The noise floor in guitar amps is much higher than in consumer electronics. So this can become an issue in quiet passages of songs which are using crunched/overdriven/distorted guitar tones (i.e., cranked guitar amps). There is no doubt things got much better in these days (w.r.t. noise handling).
I’ll give you a classic example. See at 1’30", before he hits the strings:
I really like this song but I guess given the “loudness wars”, music producers tend to deliberately add (white/pink) noise at quiet passages of the songs in order to trick streaming/loudness algorithms. And this is unacceptable for my (OCD) ears when I listen to this kind of (artificial) artifacts. You just can’t unhear them.
It happens a few times during the song below. First occurrence is from 18" to 35" when there’s just a piano + vocal passage.
One should hear the musicians accommodating themselves at the start of the song. The cream of the crop is the guitar fret buzz at 18". Noticed with the HD600.
I was just listening to One from “Achtung Baby” album (1991). There’s a considerable hum in the left channel when The Edge starts playing. This hum gets masked as song progresses but should be easily hearable between 2" to 14", until Bono starts singing.
At 3’40". Is this the classic “fix in the mix” trick back in the analog days? There’s clearly a channel imbalance (or phase issue) happening at that specific second.
At 50". Suddenly the whole song gets centered. Before that it had a couple of dBs lower in the right channel. Heard with the HD 600. Confirmed the issue playing in mono with SoundID Reference.
I do have a legacy MP3 file of this song and the issue is not there. Most likely it was due the source that was originally ripped for Google.
Too bad the consumers do not know when this kind of situation happens in a streaming service.
0:37 A bunch of stuff pans over into the left channel randomly… it’s like someone bumped a fader or pan pot and didn’t notice. Strangely, it’s not on the record I have of the album, only the digital version.