Hi Robert,

It's all been streaming through Tidal / Roon. I've just noticed that I must have the CD somewhere because it's in my 44k FLAC library, so I'll see if I can find it and give it a spin on the G98 to compare.

I can hear it on the 192kHz MQA (both blue light through the Explorer2 / B&W P9 and also playing non-MQA at 48kHz through a Squeezebox Touch into my G61R/DSP33). The same noise is also there on the 192kHz FLAC that I bought from HDTracks. It doesn't seem to change with file or equipment, so that plus the fact that Gianni pointed me to some tracks that have it to a much lesser degree make me think it's in the recording.

On 'Don't know why', you can hear it in the 'i' of 'till' at 0:13, and constantly through the whole track. To hear it, just mentally filter out her singing, and you'll hear what sounds like high pass filtered white noise modulated against the volume of her voice. Gianni's suggestion of breath is good, but it's very high frequency. Maybe that makes it through the mic filters?

I can understand recording artifacts being part of the production (I love the turntable crackle and pop on Portishead), but to me it's illusion breaking. It stops me imagining the singer in front of me.

I hope this isn't like the chroma bug, and I've just infected you with a meme that will ruin some tracks for you!

Cheers,

Mark.

861v8, DSP5200, DSP5200HC, DSP5000mk2, UHD722, MF10, Prime, Prime PSU