ElGorillos said:

djThunderfunk said:

The MP3 was shared with me before the FLAC was making the rounds and before there was a thread dedicated to the leak.

The person that shared it with me stated that it was from the actual disc with the exception of The Good Life which was sourced from the CD Single. I can only ASSUME that the reason that track was swapped was because of the "scratch" noises on some of the tracks, if Good Life was the exact same mix and the rip was flawed, I could see the choice being made to swap it out (even though that is not what I would do).

Are we certain that some tracks have "noise filter applied"? Is it possible that the flaws in the rip (the scratch noises) or some other artifact is being mis-diagnosed as noise filter? I'm not making an assertion, I'm just asking.

As for the art, that doesn't tell us anything. People rip and share CDs without scanning the art all the time. I can share rips without getting off my ass, but, I don't have a scanner handy so scanning my covers is a major hassle. I have ripped and backed up thousands of CDs in my collection but have only scanned covers for a handful. Maybe the leaker didn't bother with the hassle because the scans were already available?

For the record, I'm not participating in this discussion to prove anybody wrong. I have the same desire to sort through speculation and get to the facts as everybody else.

[Edited 8/1/18 7:56am]

Thanks a lot for your reply and background info, djT!

I guess a swap could make sense based on what you're saying. But just to clarify, are you saying that your mp3 version sound exactly like the flac copy?
The track with the most noticeable filter applied, is the first track. The same (flac) guy also shared a copy of 'Purple Music' which had same filter effect applied back in May.

No worries, we both want to get to the bottom of this


EG

I haven't done a back to back comparison, but, both have the "scratchy" noises, both have the same 18 & Over & Poor Goo.