Dark Side of the Moon (Breathe) and iTunes Match

Question

I recently downloaded the 2011 remastering of Dark Side of the Moon from Amazon. When I run it through iTunes Match though, I get a discrepancy on track 2 (Breathe) between the original mp3 and the matched version. The track length is 2:50 on the mp3 and 2:49 on the matched version. Of course, this wouldn’t normally be a problem, except on albums like DSOTM where the missing second produces a noticeable blip as track 2 goes into track 3 – all the transitions between the other matched files are seamless and as they should be. If I play the original mp3 from my computer as part of the matched album (i.e. one mp3 file amongst the other 9 matched AAC files) there’s no problem at all.
The version for sale in the iTunes store puts the length at 2:49, so my question is: does anyone who has bought the album directly from the store have the same issue? My guess is that the problem only exists with the version which is not ‘Mastered for iTunes’ – i.e. the version that you get if you subscribe to iTunes Match, otherwise I’m sure that somebody would have posted about this before.

Answer 1

Interesting – thanks for that, Jim.
My Amazon version is also 2:49.586, but the iTunes Match version is 2:48.820 – which is enough to cause a blip. A little more research reveals that there are, infact, two versions of the album for sale in the iTunes store, both purporting to be the 2011 remaster: one is ‘Mastered for iTunes’ the other not. Interestingly, some of the reviews warn specifically about this problem: that some of the tracks have been carelessly edited.
So, anyway – based on your comments, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the ‘Mastered for iTunes’ version. There is no problem – as you say the track is 2:49.534 and the transition between tracks, seamless.
So, you would have thought, problem solved.
You would have thought…
Clearly though,  iTunes Match isn’t able to discern that it is the ‘Mastered for iTunes’ version which I now own, because the version that gets delivered via my apple TV or iPad is still the non-MfiT version. Likewise, if I delete the matched MfiT version from my computer and re-download, I get the non-MfiT version.
I’m going to send a copy of this thread to apple support and ask that they look into it.
By the way, your original copy of DSOTM was from a previous mastering. Prior to 2011 ‘Speak to Me/Breathe’ was mastered as a single track. My CD copy of the album is the same.