Canadian Guess Who Q8's

[Q-Eight]

So far, I have five of these:

The Best Of, Artificial Paradise, Best of #2, Road Food and Power in the Music.

A quick rundown of the differences:

Power in the Music - Identical to US Release
Road Food - Identical to the US Release
Best of #2- Much better sonics than US Release. Not muddy, very clear and concise high end.
Artificial Paradise - Front Right and Rear Right Channel swapped. Causes a lopsided soundfield.

Which brings us to the Best of. This is a very mixed tape (no pun intended). The most noticeable is American Woman. This is a much more discrete track than the US version. The rears have NO trace of the drum track at all. It has vocals center, guitars left and right and the congas left and right. The front consists of Vocals center, congas left and right, rhythm guitar hard left, drums left and right.

I prefer it to the US release.

Some songs also have the weird channel swap like Artificial Paradise. Most noticeable on Bus Rider when the panning guitar effect travels in a BR - FR- BL- FL pattern. I plan to give this tape a very critical listening and report back with my findings!

 

[winopener]

Compared to the Canadian version, Best of vol. 1 USA has also a phase inversion on the rear channels.

 

[Q-Eight]

Compared to the Canadian version, Best of vol. 1 USA has also a phase inversion on the rear channels.

The tapes I have (both Canadian & US) seem to have (on any given song) at least one phase error.

The worst offender being "No Time" which on my quad scope, gives a strong Back Left and Front Right signal, but very little going on with FL or BR. If you fade to full front or full rear, the missing signal appears on the scope.

For the bulk of the songs on the US edition, the phase error cancels out Front Left on the scope.

On the Canadian Edition, due to the channel errors on EVERY song, the phase error jumps around.

Maybe that's why this one always sounded "off" to me. Until now, I've never played this tape with the scope on (I rarely play this tape because it sounds so odd). This explains a lot.

In the process of comparing it to my conversion of the Q4 Reel, either the reel was corrected or the person who did the conversion corrected the phase. But the channel location errors still exist on "No Time" and "American Woman". All other songs have correct locations and proper phasing.