Here's a clip of the Aphex Twin song "Ageispolis", from AAC converted to WAV converted to FLAC.

Is this distortion deliberate?
Or is it AAC distortion?
Or a mistake by the recording engineer?
It sounds the same on my PC and burned as a WAV on my big system.

If it's the recording engineer's fault, it sounds terrible.

Click to view attachment

Are you a big aphex twin fan?

Too funny

Ageispolis lossless rip section 1m20secs - 1m25secs.

Cheers,

Tim

Hey thanks Tim!

Wow, it sound the same, terrible distortion when the bass note hits.

Shame on the recording engineer! If it was done on purpose, it's tasteless, like say, Michaelangelo adding a bloody stab wound on David.

Aphex Twin (Richard James) produces everything himself. I think this distortion was intentional.

One of the stories I heard about that album (Selected Ambient Works 85-92) was that RDJ's cat actually tried to eat some of the tapes. So yeah, given that, I'm amazed it sounds that good.

a lot of songs on that cd sound distorted. gives it a nice home-brewed vibe. i like it almost as much as i like stab wounds

Isn't all music merely a distorted deviation from the natural, entropic state of white noise?
In days of yore, audiences unfamiliar howled protest at sounds created by Vivaldi and, much later, Stravinsky and Bartok. Don't forget guitar smashing by The Who and what Jimi Hendrix did to distort guitar output.
I also recall hot debate here about accurately encoding the static at the start of Autechre's "Second Bad Vilbel." If somebody finds new ways of creating distortion, be sure to send them to Richard James and Sean Booth!
{Addendum]
I use "Bike Pump Meets Bucket" in my test comparisons of encoders and have noticed that the most recent Japanese Ogg builds do not inflate bit rate as much as the official Xiph. Another case I know of when too much effort is devoted to encoding undesired noise is in one CD of Mo' Horizons which obviously was copied from some very gritty vinyl.