Sound problem

I just heard "Hit the Road Jack" on America's Best Music (WNAM) with iHeartRadio on my TiVo.

Ray sounded fine. The musical instruments sounded fine. The backup singers sounded like they were in a closet.

I wonder if that's the station, the stream, or iHeartRadio? I know my local station which used to play America's Best Music had a problem with a Fifth Dimension song which was similar. Seems like it eventually got fixed.

And it could be America's Best Music that has the problem.

That particular cut has some very enhanced stereo. Ray predominantly comes out of one speaker and the Rayletts out of another. Very possibly the left and right channels have been combined into mono by the station. If there is some out of phase information in the recording, which is quite likely, or if the station has one channel out of phase with the other, it will voice cancel, making the voices sound very weak. In fact, you might only hear the reverb trail, not the primary vocal channel.

There are a lot of stages in the process.

I listen to an AM oldies station in the car where voices come out of one speaker, and instruments out of another, or perhaps some voices come from one speaker and some from the other. I've only noticed that on this one station and on an FM station that has since changed formats.

Something is wrong with "California Dreaming" today. There are background vocals that sound like they're across the street.

"Like to Get to Know You" by Spanky and Our Gang. I once heard this one in my car before the station went Christian. I could hear some voices coming out of one speaker and some out of the other. Right now, with iHeart, the background singers sound like they're in another room. And this has never happened. There is silence between two parts of the song.

We have an AM station in our area which is bad about having either the left or right channel missing which causes half of the band to go missing on man oldies. Oldies often have instruments or vocals panned hard right or hard left. missing instrument/vocals is a pet peeve of mine and is very annoying. I refuse to listen to a station that does it. I also hear it all the time with in-store muzak. Caused by having only one channel of the playback machine connected to the amplifier.

The local radio station that had America's Best Music but is now Good Time Oldies used to have a problem with "Up Up and Away" when they would play it themselves. I just heard the same problem. When the women and men took turns singing at one point, I couldn't hear the women.

WNAM on iHeartRadio didn't have the backup singers on Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover".

WNAM on iHeartRadio is missing a lot of vocals from "Eleanor Rigby".

Have you attempted to contact the station at all? Not likely they read message boards.

I thought the people who might know what's wrong would be those who did read this. But I could try the station.

vchimpanzee said:

I thought the people who might know what's wrong would be those who did read this. But I could try the station.

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Other posters have addressed it. It sounds like you're only hearing one channel from a stereo record. That could be a problem at the station, or a problem with your radio. Try listening on another radio. If you hear the same thing, contact the station.

In the early days of stereo recording, engineers would put things in only one channel. That changed at the end of the 60s.

TheBigA said:

Other posters have addressed it. It sounds like you're only hearing one channel from a stereo record. That could be a problem at the station, or a problem with your radio. Try listening on another radio. If you hear the same thing, contact the station.

In the early days of stereo recording, engineers would put things in only one channel. That changed at the end of the 60s.

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It's not a radio. It's iHeartRadio, which is a web site. Also, this happens so rarely I wouldn't be likely to … well, I suppose as soon as I noticed it I could try the computer. Right now the sound is coming from a TV.

iHeartRadio went out and I had to turn it back on. One thing I suspected was they might have taken it down to check on the problem but it came right back when I used the TV remote.

I got a response from the radio station. We'll see what happens.

I had nothing to give the person but he said he'd investigate if it happened again. One of the songs sounded normal just before I responded to his questions.

Do you want to know a secret? The vocals to a certain Beatles song. It was an instrumental except for ooo-waaa-ooo and other nonsense sounds.

Yes, I contacted the station again.

"Westwood One is on the case."