Brahms Complete on Brilliant - disc skipping issue

[stingo]

I have the Brahms Complete box set from Brilliant (by way of abeille musique's amazon storefront FabulousCD). The music is very good but out of 4 discs I've listened to (Symphonies 1-4 and the Overtures/Variations on a Theme by Haydn), 2 have noticeable hiccups/skips. The most egregious of these is on Disc 4 about 4:05 into the Academic Festival Overture. (The other is in the last movement of Symphony No. 1.) I'm wondering if anyone else has had this issue with this set, and if I should try to return it, or live with it as is? Thanks in advance for the help/replies.

[Scarpia]

I have the Brahms Complete box set from Brilliant (by way of abeille musique's amazon storefront FabulousCD). The music is very good but out of 4 discs I've listened to (Symphonies 1-4 and the Overtures/Variations on a Theme by Haydn), 2 have noticeable hiccups/skips. The most egregious of these is on Disc 4 about 4:05 into the Academic Festival Overture. (The other is in the last movement of Symphony No. 1.) I'm wondering if anyone else has had this issue with this set, and if I should try to return it, or live with it as is? Thanks in advance for the help/replies.

Have you tried playing the discs in question on a different player?

[stingo]

Yes, both on my computer and my laptop. Same skip in the same place. I also tried wiping the discs down but that didn't help either.

[Brahmsian]

I have the Brahms Complete box set from Brilliant (by way of abeille musique's amazon storefront FabulousCD). The music is very good but out of 4 discs I've listened to (Symphonies 1-4 and the Overtures/Variations on a Theme by Haydn), 2 have noticeable hiccups/skips. The most egregious of these is on Disc 4 about 4:05 into the Academic Festival Overture. (The other is in the last movement of Symphony No. 1.) I'm wondering if anyone else has had this issue with this set, and if I should try to return it, or live with it as is? Thanks in advance for the help/replies.

Hi Stingo, I have listened to every single disc of that set at least once, and most of the non-vocal music discs several times, and have not noticed any issues with hiccups or skips.

The only issue, at least with my set, is the one disc that has both viola sonatas.  On that disc, the piano trio that is spuriously belonging to Brahms is supposed to be on there.  Instead, it's one of Schumann's piano trios!    That is the only flaw I've encountered.

[Brahmsian]

Yes, both on my computer and my laptop. Same skip in the same place. I also tried wiping the discs down but that didn't help either.

Then it sounds like it is your specific set that is defective.  I would email Abeille Musique.  I'm sure they will be happy to send you a replacement box set.

[stingo]

Then it sounds like it is your specific set that is defective.  I would email Abeille Musique.  I'm sure they will be happy to send you a replacement box set.

I tried Disc 4 in my home and car stereos with the same result, so I sent FabulousCD/Abeille an email to request a replacement. Thanks for the help.

[stingo]

A brief update - I had told Abeille that I'd started listening to the set and mentioned the two discs I had issues with. They said they'd send replacement CDs, so now it seems I'm in the position of listening to all 60 ASAP to see if there's any more problems. lol (Not such a bad thing as it's Brahms, but still, that's an awful lot of CDs to leave earprints on.)

[Brahmsian]

A brief update - I had told Abeille that I'd started listening to the set and mentioned the two discs I had issues with. They said they'd send replacement CDs, so now it seems I'm in the position of listening to all 60 ASAP to see if there's any more problems. lol (Not such a bad thing as it's Brahms, but still, that's an awful lot of CDs to leave earprints on.)

Well, I think if you spot check and listen to about 10 of them, and don't experience any issues, it probably means the whole set will be good.

[Scarpia]

Well, I think if you spot check and listen to about 10 of them, and don't experience any issues, it probably means the whole set will be good.

Use something like EAC (free) to burn the CDs to disc.  The program will give you a notice when it finds a problem.  (Better confirm that you can recognize its way of reporting errors by running it on one of the discs with a known fault.).  Even with my old computer it can read the discs at 25x, meaning 3 minutes per disc (in practice it takes me longer because I copy to a single flac file, which requires a separate compression step and a scan to identify track start times).  The key is to do it in a desktop computer with one of those old-fashioned CD drives with a tray rather than one of the compact drives they put in a laptop.  My laptop never gets above 5x even though in theory it is as fast as the desktop drive.

[stingo]

Tried EAC on one of the discs with a known fault, and it breezed right through it. No real indication of an error unfortunately. (Unless I don't know what to look/listen for.)

[Scarpia]

Tried EAC on one of the discs with a known fault, and it breezed right through it. No real indication of an error unfortunately. (Unless I don't know what to look/listen for.)

Did you listen to the ripped file that EAC produced to determine if the glitch you heard from the CD is also audible?

EAC has different modes of operation, but I use it to "copy image and create cue sheet" using FLAC compression and when it is done it shows a dialog box summarizing results.  It can report that the disc failed to match a database it consults, or report cryptic problems such as "timing error."   There is also a button called "possible errors" which I have never pressed, but which might be helpful.  EAC also has various levels of attempts to correct errors, so it may be possible to configure it so that it reports a problem where your player has a problem.

[stingo]

I did indeed. The error I'm talking about is really hard to miss. I'll try the image/cue sheet next and see what I come up with.

[Scarpia]

I did indeed. The error I'm talking about is really hard to miss. I'll try the image/cue sheet next and see what I come up with.

That's odd.  I thought your computer also reproduced the problem.

In any case, maybe another program like iTunes or winamp would be less effective in repairing the errors.

[stingo]

That's odd.  I thought your computer also reproduced the problem.

In any case, maybe another program like iTunes or winamp would be less effective in repairing the errors.

The problem originally came to light when I was using itunes to rip to my library. I subsequently tried playing the disc on 3 other players (car stereo, home stereo and laptop) and the glitch was audible on all 3. With EAC, it gave no indication an error had occurred in the track, but playing the resulting mp3 back, the glitch was indeed there.

[Scarpia]

The problem originally came to light when I was using itunes to rip to my library. I subsequently tried playing the disc on 3 other players (car stereo, home stereo and laptop) and the glitch was audible on all 3. With EAC, it gave no indication an error had occurred in the track, but playing the resulting mp3 back, the glitch was indeed there.

Hmm, I'm surprised, I thought EAC would be the most fussy.  (It occasionally gives me complaints when I burn a disc, but on one occasion a disc had a glitch on CD playback but no error and no glitch on playback of the resulting file. 

But, in that case, you'd better use iTunes.  The substance of my suggestion was to use ripping at high speed to find the errors, rather than listening to the complete works of Brahms at a go just to find disc defects.

[petrarch]

The problem originally came to light when I was using itunes to rip to my library. I subsequently tried playing the disc on 3 other players (car stereo, home stereo and laptop) and the glitch was audible on all 3. With EAC, it gave no indication an error had occurred in the track, but playing the resulting mp3 back, the glitch was indeed there.

Have you used the 'paranoia' settings? Also, for discs that are troublesome, reducing the reading speed might help getting past the issue and producing a good enough (i.e. where the glitch is inaudible) rip, since computer CD drives have a totally different reading and buffering patterns than those used typically found in music systems. I once managed to produce a good copy of a rare CD that got cracked in the mail by fiddling with the reading speed on the CD copy software.

[stingo]

I put it into paranoid, and ripped a track into FLAC. The glitch is still clearly audible. Just found another glitch (other than the two I reported to Abeille today - on disc 9, the first movement of the violin concerto, right at the start.

[Scarpia]

I put it into paranoid, and ripped a track into FLAC. The glitch is still clearly audible. Just found another glitch (other than the two I reported to Abeille today - on disc 9, the first movement of the violin concerto, right at the start.

What I am curious about, does EAC report and error?  (If I burn a disc with EAC, will I know there is an error from its report, without listening?)

[stingo]

Here's the test log:

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 1 from 15. November 2010

EAC extraction logfile from 10. March 2011, 23:15

Borika van den Booren (violin), Berliner Philharmoniker & Emmy Verhey (violin), Janos Starker (cello), Amsterdam Philharmonic / Brahms - The Concertos

Used drive  : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GH15F   Adapter: 3  ID: 0

Read mode : Paranoid

Read offset correction                      : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : No
Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling                                : Not detected, thus appended to previous track

Performing a test extraction only


TOC of the extracted CD

     Track |   Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:01.00 | 23:53.60 |        75    |   107609   
        2  | 23:54.60 |  9:43.21 |    107610    |   151355   
        3  | 33:38.06 |  8:54.46 |    151356    |   191451   
        4  | 42:32.52 | 17:19.53 |    191452    |   269429   
        5  | 59:52.30 |  8:25.04 |    269430    |   307308   
        6  | 68:17.34 |  8:52.34 |    307309    |   347242   


Track  1

     Filename C:\Users\Tom\Brahms Test\Violin Concerto in D major Op.77 - I. Allegro ma non troppo.wav

     Peak level 97.2 %
     Extraction speed 2.3 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 5C4EA5A1
     Accurately ripped (confidence 17)  [26955F56]
     Copy OK


All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report

[Scarpia]

Here's the test log:

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 1 from 15. November 2010

EAC extraction logfile from 10. March 2011, 23:15

Borika van den Booren (violin), Berliner Philharmoniker & Emmy Verhey (violin), Janos Starker (cello), Amsterdam Philharmonic / Brahms - The Concertos

Used drive  : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GH15F   Adapter: 3  ID: 0

Read mode : Paranoid

Read offset correction                      : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : No
Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling                                : Not detected, thus appended to previous track

Performing a test extraction only


TOC of the extracted CD

     Track |   Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:01.00 | 23:53.60 |        75    |   107609   
        2  | 23:54.60 |  9:43.21 |    107610    |   151355   
        3  | 33:38.06 |  8:54.46 |    151356    |   191451   
        4  | 42:32.52 | 17:19.53 |    191452    |   269429   
        5  | 59:52.30 |  8:25.04 |    269430    |   307308   
        6  | 68:17.34 |  8:52.34 |    307309    |   347242   


Track  1

     Filename C:\Users\Tom\Brahms Test\Violin Concerto in D major Op.77 - I. Allegro ma non troppo.wav

     Peak level 97.2 %
     Extraction speed 2.3 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 5C4EA5A1
     Accurately ripped (confidence 17)  [26955F56]
     Copy OK


All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report

And this report corresponds to a track that had a glitch?  In other words, EAC is oblivious to errors!

I always suspected as much.  When you install the thing it gives the impression that it is super-anal about reading discs, but in fact, it is programmed by incompetents!

I need to find another program that can generate FLAC files.