OT: Weird question about a Beatles song

UMRU

All-Conference
Sep 19, 2006
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We've all heard A Day in the Life, the concluding track of Sergeant Pepper. The song includes a passage sung by Paul McCartney -- "woke up, fell out of bed, ran a comb across my head . . ." The passage includes the sound of an alarm clock going off. But when I heard the song yesterday, I didn't hear the alarm clock -- and that's not the first time I've heard the song without the alarm clock. Am I going deaf, or does the radio version of the song no longer include the clock?
I just checked the version on Spotify (A Day in the Life -Remastered). There clearly was an alarm clock at 2:18. It goes off just before Sir Paul sings "woke up, fell out of bed, ran a comb across my head . . ."
 

mildone_rivals

Heisman
Dec 19, 2011
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I don't understand (crack) why (pop) people would favor vinyl....vinyl...vinyl (pop) over dig....(skip).....when the track record...record....record,,,record of vinyl longevity is so poor (pop) (crack) (skip)
I'm a fan of high def audio, and can hear some differences with my rotten hearing although not huge differences between some CD quality and lossless (aka high definition) recordings.

So I can believe that vinyl probably produces different output that at least some people can perceive easily enough. But calling it "better"? It's a pretty subjective. Turntable aficionados claim vinyl produces a warmer sound than digital, in general. I can believe that because for sure some amp/speaker combos are warmer, some colder. If so, if one prefers warmer sound, that might be one legitimate reason to go that route.

I just have no patience for dealing with vinyl and turntables. And vinyl adds significant extra cost to an audio system, between the cost of high fidelity equipment plus the crazy lengths folks go through to isolate the turntable from all vibrations.

I've been mostly happy at the audio reproduction quality from Tidal's MQA tracks (master quality authenticated). CDs are 16 bit/44.1kHz. Tidal MQA tracks are higher, up to 24 bit/352kHz. And streaming audio is so much simpler than dealing with CDs or vinyl/turntables.

I figure most of that extra fidelity is stuff my ears cannot perceive. Yet I can still absolutely hear differences that I like, on certain tracks, on my system (or with decent headphones) nonetheless.

I duplicate most of my listening library in both Spotify and Tidal. And the Tidal tracks (which are generally much higher quality than their Spotify counterparts) are quite often better sounding to me. I keep Spotify around because the library is larger and their algorithms for helping me find new music I like is better. If they caught up to Tidal sound-quality-wise, I'd dump Tidal in a heartbeat.
 
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RU4Real

Heisman
Jul 25, 2001
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I miss when songs would break right in the middle so the tape could change tracks.

To this day I can't listen to "Hitch a Ride" by Boston without hearing it fade out and then fade back in, right in the middle of the song.
 

mildone_rivals

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Dec 19, 2011
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Same as a 45.... one.
Doesn't it depend on the type of music?

Disco always has one groove for the entire album.

Most rock songs have 2-3 grooves per album. Same with most electronica.

TOOL songs, and a lot of progressive rock or jazz songs, often have several different grooves in the same song.

Yes, I am indeed a wiseass. 😀
 
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RU848789

Heisman
Jul 27, 2001
64,385
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Doesn't it depend on the type of music?

Disco always has one groove for the entire album.

Most rock songs have 2-3 grooves per album. Same with most electronica.

TOOL songs, and a lot of progressive rock or jazz songs, often have several different grooves in the same song.

Yes, I am indeed a wisedumbass. 😀
FIFY
 

Retired711

All-American
Nov 20, 2001
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I just checked the version on Spotify (A Day in the Life -Remastered). There clearly was an alarm clock at 2:18. It goes off just before Sir Paul sings "woke up, fell out of bed, ran a comb across my head . . ."
Thanks for the suggestion. I checked it out too. I hear the alarm clock, but only very faintly. Maybe I am going deaf?
 

GoodOl'Rutgers

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Sep 11, 2006
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There is no comparison, vinyl is much better sounding than digital. Digital reduces nuance due to sampling error.
and yet, every movie you see these days is a digital soundtrack. I would guess people say there is this huge difference because that makes them seem like they can hear better than most.. are aficionados.. experts.

Discover Mag on the topic.. bottom line: you may like it better.. but that doesn't mean it is better.

It is like comparing photos from different phone cameras... it has been found that people like the saturated photos that POP.. so that's what Samsung sets their phone cameras to produce. But camera guys want something that better matches the human eye.. a more natural look.. so they favor Google Pixels because that's how they set up the camera.

Keep in mind.. you can change the look you capture quite easily. But digital vs vinyl sound? Cannot change the "look" of vinyl. To my ear.. ain't enough of a difference for me to favor vinyl... but I am a casual listener who was never addicted to playing vinyl for hours on end... nor do I suffer from Lizstomania (live with earphones in with a soundtrack to my life).

I do wonder how many times you can play a particular vinyl album before it sounds worse than digital to you and you have to buy another new copy.