Got refund on paypal payment from Groves Land today. At least that went rather smoothly. They don't offer the box anymore. Guess they never actuall sold one.
Mine just got delivered. And, yeah, Amazon shipped in in a flimsy paper envelope. Of courser. Really should have been shipped in a sturdy cardboard box. The front cover and the corners are okay, but the back cover is a bit crushed. Disappointing.
So, for the benefit of those of us not used to working with USB sticks as a music playing device: How fragile is this thing? Better or worse than a CD-R or cassette tape? Is there a likely chance it could fail at some time in the future and, if so, what are the recommended procedures for helping to avoid this. Supposedly you're supposed to turn the player off before removing the device to avoid damage. Anything else we should know? It's pretty annyoing how it flashed the red light while operating. Any way around that? I'm working with an Oppo 105 here, so this might be player-specific, but why is it necessary to manually adjust the playback to gapless? Why isn't that the automatic defualt in the first place?
I would not play the files right off of the USB stick, which is bound to fail at some point. I copied the WAV files from the USB stick to a hard drive and converted them to FLAC (lvl 8), saving over 3GB of space in the process. I also tagged the FLAC files using mp3tag. I now play the tagged FLAC versions off of a spinning hard drive.
Gapless should be the standard setting. My Cambridge CXU does the same. I need to switch awkwardly to gapless which is only possible while a track is already playing. So i need to start a track and then i need to restart to activate the gapless mode. That is a bit annoying...
I know it doesn't help you but the new Oppo 20x series of players has a setting in the menu to turn it on as a default.
It is VERY likely ! I've never known of an USB stick that lasted more than 7 or 8 years. What you should do is make a backup copy of those files. Copy them onto a hard drive, for safety. And then get yourself a Blu-ray writer (that's really not that expensive) and burn them on a 25 G Bluray data disc. OR... if you don't wanna take the bluray writer path, copy them on at least TWO external hard drives. Therfore should one of the drives crash, you'll still have a copy of the files.
Of course I'm probably wrong, but I've always understood that there is a lot in the vault, but not much in terms of unedited complete shows and stuff. Zappa mixed and matched and cut things up to no end. :/
I've heard that every single '88 show was recorded! There was even cameras... there were, at the Nassau Coliseum show I went to.
Interested in this as well. Bought the box from amazon and this is the first time I've heard about this issue.
Like I said, it just came in my e-mail..... I'd hate to think it's only 'coz order through the ZFT-sanctioned store!
I bought my costume box on ImportCDs.com. So far, I have not received a link to the corrected "Wild Love."
Osaka and Tokyo are both in the vault, but they are ambient stage recordings with no vocals. So a complete release of these shows is very unlikely.
They used the first verses from "How Can I Be Such A Fool" from Tokyo as a patch on the OZ CD. Napoleon's vocals are audible, although a bit low in the mix and panned to the right channel, and there is a noticeable crackle in FZ's guitar rig.
The thing is, they were all recorded, but as far as what exists in what state. Full shows? Chopped up edits? etc.
My guess is that the digital tapes from '88 are more or less intact. Not so sure about the older analog tapes.
That's what I'd think too. But then again, we've had full show releases where tracks had been used previously and the tapes were obviously not destroyed/cut up fro editing so I guess it's a thing where we just won't ever really know.
I contacted amazon regarding the defective track, and they apparently don't have any plans to replace it as of now.
So in a run of 5000 only those who bought it via the official website will get the replacement track? Surely some kind folks can make arrangements for those of us who bought it elsewhere? #2409 speaking here.
