One of my latest purchases is the 3-disc Rod Stewart Complete Mercury Studio Recordings set. Discs 1 and 3 sailed through the ripping process but disc 2 is horrible - lots of errors. Yet, I’m listening to it on my office system (a DenonM38 unit plus Q Acoustic speakers). I’m not listening critically, but it sounds fine. I’ll have to have another listen on my Sony CDP in the main system to be sure.
So, is there anything wrong with the disc? There must be, surely. Can I return it (or rather ask for another copy) with my online supplier? I’ll certainly be doing so, and since they’ll have no reason to doubt me, I’m sure they’ll replace it. But are they obliged to do so, given that it seems to play fine on a CD player?
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Definitely sounds like Disc 2 is faulty. If it were me I would just say disc 2 jumps tracks and ask for a replacement. It’s unlikely the supplier will argue.
It’s very unusual for a new CD to be faulty, but it does happen occasionally. Only today I had one where the Core wouldn’t rip the last of eight tracks. The CD was sealed and new, but ultimately after several washes and re-rips that were no more successful, I found that isopropyl alcohol cleaned off whatever invisibly was the problem and the Core ripped it fine at the next try. My CDX2 played it fine all along.
Best
David
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Hadnt heard of that trick will have to try it. As you say though errors are unusual. I think I’ve had only 2 or 3 discs my HDX wouldnt rip, but about a dozen or so where tracks were missed. Admittedly though most of my cds are now bought second hand!
I’ve tried soapy water and lens cleaner so far without success, although the number of frames to correct seems to be coming down. I’ll see if I have something stronger for the cleaning process.
Don’t forget that a CD starts playing at the inside and moves outwards, opposite to an LP. In my experience damage or dirt on old CDs is often at the edge and you can often see where it may be by looking obliquely at the surface in strong light, eg sunlight.
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David
On the positive side I find that often makes it easy to clean. I have old glasses lens cloths, in my experience just running one of them round the edge of a CD a couple of times usually clears errors on the last couple of tracks.
True.
My concern over the CD today was that I bought it from Amazon because it wasn’t available from Presto and it was the last one Amazon had in stock, so any replacement would have been delayed. Anyway persistence paid off for me!
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David
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Some CDs are just like that. I recently ripped all my CDs to a NAS. Every single one played fine on my CD5si. For the vast majority of them I used dbPoweramp and it worked very well. There were however a few that just wouldn’t rip with dbPoweramp so for those I used Exact Audio Copy. That managed to rip most of the few that dbPoweramp didn’t and for the remainder Windows Media Player managed to do the job. Also, not all CD-ROM drives are equal. Some CDs just would not rip on my laptop but would rip just fine on the desktop using a different CD drive even with the same ripping software. So I’d say that if the CD plays fine in a CD player, it isn’t faulty. Just a case of the combination of CD drive and ripping software not liking a particular disc for whatever reason.
I wouldn’t tell them you are trying to rip it, as this is technically illegal in the UK, so they could quibble. Just tell them it skips and I doubt they’ll argue.
If it plays it can’t be defined as faulty.
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I don’t agree with that. If it conforms properly to the red book standard then the Core will rip it. So this CD doesn’t conform to the applicable standard, notwithstanding that it might be playable on another player. Hence it’s faulty.
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David
I haven’t considered the sellers legal responsibility re the appropriate standard and you may well be correct re red book. It will be an interesting conversation to have with the seller. I would still suggest it would be simpler to exchange it on the white lie that it doesn’t play properly. Legally it is an offence since 2015, unless I have missed an update, to copy the content of a cd so I wouldn’t be mentioning that.
Yes I do agree with that. In fact I said more or less the same back at the beginning of the thread.
We discuss whether or not you can make a copy of a CD for your own use from time to time here. I think the situation is that it is effectively a lacuna. I believe it’s not explicitly forbidden, but the explicit allowing of it fell away when the UK’s implementation of the EU regulations failed and had to be withdrawn.
Imho it’s most unlikely that any private individual making a copy of a CD for their own use, providing they own and continue to own the CD in question, would run into any legal problems.
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David
2015 British high court ruling made it illegal.
I don’t think it’s likely anyone will be prosecuted for home use, but I wouldn’t use it in any argument with a supplier.
I don’t think it did make it illegal at all. It simply set aside the provision that made it legal. There is a big difference.
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David
Semantics.
It was illegal.
It was made legal
The making of it legal was set aside reverting it the previous status.
I’m out.
Repeated cleanings improved things a bit but one of the tracks was still showing over 20,000 frames to re-rip. I don’t think this can possibly meet red book standard. Replay on a CD player must be impacted by how much error correction it needs to do.
I downloaded some software to try to copy the cd but that failed too - I wondered whether a CD-ROM copy would rip more successfully- but I won’t find out!
I’ve ordered a replacement so hopefully I’ll get a working set between the two.
The replacement arrived super quickly but it has exactly the same problem on disc 2! Track 4 or 5 shows over 20,000 frames to re-rip.
However, I realised I’d also installed dbPoweramp on the PC in the kitchen so I tried ripping on this. It sailed through without issues - as suggested by @elverdiblanco above.
I’ve donated my duplicate copy of the album to a friend and I’ll donate the purchase price to charity. Okay, Amazon lose out but I’ll feel slightly better about it. I must investigate options to re-calibrate my usual ripping drive.
Remember that the CD drives in most computers are cheap, mass produced units that retail for £15 or less. Precision engineered they ain’t.
Some computer cd/dvd drives have problemsvwith certain discs whichnwill play ok on an ordinary CD player. Warner Brothers discs seem to be the worst offenders in my experience. Yesterday I was ripping a Bessie Smith CD using Mac/ Apple Drive and dBpoweramp. That disc had problems with the last 4 tracks, which I solved by connecting up my old LG GE24NU21 DVD drive. I think it’s something to do with copy protection.