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

No. Just people with higher end CD players. This isn’t a huge release that will have many different pressings. I assume everything was manufactured at once. Just luck or not of the draw if your copy plays ... at least for the players you now own.

 

It's been noted a couple of times now that the right people are aware of the issue - why not wait and see what happens? It might just be a matter of emailing proof of purchase to get a set of replacement discs. Surely better than returning it and possibly buying it later, when there's still no guarantee you won't get a leftover faulty set.

 

I'm not sure we have enough data points to draw a conclusion like that. It could just as easily be related to the specific hardware that people are using. If someone had some free time on their hands, it might be interesting to compile a list of what hardware and software combinations have been successful or unsuccessful (to see if there's any correlation there), but that wouldn't be a quick job.

 

They may not even make new sets. This forum and this thread self-selects for people who are having problems, and more generally, for people who are very close listeners, highly picky, highly detail-oriented, etc. We literally have no idea what percentage of sets sold are actually having problems, because the majority of purchasers aren't on SHMF at all, and many of them may not realize that they have a problem any time soon (e.g. you buy the set, listen to a couple of discs, and set it aside, and maybe don't play the specific discs that are faulty for months or years to come).

So I wouldn't assume that Universal is going to manufacture new sets at all. As someone suggested, it's likely (probably Andy can confirm) that they did a single production run of this box and consider it over and done.

Depending on the scope of the problem, it could easily be much more efficient (cost-wise and otherwise) to simply manufacture new discs and send them out in paper sleeves to people who request them. That's why I wouldn't assume that buying a new set, even in a year's time, will guarantee that it contains the new versions of the discs.

 

Well it seems even buyers out of here would start playing the damn CDs and many folks actually rip them first. Even before listening.

 

For once a voice of reason the first sensible comment I’ve seen. - the number of times i’ve read people without any substance saying “I think...” I assume..,” even “I know...” The facts are this is a minority folk act and UMC are in business to make money off big ticket acts. Not mess around re-running a niche product.

 

Not just high end players. Admittedly, I've yet to play all of the 8 discs, but at around 75% of the way through them I've experienced no issues so far. My CD player is far from high end, but a Tascam one - usually used in a studio environment and quite forgiving. The reason I bought this brand was that increasingly CD players seemed to be becoming more sensitive and unable to play for instance, CDRs. Good point about future playability though.

 

Thank you, I live to serve.

 

IMHO. For Universal, producing replacement discs is far cheaper than refunding. the costs of the entire sets.

Doing nothing is not an option. Legally or from a PR point of view.

 

Mine arrived today.
Played CDs 1-4 on my Marantz player
No issues so far.
Haven't tried ripping.

 

I have boxes shipping from both jpc.de and Amazon UK. Which box should I keep? Which company has the most customer friendly return policy?

 

Just my thoughts but I would play one set all the way through on your favourite cd player. Then play the other box all the way through on the same player. If you come across loading/playing problems make a note of it for that player and the relevant box, cd, track. If no problems found do the same thing for another cd player if possible.
The good thing is if the cds play then the music/performances etc are wonderful and the work is easy and enjoyable!
Re Amazon UK and jpc.de I have in the past purchased from both and they are good pretty reliable sellers.

Oh if they are both fine keep one set at another address in case of a nuclear strike.

 

The reason I am sending mine back is mainly because having to put up with the problems of actually getting this set from Amazon, finally being able to source the box from another retailer and then listening to 8 discs on several players plus 3 different attempts at ripping them, has for me sucked all the joy from this release, I can't be alone in this, I love the work of Richard Thompson, but it is not exclusive, 70 odd pounds is not a small investment, having the money back to spend on music that gives joy in times when money is tight, seems a better option for me than waiting for a company to maybe sometime getting round to sending replacements, which I will have in the first instance to action myself to get. life's too short these days for hassle over a CD box set, I'd much rather get some music I can enjoy for the performance, copy for on the go and not have to concern myself with QC issues that should not really have happened on this scale in the first place. I do understand the desire for this box set believe me, if you are ok with further waiting and worry about which player will work, then that's an understandable choice, but for me it's time to move on, though due to my technical curiosity I would be interested in any thoughts on what the problem with these discs might be caused by.

 

Following up on my vote, which I changed to issues with both playing and ripping, as I had more time to go back and re-listen to a few of the discs in the past couple of days.
Disc 4, Track 9: "Wanted Man" experienced a drop out, the second time around
& Track 14: "Calvary Cross" would not finish after the 8:10 mark, with a drop-out, and then played for about another minute before stalling altogether.
Disc 5, Track 9: "A Bird in God's Garden" also experienced drop outs in more than one spot.
Disc 6, Track 16: "First Light" (demo) does not make it quite to the end of the song before stopping abruptly.

My cd player is a TASCAM CD-A580, with which I have been using a cleaning disc between playing each of this set's discs, as a measure to give these discs the "benefit of the doubt"..... needless to say, these are not up to the standards of a routine pressing, for whatever reason. Still keeping optimistic that Universal will do the right thing, and replace the discs, at the very least.

 

Now here's a thing.

I've just tried re-ripping the box on a laptop's internal drive and things seem to be going much better. Disc 8 is currently being ripped, all the others reported back as being ripped without problems (albeit with the little "error correction" meter in EAC being far more active than usual).

I gave a listen to the live Calvary Cross at the end of disc 4, which seems to have been the worst affected track for most people here - and through laptop speakers it sounded fine. I was also distracted doing other things at the time so closer listening later on may be more revealing.

The odd thing is that the drive that appears to be working better is a cheapie internal one while the one that I use for more problematic discs (generally old and abused ones) really struggled. It makes me even more convinced that somethng to do with these discs is at the very limits of normal tolerances and it is purely the luck of the draw whether a particular piece of gear will read them or not.

Of course, I reserve the right to take all this back if the tracks are clicking and skipping all over the show when I get round to listening to them properly.

 

It shoudn't take a bunch of extra effort to rip or play. These sets are defective!

 

Thought of getting this and now happy I didn’t. I find that a small number of discs in my collection rip with errors into Itunes and a much smaller number won’t rip at all, probably about 3% and <1%. The discussion about which players are having problems with the discs is silly. They should play on anything with the compact disc logo, or they are defective.

 

On a perfect world, I would agree with you. But the labels & pressing plants are often incompetent.

 

What does that mean? I don’t think the manufacturer guarantees the discs will rip. But large numbers of purchasers are reporting they don’t play. That’s the definition of defective in this case.

 

I totally understand your frustration but I would recommend riding this out. All signs are currently pointing to UMG addressing this issue, I would assume by sending corrected discs to everyone. Personally, I'm just going to set my copy aside and direct my attention to all the other music that I need to catch up on while this issue gets worked out.

 

I'm glad I was able to cancel my order & get the digital files. With 1 album to go, the files have a total of 2 small glitches (that's unusual; files are usually glitch free).

 

I wish I could afford this
i'm depressed and lying down
i hear linda singing when will i be loved now
one of three unreleased songs on spotify from it for streaming
nothing's available for people who can't afford huge boxes anymore

 

Streaming is cheap. There will always be digital things you can’t get physically and physical things you can’t get digitally.

Good or bad folks can listen to much more music for free today. Nit good fir the artists but it’s an option.

 

A bit of a mixed bag here. Ordered in mid-July, turned up last Friday. I've been trying to listen to the set all the way through, but not always possible to give an in-depth listen whilst working. My initial thought was that everything seemed to sound OK, apart from the live Calvary Cross (Disc 4 track 14) - gets to about 9:15, and just as the guitar solo is really about to take flight it starts skipping and repeating and sounding like a godawful rave version, before giving up the ghost after about a minute.
Tried ripping the discs (for use in the car), and whilst the first disc rips OK, all the other 7 discs have issues , all in the later tracks. D4t14 did manage to rip though. Haven't listened to any of the rips yet to check for quality.
Having failed to get D4t14 to play on 3 occasions, I gave it a really good clean, and lo and behold it played the whole track. Gosh, that was so nice, I want to listen to it again - unfortunately second time around it did the 9:15 hop,skip and jump routine before dying again. Tried another clean, and it got through to about 11:30 fine, then started crackling.
I've just been listening via my PC optical drive at present - will probably try to have a serious listen on my old Rega Planet CD player and hifi set-up this weekend, plus other CD players I have around. Also need to check the ripped versions to see what they're like. This is bloody hard work for something that's supposed to be a pleasure!

EAC noted the following problems on ripping

Disc 1 No problems!
Disc 2 Tracks 13-15
Disc 3 Tracks 11 & 12
Disc 4 Tracks 10-14
Disc 5 Tracks 10 & 11
Disc 6 Tracks 141-6
Disc 7 Tracks 9-17 particularly 12-15
Disc 8 Tracks 11-14

 

i ordered mine from import cds, (to the US) and just got a shipping email saying it had shipped, or was going out for shipment or something.


if i need to... has anyone tried to return faulty discs to import cd yet, from the states? curious what their policy is, if i have to? never had to deal with this issue before (and maybe i'll get lucky and won't have to!)