ryan@fremen.DEC (12/14/84)
On some records (if the record company is trying to cram a lot of music onto one side), the pre-echo you're hearing may come from the next track. However, the usual cause of this is bleed-through on the master tape. Since the signals on tape are magnetic fields, they can affect the signals on adjacent parts of the tape (the next revolution on the reel). The bleed-through effect is strongest moving towards the outside of the tape, so storing the tape "tail-out" (that is, so it must be rewound before playing) makes the bleed-through come after the original sound and it is thus masked by the music. If you here anticipatory ghosts, that means the engineer was lazy (although they are helpful in cuing a record track for taping...). You can tell for sure whether the cause is the record or the tape simply by seeing if the ghost is audible exactly one revolution before the actual beginning of the track. Mike Ryan