've digitised. When Discogs didn't have it, I just took a photo of the album with my phone. Yep, that's what I've been doing with lockdown time...capturing records using the Audacity app, in real time, then manually scrubbing and entering each and every track, one at a time. Took me almost an entire day to do just one album.

When i migrated my 300GB iTunes folder to the new music folder format in Catalina I think, I lost a bunch of album artwork. What I did was select everything and choose update artwork which fixed a lot of them; on the ones that didn't update, what I noticed was that if I double-clicked on the album and then clicked back the artwork updated. On some others, track one didn't have the artwork which caused it to display blank in the album view but I could just copy the artwork from that track and paste it on all tracks in the album. A hassle to be sure, but not as bad as I first thought.

 

[EuroChilli]

When i migrated my iTunes folder to the new music format I lost a bunch of album artwork. What I did was select everything and choose update artwork which fixed a lot of them, but the ones that didn't update when I noticed was that if I double-clicked on the album and then clicked back the artwork updated.

Yea, I have done that and have noticed that it does sporadically update the art, when it feels like it.

But we digress...

 

[Jemani]

I found an error with an album from 1998-1999 that I purchased on iTunes Music store. I brought to Apple’s attention through chat. They did acknowledge the issue, though the album isn’t from a US artist and the label, while a US label, probably released the album with the flaw un-knowingly. The artist/producer is dead and this album was their only official release as an artist. There isn’t much Apple can do in this case, since it wasn’t their issue really. The issue lies with the record company that released the album in the US. If I could purchase the album digitally directly from the original label, it would probably be fine, though probably impossible since they wouldn’t have a right to sell it to the US since there is a US label that owns the rights in this country. The US label probably will deny any flaws and say that no one else has complained. Such is life.

 

[steve62388]

TL;DR: there is a track on Apple Music / iTunes Store which has distortions that aren't on the original CD, and despite me proving this to Apple, they are denying there is a problem.

Please bear with me, this is going to be a long one, but I'd love to hear some other people's thoughts on this. Am I going mad?!

When lossless became available on Apple Music, I decided to turn it on (ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz). I wanted to spend a bit of time listening to some tracks that I think are particularly well mastered, to see if I could appreciate the difference. I wasn't really expecting to... but was hopeful!

Anyway, one of the tracks I listened to was "Just Good Friends" by Michael Jackson, from the album Bad. When I was listening, I noticed some very subtle distortions at some points. They are subtle, but they were enough to jarr and bother me every time I hear the track. I decided to question Apple about this, whilst simultaneously checking to see if these distortions exist on the original CD. I hunted around on eBay for a good condition original copy of the CD from the first year of release, and sure enough: no distortions! Also, the version on Apple Music is quite a bit louder. This leads me to think that at some point, the track has been made louder, and has perhaps clipped at a few points. Whatever the reason, the point stands: the version of the track on Apple Music has some subtle distortions that are not present in the original CD version, and this, I believe, is an issue.

Below is my full original email to Apple, which includes links to extracts of the track in question. Followed by the reply from Apple, and my latest email to them.

It's worth noting that I also tested this with a non-lossless version from Apple Music, and the issue is the same there.

I'd love to know other people's thoughts on this. It may seem petty, but I like this track, and it's annoying always noticing these issues! Am I the only one hearing the issues?! Am I going mad?! Or can others hear them too?

Cheers!



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APPLE:

Thanks for your response.

While we were unable to find any distortions initially on the song uploaded on Apple Music, please send a video recording of the songs being played on Apple Music, YouTube and from the CD (if you already received it), including the parts showing the distortions.

Once you have the videos, kindly attach these on this email, and I’ll forward these to the Engineering team so that we can continue with the investigation.

I thank you for your continued patience. Please keep in touch, as I want to ensure this issue gets resolved for you.



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MY NEXT EMAIL TO APPLE:

Please bear with me, this is going to be quite an in-depth message… and I would gratefully appreciate it being dealt with with the same seriousness and attention to detail as I have taken to assemble all this.

My concern extends beyond just this particular track. Although I don't think I have noticed similar issues with any other music, yet, I am concerned that there may be a fundamental flaw with the way some music is processed for Apple Music, by perhaps boosting loudness (or, worse, adding compression / limiters), thus, in rare cases, causing distortion artefacts such as I have discovered here.

It’s no secret that there is a “loudness war” out there, with some streaming services and some mastering studios using heavy compression or loudness boosting to give the effect of more “punch” in music tracks.

Of course, the problem may not be caused by Apple Music / iTunes Store itself, it could actually have occurred earlier in the chain, for example with the version of the track supplied to Apple by the label or whomever supplies the original source files. However, the below is, I think, proof that whenever this occurred, it is at some point after the original CD master was made, and thus not a feature of the original recording.

I’m going to share the below on some forums too – I’d be gobsmacked if no one else out there has noticed this. I’m technically minded, and work in professional media, but I don’t profess to being an audio mastering expert: I know there are many audio nerds out there with idiotically expensive hi-fi systems who claim to have golden ears, and would notice this issue in a heartbeat! Haha.

Ok, so, I have received the copy of the CD I bought, and I can 100% confirm that the issue I originally reached out to you with is not present on the CD.

The CD I have bought is a copy of the album “Bad” by Michael Jackson. Catalogue # EPC 450290 2. Also marked with CB 821. The barcode is 5099745029020. The code number on the disc itself is DIDP-10645 11A2. I believe that it’s an original 1987 release. It's in perfect condition.

I am listening to the CD via an external CD drive (actually, a CD drive that originally came in a PowerMac G5, but now housed in a USB enclosure) connected to my iMac.

The track with the issue is “Just Good Friends”.

When I “Get Info” on the tack from the CD in Apple Music on my Mac, I see the following:

View attachment 1812572

I can confirm that no EQ preset or volume adjustment is enabled:

View attachment 1812574

The version of the track I am using hearing the distortion in is the one supplied via Apple Music. I have removed the downloaded version, to ensure that each time I play it is streaming a fresh copy from the cloud (though I do wonder if it’s still using a cached version… though, unless someone has magically replaced the file since we last spoke, this shouldn’t be an issue!).

When I “Get Info” on the version of the track from Apple Music on my Mac, I see the following:

View attachment 1812575

I can confirm that no EQ preset or volume adjustment is enabled for this one either:

View attachment 1812576

In the Apple Music preferences, for Streaming, I have Lossless Audio turned on with “High resolution Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz)” selected.

I also noticed the issue before Apple Lossless Streaming became available.

It’s worth noting at this stage that when I originally noticed the issue, I was using an amplifier which supports up to 96 kHz 24-bit. I was listening with professional reference grade speakers (PCM DB1S+). The amplifier was connected to my iMac via optical digital (my iMac is one of the last to support the optical output via the 3.5mm headphone jack… a sorely missed feature of newer Macs!).

When I was listening via that amp and speaker setup, I had the Mac's Audio MIDI setup output set to 96.0 kHz 32-bit Float.

In order to hopefully prove to you that the version of of this song on Apple Music has some distortions that are not present on the original CD version, I have done my best to make a recording to demonstrate this with the available equipment I have. I don’t have access to any dedicated audio equipment, but I do have a camera with professional audio recording features, so I used that. I didn’t try to record with a microphone what was coming out of the speakers – that would have been pointless, as far too many additional artefacts would be introduced. Instead, I took the output of the computer, and fed this to the input of my camera. Here is my workflow:



Here are the details of the audio file I recorded (from the files captured on the camera):

View attachment 1812577

Here is the recording of the playout of the Apple Music version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s_igKExlIxL1zZRi719HJmPCt_9g2QrP/view?usp=sharing

Here is the recording of the playout of the CD version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o-GgyNbdn2oOdzEz1VbtLCQNNvUVcWUZ/view?usp=sharing

The first thing to note is that the version on Apple Music is about 7.2dB louder than the version on the CD! This immediately makes me wonder if at some point this version has been made louder for some reason, and accidentally clipped. The question is: has this boost in it’s volume been done by Apple, or previously with the file that Apple was supplied? Either way, it is wrong, and it can easily be assumed that this is the cause of the distortions.

This can be seen in the screen recordings below. I took the files that I recorded to my camera and put them into the editing software DaVinci Resolve. Here you can clearly see that the the version of the track that is on Apple Music peaks at about -14.3dB, whereas the version on the original CD peaks at about -21.5dB.

Screen recording showing peak volume level of the Apple Music version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IEwnbWL-Z6FD8qZwTkajN8u1Gd-zaWSf/view?usp=sharing

Screen recording showing peak volume level of the CD version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FoBbUKwYkPVvxjm18z4JPMtmpxxPmWcg/view?usp=sharing

Now to clarify the points of the version of the track on Apple Music with distortion. As stated previously, they are very subtle, but enough (I feel) to be a) a problem (not an accurate representation of the original recording) and b) an annoyance. Especially when listening with headphones, I find the glitches really stand out, and are jarring.

If you carefully listen to the Apple Music version of the track you can hear distortions at the below times. I’ve done my best to specify when they appear on the Apple Music version, on my recording of the Apple Music version (which obviously has a different time code), and what lyric is appearing at that time. I would describe the distortions as a very fine crunchiness or “crinkly” sounding effect to the peaks in the vocals.



As I stated above, none of these subtle distortions are present in the original CD version of the track!

For reference, here is the CD version of the track (CD inserted into an external CD drive attached to Mac, and AIFF file uploaded directly from the CD): https://drive.google.com/file/d/12p7p5wbRb-_ft7QJsu1cYhL7vNvCfo6H/view?usp=sharing

Armand, you stated previously that you "were unable to find any distortions initially on the song uploaded on Apple Music”. Respectfully, I strongly feel that the above evidence I have supplied is irrefutable proof that there are in fact distortions in the Apple Music version, and if you/your team are not hearing them then I can only assume you are not listening carefully enough, or you didn’t really know what to listen for. Or, perhaps the hardware you are listening on is suppressing the distortions through further compression (for example, this could be possible if you are listening on bluetooth headphones or speakers, which would compress the audio further before it reaches your ears). Or, maybe, for some weird reason, the version you listened to on Apple Music is pulled from a different source to the version I am listening to?! But I find that hard to believe: even if for geographical reasons it was being streamed from a different server, it’d surely still be the same source file.

I hope that upon very careful and critical listening you are able to now hear the distortions I am hearing, and also hear that they are clearly not present in the original CD version.

I really look forward to hearing back from you on this matter. At least, in the first instance, to confirm you have received all the above.



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REPLY FROM APPLE:

Thanks for your response and I hope you’re having a great day today!

I definitely appreciate the extensive explanation and the steps you had to take to confirm the audio issue you found on the song “Just Good Friends” on Apple Music.

I have also relayed these to our Engineering team, however, we are unable to access the videos since these were uploaded on Google Drive.

Please attach the videos on the other email that I will be sending. This email has a link where you can attach or upload the videos.

I will wait for your reply. Once we have the information required, we will be better equipped to resolve the issue and get you back on your way.



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NEXT REPLY FROM APPLE (AFTER I SUPPLIED FILES VIA THE APPLE SUPPORT GIGAFILES UPLOAD):

Thanks for waiting for my response.

Upon checking with the Content review team, they weren’t able to find any issues with the song. It is possible that the distortions you noticed from the Lossless version of the song may have been intended and was part of the original content that was uploaded to Apple Music

If you find a preview satisfactory and then purchase the item and find the overall quality unsatisfactory, let us know. We take the quality of the items on the content uploaded on Apple Music seriously and will investigate any issues that you have.

We recognize that no one is better qualified to provide feedback about this service than the people who use it. You can share your feedback with us on this page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-music.html

While you will not receive a response from this department, please be assured that the advisors who review all of our patron's concerns do take these matters seriously. The more feedback we gather on these issues, the better and more likely to incite changes. Your efforts to share your feedback are very much appreciated.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. I'll be more than happy to assist you with whatever you need.



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AND SO, I REPLIED WITH:

Thank you for coming back to me.

I appreciate you coming back to me… but, well… honestly… I can’t say I’m surprised to get this sort of response. In the 20 years or so that I’ve been using Apple computers, I’ve had numerous interactions with Apple Support, and have become quite used to this sort of half-hearted, dead-end, and useless response. You’ll not that I have another ongoing case with Apple that has been going on for over a year and a half now, and is still unresolved, and still lacking in quality support.

I find it simply unbelievable that after I have gone to painstaking efforts to prove that the version of the track on Apple Music does definitely have some distortions that are not present on the original CD version, you are now telling me that none of your supposed experts can hear them. Simply unbelievable.

Having said that, I do appreciate that the distortions are very subtle. As I explained before, I absolutely do not claim to have “golden ears”, but I do have both professional and academic experience in this area. I also am fortunate enough to have professional quality monitoring speakers and good quality associated equipment.

I wonder: what equipment did your content review team listen on? The reason I ask, is because I can almost guarantee that if they listened on the built-in iMac speakers, laptop speakers, or bluetooth speakers or headphones, they almost certainly wouldn’t have heard the issues at hand. It is highly likely that the issues are subtle enough that bluetooth bit rate compression, or device built-in speakers would cloud the distortions, and make them imperceptible.

I also wonder, have your content review team used, for example, spectrum analysers to look at the shape of the waveforms at the specific points where I have noticed issues? Or, indeed, other such equipment that can “see’ the issues I am talking about objectively, and not subjectively as different human ears might?

Regarding your point:



I find that, frankly, ridiculous. Can you think of a single good reason why someone would want to remaster a perfectly good track to include distortions?! I can’t! As I have stressed with great precision, the original CD version of the track does not have these distortions. Now, I can believe that the track may have been intentionally remastered to make it appear louder (for example, with compression and loudness boosting). What may be possible is that the distortions are an unintended side-effect of this, and maybe were not noticed prior to the adding of the track to Apple Music. If this is the case, the question is, at what stage was this done? Because, if it was done by Apple, then the fault lies with Apple. If it was done done before the file was supplied to Apple, then why are these distortions not present on the original CD? The version of the album on the iTunes Music store is advertised as being the same as the original CD version – but it is not! I have provided proof of this.

Either way, whenever this happened and whoever’s fault it is, the fact remains that there is a version of a track on Apple Music and the iTunes Store that is being sold as the same as a particular CD, and yet they are not the same. Not only are their volumes different but also (likely an unintended side-effect of this volume alteration), one of them has distortions. Thus, there is a problem here.

You go on to state:



Well, that is exactly what has happened, and exactly why we are in this conversation now! As such, you clearly still have further investigations to undertake.

I very much consider this case unresolved, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Your emails to Apple were way too long. Any correspondence has to be succinct and to the point, the person reading it doesn't want to wade through pages of fluff. Same here too, which is why I read your TLDR version.

I wouldn't bother wasting my time on this tbh. I found a corrupt song on the iTunes store, and we're talking totally stuffed not some questionable minor difference based on a re-release. Notifed Apple via Feedback and they did precisely nothing, five plus years later and it's still corrupt. So the chances of you effecting some change on this are slim to none.

 

[videosoul]

Your emails to Apple were way too long. Any correspondence has to be succinct and to the point, the person reading it doesn't want to wade through pages of fluff. Same here too, which is why I read your TLDR version.

None of these were my first contact with them. The original conversation started on the web chat, then there were two more emails before that long one. I only sent that ridiculously long message after they specifically requested more detail.

Regarding your last point though… you’re right, it’s probably a waste of time. I too have hit numerous dead-ends with Apple Support in the past.