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.
Quote from: stingo on March 03, 2011, 01:29:32 PM
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?
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.
Quote from: stingo on March 03, 2011, 01:29:32 PM
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! :o That is the only flaw I've encountered.
Quote from: stingo on March 03, 2011, 01:34:51 PM
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.
Quote from: ChamberNut on March 03, 2011, 03:49:50 PM
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.
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.)
Quote from: stingo on March 07, 2011, 12:44:22 PM
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.
Quote from: ChamberNut on March 07, 2011, 01:26:06 PM
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.
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.)
Quote from: stingo on March 07, 2011, 03:27:18 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: stingo on March 07, 2011, 03:44:31 PM
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.
Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on March 07, 2011, 03:52:59 PM
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.
Quote from: stingo on March 08, 2011, 01:19:15 PM
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.
Quote from: stingo on March 08, 2011, 01:19:15 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: stingo on March 10, 2011, 06:12:02 PM
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?)
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
Quote from: stingo on March 10, 2011, 07:16:41 PM
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.
If you'd like to hear what I'm talking about, send me a private message with your email (as apparently I can't figure them out, or the forum doesn't support attachments). I've cut out a 6 second snippet where the problem occurs. Maybe you can shed some light on it.
EAC can only detect errors in the way the disc reads. Evidently these errors occured during the pressing and are part of the playback or something rather than the disc surface over the data strip. It couldn't find these because if it looked for this kind of abnormality it would declare every Stockhausen CD to have about 40,000 glitches :P
Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Shostakovich on March 10, 2011, 09:20:40 PM
EAC can only detect errors in the way the disc reads. Evidently these errors occured during the pressing and are part of the playback or something rather than the disc surface over the data strip. It couldn't find these because if it looked for this kind of abnormality it would declare every Stockhausen CD to have about 40,000 glitches :P
That is the mystery. A CD has some redundancy and even if data was lost it should be possible to detect that data was lost during the read process, even if the data can't be recovered. I assumed that EAC did that, but maybe that's incorrect.
stingo: I suggest posting your short snippet on mediafire (a free file sharing service). For the comparison to be meaningful, you should post in lossless format (wav or flac).
Here's the first one I snipped - the opening seconds of the violin concerto.
http://www.mediafire.com/?btq3ut3mg6xi52a
Quote from: stingo on March 11, 2011, 02:46:23 PM
Here's the first one I snipped - the opening seconds of the violin concerto.
http://www.mediafire.com/?btq3ut3mg6xi52a
Downloaded, and I hear the pop (maybe two). I'll be investigating when I'm at home and have my disc to use for comparison.
I hear two. Granted it's right at the beginning, but still...
I think I got to the work you mentioned ChamberNut - the Op. Posth. Piano Trio times on the jacket are very different from what's on the disc.
Quote from: stingo on March 31, 2011, 08:06:21 AM
I think I got to the work you mentioned ChamberNut - the Op. Posth. Piano Trio times on the jacket are very different from what's on the disc.
Yes, it is most definitely Schumann's Piano Trio # 2 :D
I'm up to the first miscellaneous piano works disc and am wondering why the Hungarian dances are played so slowly...
Finished disc 45 - just the songs and organ works to go. I notice that the pieces I like the most are ones for instruments for which Brahms had an affinity - piano, cello and clarinet. But the a capella choir discs were a really nice surprise.
Quote from: stingo on April 09, 2011, 06:55:45 PM
Finished disc 45 - just the songs and organ works to go. I notice that the pieces I like the most are ones for instruments for which Brahms had an affinity - piano, cello and clarinet. But the a capella choir discs were a really nice surprise.
Yes, those are beauties.
Well I got the first two replacement discs - 1 and 4, and just listened to 1 which has something going on at 6:02 into the fourth movement of the 1st symphony (disc 1), and 4:04-4:08 into the Academic Overture (disc 4). Just like the ones in the set I have. Now I'm not sure what to do...