Does anyone collect OTR in the FLAC file format?

Greetings:

Does anyone collect OTR in the FLAC format? I'm trying to collect programs, particularly Suspense, in the best audio quality that I can find in FLAC.

Thanks,
Jeff Keil

Flac is starting to appear much more often in the hobby, especially for recordings directly from discs. It's been a notable change in the last 18 months. More collectors are also ripping CDs to flac rather than mp3. It's been slow in coming. I doubt there will be any full Suspense collection in flac for many years.

since 2008 when I started looking for source material

Does anyone want to trade OTR in the FLAC format?

yes interested in shows with FLAC format my collection is MP3

jk,

What are you using as your source?

8 Track
Cassette
CD
RTR Tape
LP
VHS
Wire Recordings
Transcriptions

Even that could be broken down further; especially for the secondary material (CD, Cassette, LP, VHS, ...) by the generation of that copy and what the source for that was.

As for transcriptions; A Network broadcast would beat an AFRS copy would beat an AFRTS rebroadcast (depending on condition). Few people are doing transcriptions though, so I don't know that there's that much First Generation material around.

For that matter, I could take all of the mp3 files I have and convert them to flac, but I don't see much purpose in that.

Anyway, what's your source?

This reminds me of the ongoing conversation, when people started defining HQ copies of shows, as higher bitrate encodes of mp3 files. If you don't know the source, you'll probably get a lot of mp3 to FLAC conversions. Just as then, you got a lot of 16kb and 32kb encodes, which were simply converted to higher bitrates. And those conversions way back then, often degraded the actual sound quality.

I'd love to hear from more of our true in house experts on the subject.

Space

I have collected OTR on audio CD for about twenty years. I don't collect mp3 and never have. These flac files were ripped by myself from audio CDs. None of them have ever been mp3 files. It is silly to convert an mp3 to flac because you will never get back what you have thrown away when the audio was converted to mp3.

The audio CDs in my collection were received in trades from collectors like Terry Salomonson, Ed Carr, Ted Davenport, and many others. Some were ripped fro CDs from Radio Spirits and Radio Archive.

keilj_33 wrote:It is silly to convert an mp3 to flac because you will never get back what you have thrown away when the audio was converted to mp3.

True but it'll happen

Thank you, I do appreciate the answer. And I'll pass.

I have a large cd collection. A 30 minute file in flac produces a file size of 96 megs

47-10-16-Kraft Music Hall (256)-Guest - Bing Crosby

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see above for example in flac

source audio cd fr0m
redmond Nostalga company

and

47-11-20-Kraft Music Hall (261)-Guest - Charles Boyer

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Fortunately, my ears(and eyes) are not that refined that these kinds of things make that much of a difference to me. The troubling aspect of collecting whether audio or video is the constant changing of platforms and the rebuilding of collections that once built is then turned to ashes again. My worthless two cents on the matter. - Tom

If it's stuff from CDs from collectors that got their files from transcriptions, like Ed Carr, I'm definitely interested. I have a lot of Suspense from discs (and other programs) that I would gladly post in FLAC if there were others doing the same thing. Cobaltia should probably have a separate FLAC thread to do so. But it needs to be worth doing.

As for me, my "everyday" collection is 128kps mp3 and it suits my listening and collecting needs just fine. The reason to push FLAC for disc recordings is that there may be some future innovations in audio processing and you want to have the best file possible to take advantage of that.

I have many disc recordings I would be willing to share -- perhaps this is a way to get the activity level of Cobaltia up again.

Greybelt,

Is there an email address that I can contact you at? I am also on LinkedIn if you would rather exchange messages through that site.

Thanks,
Jeff Keil

Sending you my contact info in a private message here @ Cobalt

2 from the Bing Crosby Show in flac from cd

bing501122(043) - Paul Douglas

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bing501129(044) - Ella Fitzgerald

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Source Redmond N. C. CD

I'm curious to know what equipment people are using to convert transcription discs. I'm using a REK-O-KUT T3378 TRANSCRIPTION TURNTABLE with the S-240 Fluid damped arm. For the Cartridge I've got a Stanton 681 EEE MK III with a 2.0 -3.5 stylus set. The output is being fed into an M-Audio 2496 audio card on the computer.

What are you using?

Great examples mstevens90,

Thanks for the fills.

Does anyone else think LPs are like 45s now? Is anyone digitizing transcriptions?

2 more in flac

48-06-10-Kraft Music Hall (292)-Guest - Dorothy Kirsten

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48-09-30-Kraft Music Hall (307)-Guest - Judy Garland

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Source Redmond Nost. CD

2 more in flac

48-10-07-Kraft Music Hall (308)-Guest - Edward G. Robinson

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48-10-14-Kraft Music Hall (309)-Guest - Enzio Pinza

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Source Redmond Nost. CD

Is anyone interested in these?

Absolutely. I love bing. Thank you very much.

enchanted hour #123 AFRS.flac

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mstevens90 wrote:Is anyone interested in these?

Yes definitely, Mike!  Is there any way you could start posting the 1947-1948 season of Bing on Philco and the 1947-1948 season of Al on Kraft!  If you could that would be fantastic! Also do you have the Railroad hour on CD? I have it from where you posted it before in 256 by 44.1 MP3, but would love to have it in Flac.

Your pal,

Buck