In the olden days of vinyl records (& before) it was also common that recording equipment was not up to the same standards as modern equipment so that the end product of a "record" would sound flat by what some would call a semi-tone or more. I used to know all of the old Beatles songs in the actual pitch in which I had heard them (& of course sung along!) so that one day when I was singing a one of the old songs within earshot of the organist in the church where I was choir director, the organist made a terrible face & informed me that I was singing out of tune. I was, in fact, singing the song exactly in tune with the pitches which I had heard on the "record," and which happened to be about a half step flat! Then there is the fact that when one takes the recording made in one country and play it on equipment made in another country, stuff happens. The electricity is not the same everywhere nor every"when." Stuff also happens when you play very old records such as 78's on more modern equipment. I was the very fortunate recipient of the only records ever made by a fine lady who was a founding member of the Tulsa, Oklahoma Opera. She had studied in San Francisco as a very young woman, and had literally "cut" the records. I graciously accepted them & proceded to go home & make a cassette tape recording of them on my equipment. When the lady heard me listening to the cassette one day, she was quite alarmed, as the recordings sounded quite unlike her voice in her youth--there was a definite wobble, and her singing sound a bit flat here and there. I quickly reassured her that the old victrolas back then did not always spin at the same rpm as modern equipment, therefore the pitch was surely sung accurately by her, but sounded different because of the equipment. Sad thing is, after she passed on, no one in the Tulsa Historical Society seemed interested in the recordings. Her only nearby family (nephew & wife) did not care for opera, nor did they know of her friends. I, however, still cherish them.