[ProAudio] FeralA - Recordings released encoded with Dolby A

[Scott Dorsey]

A lot of pop music used an undecoded Dolby A track for the vocals, but
that's just a vocal effect, that's not universal across everything.
It makes the vocal stand out in the mix, so applying something like that
deliberately across the board would be counterproductive.

I am curious what recordings he is finding this on... are we talking
original singles, reissued singles, or CDs reissued from unknown material
forty years later?

Your description of equalization being required before decoding would be
consistent with an improper reissue.  Mastering guy gets an unmarked
mixdown tape that is A-encoded but doesn't recognize that it is A-encoded
and equalizes it to be tonally normal.  CD goes out like that, and the
cleanup route would be to undo that equalization and then A-decode it.
--scott