I finally had a chance to check all of this out. Here's what I found.
1) First and foremost: These Dutton-Vocalion SACDs of the RCA Guess Who albums are mastered perfectly. There are no channel errors with regards to what was on the master tape and what is on the SACD. It's exactly right. I checked both my Q8 rips and where available, my Q4 rips, and in all cases, what was on the 40+ year old RCA tapes is what's on the sparkling new SACD's from Dutton Vocalion.
2) Q-Eight has discovered something very interesting. Let's just look at the tune "No Time". This is a great tune to use as an example because it was on two different Q8's that I have archived rips of, Best of Vol 1 and American Woman. (Just for a point of fact, the channel assignments are exactly the same on "American Woman" and on "Best of Vol 1", so there is no error on one and not the other)
So below is a wav form of the Q8 Audio from an American Woman Q8 rip alongside a rip of the D-V SACD.
I have zoomed in on the first few seconds of the tune and you can clearly see that they are virtually the same. There are no mastering errors or channel errors here.
If you look closely, you'll "see" the intro drums in the Front Right and the Rear Left Channels of both rips. This puts them in the center of the room via a diagonal audio field. Maybe this is what they were going for, but......................
I then followed Q-Eights suggestion and swapped the Rights. This put the drums in the rear channels (predominately) and I listened to the whole track. I liked it. I liked it a LOT more. And, just as he said, at the very end, the echoing vocal goes around the listening speakers clockwise perfectly - pure RCA Gimmick Mode.
Here's a look at the intro wav with the rights swapped:
To me, this looks, and sounds, more orderly. It makes for a better listen - at least to me.
Is it an error? We'll never know. Is it a mastering or DV error? NO WAY. In fact, if DV decided to modify the master and it was not the way it was actually intended, I am sure they would catch shit for doing so. They did what was proper, but it really does seem that the master could have been created improperly.
Interesting banter for a lazy summer weekend.
I don't know where they are because she has hid them. No amount of begging, obvious signs of heart palpitations, sweating or chills is doing any good. I'll have to go cold turkey. Some one call this guy...
) i've heard a fair few quality singers in my brief time on planet Earth, both on record and "in the flesh" and even had a go or 3 at crap singing a bit myself and really this man's voice is just phenomenal.
if Tom Selleck could sing... 
