Richard & Linda Thompson-Hard Luck Stories:Playing/Ripping Problems or Not?

Prompted by discussion on the main thread about this box, I thought it would be helpful to survey the scale of this problem

 

I raised this over on the SDE site, this morning. Was interested to see if Paul Sinclair had had any issues reported to him, especially as he was selling through his own online store. He responded to say he had raised with Universal so we’ll see if anything comes out of that. Fingers crossed.

See comments towards the bottom of this page: Out This Week / on 18 September 2020 | superdeluxeedition

 

Just trying my first rip now, but fully expecting issues - Disc 4 is unbelievably scuffed. Will vote once confirmed...

So annoying. Reluctant to return as I got it for £56 on Amazon. To be honest, this experience has waned my excitement and I don't think I'd pay > £70 to replace.

 

Giving this a bump----- Having ordered it (thru import cd) and (im in the US) not getting yet any shipping info (which is normal, i think its not technically 'released' yet for the US).. I'm wondering whether to cancel my order, so I'd be very interested in hearing about this issue...

 

First choice should probably be changed to "Plays and rips perfectly".

 

Can those who are having issues identify if there are certain discs (or tracks) that are especially problematic? Or is it just a general problem of playing/ripping the discs in general, with no specific disc being the culprit?

 

The 44/16 files play perfectly.

 

I already reported my experiences in the main thread but I’ll sum up here in case people are looking for info on this issue in particular.

My newer MacBook (2019 model, using an external Apple USB SuperDrive) wouldn’t recognise at least two of the discs at all.

I used my older MacBook (2011 model with internal SuperDrive) to rip all the discs in iTunes - no problems were reported, although a couple of discs took a while to complete. However, there were glitches in the resulting rips.

Then used XLD on that older machine to carry out secure rips.

Discs 1, 2 and 5 produced error-free rips. Discs 4, 6 and 8 had minor errors but no audible defects in the rips.

The “Marc Time” bonus track on disc 3 took a while to rip and XLD reported 90 bad sectors at the end of the track (though it only affects the applause after the actual song has finished).

Couldn’t get an error-free rip of the final track on disc 7 - XLD took the best part of an hour to complete and reckoned there were nearly 400 consecutive bad sectors, affecting the last minute of the song or so, which has very audible stuttering and fluttering in this section of the rip.

Similar, though less pronounced, issues playing this track back on my Marantz CD6006 player. Haven’t heard any other issues during playback on this machine, but haven’t had the time to do critical listening to all 8 discs so can’t definitively rule out any issues here in respect of my set.

(NB that I’ve found the CD6006 to be very tolerant of out-of-spec CDs - it sails through problematic discs that my older NAD player would spit out - so YMMV here)

 

Yes, apologies. Unfortunately it is too late for me to change it now unless someone else knows how? There seems to be a time limit on changes.

 

You can probably ask a Gort to do it.

 

I had a few tracks that wouldn’t rip and some others that did rip but had audible errors. Probably 8 tracks in total. I have bought the set from iTunes to replace the problematic tracks.

These issues are such a drag as the content and the sonics are magnificent

 

Not everyone has the ability to buy downloads owing to geo-locking...

 

I don't rip but my CDs load and playback without a problem. I use a Cyrus CDi (a slot loader) which can be quite fussy but no problems with the discs in this set.

 

Voted. Problems all round. On CD players there are issues and ripping too, been trying to rip cd 3 for 30 mins now, horrendous noise from the burner...up to song 4....god knows what it will sound like or how mangled it will be. Will report how badlands respond.

 

I had absolutely no problems putting all 8 discs into iTunes on my 5 year old MacBoook Pro. Fast, didn't stop.

But I had problems when playing three of the discs on my CD player. All the others were fine and the sound quality is generally very good.

Disc 6
16. Layla (demo). Stopped part way through

Disc 7

10. Traces of my love. "Jumped' part way through and stopped.
16. Wrong heartbeat. Stopped part way through. When tried to play again, wouldn’t.
17. Back Street slide. Wouldn't play.

Disc 8

13. Pavanne. Stopped part way through, but tried it again and there was no problem.

The next test is to see how they play on iTunes. Tomorrow.

 

It does seem as if CD production quality has decreased significantly in recent years. I've had ripping problems with the last few box sets I've purchased, including the Abbey Road 50th Anniversary, the Elvis Memphis sessions box, and the Elvis is Back box. I have three different CD-ROM drives, so I was eventually able to get the discs ripped using a combination of the drives. I almost never seem to have this issue on discs older than 2010, other than some of the PDO disks from the UK in the late 80s and early 90s (which are known to suffer from rot).

Clearly, it seems labels invest less interest in producing physical product these days and are cutting corners wherever possible. They'd rather sell downloads, which are cheaper to make and can't be re-sold by the consumer. I suspect that CD pressing plants are having to reduce their costs too, just to be competitive for a piece of the dwindling market. Quality control is one of the first things to go.

 

I don’t rip Cds but have had no playback problems on the 8 disks in my Cambridge Audio axc35 player

 

I have played through all 8 discs on this Sony DVP-NS905V sacd/cd/dvd player. No problems. I have played some of the discs on my other players with no problems as well. However 2 friends have had problems playing some of the cds from their sets.

 

My experience with the first 4 disks playing via a Rotel RCD-965BX:

Disc 1 - CD not recognised until the 3rd time inserted. Afterwards it played ok.
Disc 2 - No issues; played okay.
Disc 3 - Plays but with an audible knocking noise from the player.
Disc 4 - Same as 3.

I have also tried Disc 1 in a generic, non-branded CD reader (laptop) but it failed to read it so I couldn’t even attempt to rip it. Disc 2 has no issues and was securely ripped with no errors via EAC.

In checking the surface of one of the CDs for issues, I noticed the reflection was distorted (think hall of mirrors) in one area of the disc; I’ll upload a photo later.

 

Can't vote. It needs a "Some discs don't play" option.

 

It is great to see so many people not having issues!

 

I've only played I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, Hokey Pokey and Shoot Out the Lights. I've a Marantz CD6006. All of those have played perfectly. I have not tried - and won't be trying - to rip them, since my iPod gave up the ghost about two years ago.

 

Won’t receive mine until November due to Australian government shutting our borders.At least gives Universal time to come up with a solution.

 

34% success rate on a 40 year old technology isn’t really great IMO.

 

As requested by Andy B here’s my feedback again:

So, hugely disappointed in the manufacturing quality of these CDs.

CD1 ripped OK in XLD up to track 10. Tracks 10 and 11 then took ages, and a LOT of drive noise, before XLD wouldn't rip tracks 12-14. I managed to rip these using Apple Music.
CD2 - XLD couldn't rip last two tracks so again used Apple Music.
CDs 3-5 ripped OK via Apple Music. I didn't bother trying XLD for these.
CD6 - Apple Music ripped all apart from the last track. XLD won't even open the CD - it just stays on the detecting pre-gap bar.
CD7 - tracks 13-17 won't rip on Apple Music. XLD can't open disc.
CD8 - tracks 12-14 won't rip on Apple Music. XLD can't open disc.

CD6 (First Light) has two parallel marks running near the circumference of the CD. The last song has fluttering noise and is clearly defective. The music then gets stuck in my CD player. Download this small file to listen to a 57 second recording of this and see two photos of the CD.

IMG_2588.jpg and 2 more files

I haven't played CDs 5-8 other than that last song on First Light so I don't know if there are more audible errors. I also haven't played the rips so have no idea if those that went through are OK.