Distortion? - Sara Bareilles 'Brave Enough: Live at the Variety Playhouse'

I've always loved and listened to lots of music but only recently spent a lot of time with good (enough) gear.

I find I'm picking up distortion in recordings and this one is a case in point. This is the HDTracks 96/24 version. In track two 'Uncharted' starting at about the 00:01:55 mark I get pulses of distortion easily identifiable at about 3 sec intervals (with the music rhythm) for the next 10 secs or so.

I hear it clear as day with Jriver-->Mojo over ASIO-->KEF M500. I also hear it a little less clearly JRiver-->DirectSound-->KEF M500 out of the laptop headphone jack but still immediately grating.

I have a shitty Jabra Biz 2400 USB headset and using JRiver-->downsample to 48/24-->Jabra over WASAPI (no ASIO available) it's so hard to hear I'm not sure it's even there. Anyone have this recording and can confirm?

I start wondering if its the M500s...but other recordings are fine played louder. Now that I type this out I guess I'm answering my own question and it's just that the Mojo and particularly the M500s are doing so much better that the crap comes through loud and clear.

Damn, I hadn't realized how much hi-fi would start to 'spoil' music because I can hear the flaws!

 

I don't have the HDTracks version, but I definitely do not hear the distortion from 1:55-2:20 on my gear (JRMC playing back redbook -> Gustard X12 -> Modi 2Uber -> Asgard 2 -> HD650 & HE-400i tested in this case). There is some piano noise that could be mistaken for distortion around 3:40-3:54.