Neil Young Archives Vol. III Hi Res Downloads Are Problematic!

[Petr Kropotkin]

I would like to know if those with the noise downloaded FLAC files or WAVE files. Also, I experienced lockups on download and ended up downloading the WAVE files without issue.

All FLAC. The three dodgy FLAC ones were afterwards replaced by FLAC ones as well.

 

[Steve Bruzonsky]

Since I had this corrupt issue occur with both FLAC and WAV, apparently this can happen downloading from Neil Young Archives in any format.

 

[atrocity]

Funny though I've downloaded so many tracks and albums in the past and never had this issue. And I've downloaded many albums from Neil Young Archives in the past with no issues. Obviously their quality control and download system has changed and isn't as good anymore? The days of Pono are gone!

Unless someone openly admits to being at fault, it's really hard to accurately pin the blame. When bits have to travel thousands of miles over tons of interconnected hardware of varying quality, it's frankly amazing that any of this stuff ever works. Again, I've seen multiple successful transfers followed by a complete disaster by a user uploading from the same hard drive on the same computer going through the same router to the same ISP and ultimately to the same server. It's frustrating, to say the least.

But one big advantage of FLAC, WavPack and probably other file types is the ability to test and make sure that the music bits currently in the file are the same bits that went into it at compression time. It's even possible to write a script that will test your entire FLAC library, though for collections like ours it takes days to run.

 

[zdjh22]

For folks wanting to break up the 222 tracks into the separate albums, note that each .flac has a tag "#" (actually a VORBIS_COMMENT named TRACKNUMBER) which gives the track number within the full archives (Windows Explorer will show these). Also, the track names are all unique except for 3:

Distinct versions of Motorcycle Mama occur in both the Neil Young and Neil Young, Nicolette Larson folders
Distinct versions of Soul of a Woman occur in both the International Harvesters and Trans Band folders
Distinct versions of Southern Pacific occur in both the International Harvesters and Crazy Horse folders

For Plex you can rename the three duplicated files above to unique names, then put all tracks into one folder, then open that folder in PerfectTUNES ID Tags or MP3Tags and sort on the Track column. You can then pull out your 17 CDs or list of songs by CD, and modify the Disc tag on each track to put each song into the disc on which it occurs.

This is way more painful than it should be, but it's much faster than sorting by hand.

 

[jaap74]

Unless someone openly admits to being at fault, it's really hard to accurately pin the blame. When bits have to travel thousands of miles over tons of interconnected hardware of varying quality, it's frankly amazing that any of this stuff ever works.

Maybe Audiophile Ethernet Cables could have helped.........

 

[Steve Bruzonsky]

Maybe Audiophile Ethernet Cables could have helped.........

Actually, but only if you download in WAV, using audiophile ethernet cables will convert the WAV to DSD256 5.1 channel. Try it!

 

[zdjh22]

Shoot, I feel like I lost the lottery yet again. I checked all 222 downloaded files last night, and they all played correctly (at least at the beginning, I’m not that much of a masochist).

 

[hi-res_edition]

Since the track numbers are unique... I just did a recursive renaming of the files starting with the track # followed by the title. Then move into one folder, sorted and place the tracks by Disc / Album into their respective sub-folders. I will be listening to this massive collection one Disc at a time.

 

[Steve Bruzonsky]

For those of us spending the bigger bucks for the packing including 5 blu rays:

Across The Water is a repeat of the CDs/192-24 download files, but with video.

Human Highway/Trans/Berlin includes the Human Highway movie (music excerpts, interviews); 1982 Live In Berlin & 1982 Trans Live In Germany video concerts (both 192-24 2Ch), a Trans video 192-24 2Ch audio which appears to be also on the CD/hi-res downloads

In A Rusted Out Garage/Muddy Track includes video of the 1986-87 In A Rusted Out Garage Tour with 48-24 2Ch audio - Muddy Track is a video of some sort (not concert music).

Rust Never Sleeps (Boarding House) includes the 1978 Cow Palace Concert that was issues as "Rust Never Sleeps" concert blu ray with 192-24 2Ch & 192-24 5.1 Ch (DTS-HD) audio in 2016; and also includes video with 192-24 2Ch audio of the 1979 Boarding House "Rust Never Sleeps" concert.

Solo/Trans/Catayst/A Treasure which includes Solo Trans Live In LA 1983 audio 48-24 2Ch with video;
a Trans video 192-24 2Ch audio which appears to be also on the CD/hi-res downloads; the Catalyst concert with The Ducks video with 192-24 2Ch audio which is already on the CD/hi res download; and A Treasure which is apparently the same 48-24Ch available on the already issues "A Treasure" album with The International Harvesters except ROON shows a dynamic range of 4 for the archives video album but only a DR of 3 for the original album which I have.