Expecting Rain

Hi all, ive been searching the net trying to get all the theme times in flac format. Ive only managed to get season 1 episodes 1-6 from hungercity. Does anyone know where i can get the rest in flac format or could anyone post me them please? id be incredibly greatful. I know about croz.fm but i want flac instead of mp3.
Cheers

recommend reseed requests at hungercity tracker forum. they've all been there at one time or another

Where do i do that? Im quite new to hunger city but the forum doesnt seem to have anywhere obvious to do the request.
Cheers for your help

The HC forums are pretty useless, really. I figure your best bet would be to request re-seeds in the current TTRH threads. Some persistent but polite asking might get you at least some, if not many or all episodes eventually.

While I completely understand your desire to get the Flac versions, it is important to keep in mind that satellite radio is broadcast at very low bitrates (much lower than what the mp3's at Croz.com are). So while it is advantageous to get something that starts out as CD quality in a lossless format, you don't gain anything when it comes to recordings of any satellite radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour included. This is true for both the "Satellite" and the "Streaming" versions available. After being recorded at somewhere around 64kbps to the highest of 128kbps (you can search around and get opinions, but the satellite radio folks are very secretive about divulging the bitrate numbers of their broadcasts. Gee, I wonder why?) the shows are converted to WAV and then to FLAC for posting. This does not increase the quality of the original source, which is impossible. Since the original source is less than 128kbps, if that high, you can be assured that you are getting the best possible quality when you get the mp3's at Croz. Also, the always helpful host even tags the files for you! I probably haven't changed your mind, because I also was very stubborn for a long time about getting the Flac's. I finally saw the light when I got XM, started recording the shows myself, and discovered the sad truth about the broadcast quality of XM/Sirius.

now that is what i call a useful post - thanks! having got all the other episodes on MP3 i just spent several hours downloading my first TTRH torrent (madness) on flac and was gonna compare it, seems there's little point. back to mp3 for me.... and croz/blindwilly etc are gold-dust thanks guys!

interesting & yes they are!

& I think all the TTRH fans should invest in xm/sirius
asap (in the penney stocks today, I think)

not for the $, for the music

Thanks a lot for the info! Appreciated! Was wondering about what the source quality might be myself!

this is, as i said before, an extremely helpful post - but, one question (maybe two) ... i fully understand one cannot improve upon the original, so your comment that the original is at a lower bitrate that Croz's MP3's (while apparently true) seems extraneous unless im missing something - the implication, perhaps unintended, is that the MP3s somehow DO improve say a satellite derived FLAC. Sorry to be pedantic but I'd really appreciate clarification - will i somehow get a 'better' version by avoiding the Flac and going the Croz route, or will the result be precisely the same, albeit at a higher sampling rate? any difference between satellite & stream for quality ( even after conversion to MP3)? I would encourage everyone to support Croz by the way!!!!

I'm not sure for Croz but mine sources are the flacs files from Hungercity kindly provided by Charlespoet or Tbuick6.
I think they are the orgin from croz aswell.
So anyway there is no improvement possibly from the aired source...

Something HAS to be amiss here... the Flac versions of TTRH are beyond doubt clearly superior and better sounding - I defy anyone with 2 ears to say otherwise!

Maybe if one were listening to the Flac versions through those crappy headphones that come standard with iPod's - or your computer speakers - the difference comparable to the Mp3 files may be of little difference... however, listen to the Flac versions through good quality headphones or your Hi-Fi's speakers, and they are far superior - they sound great!

Try this!... connect your computer into yer home stereo and listen to Croz's Mp3 version of say, 'Strawberry Fields Forever' (from the Fruit show, Season 3) and then listen to tbuick's Flac version - the difference is immediate and very noticeable - you don't have to be a hardcore audiophile to appreciate. The Mp3 sounds slightly muffled and muddy in comparison - and the Flac sound is much fuller and clearer.

Even Bob's voice sounds better in Flac, no kidding... have a listen!

I can't believe this sound is from a 64kbps to 128kbps source... that can't be right!

the Flac's are superior.

No, I was only saying that you are not losing any bitrate from the original. Not implying that mp3 is any better than flac, they are certainly not. I do say they are equal because of the low original bitrate. Nothing is lost in compression because the original encoding of the file to Wav actually adds empty bytes since it can't add sound that wasn't there in the first place. If someone disagrees, I'd love to hear any explanation of how encoding a low bitrate source to Wav can make it sound better. I don't claim to be an expert, but logic tells me it can't.

I won't argue what sounds better, since that is entirely subjective. I agree that anyone interested should download both and listen for themselves. As far as the bitrate on satellite radio broadcasts, I recommend googling the subject and see what you find. Here is one source to start with:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lof ... 56289.html

Hmmm.... I understand what you're saying, but I'm still unsure if the information is entirely correct. Surely our two TTRH Flac champions, charlespoet and tbuick, are recording the shows from a source much higher than 64 to 128kbps?

I don't know anything about satellite radio, however, could it be the low bitrate figures you've mentioned apply only to when satellite radio is being "streamed" on the web? If you have a cabled receiver or some sort of set-top box at home that you connect to your stereo - could it be you receive CD quality broadcasts? I don't know?!

It's just that I don't even think the difference between the Mp3 and Flac shows is subjective - I think it's markedly evident!

Maybe (just maybe) XM/Sirius has a "mole" in the building who uploads CD quality offerings to the rest of the world and those of us without satellite radio... ha, I'd like to think so!

Could it be tbuick is actually Eddie Gorodetsky?!!

If only XM would publish the data we would all know for sure. I read earlier that Charlespoet indicated he thought the streaming might be a higher bitrate than the satellite, which seemed counterintuitive to me at first. After all, the satellite receiver is the primary focus and method of distribution for XM, while the streaming offering is more of a low-budget option. However, upon reading over some of the things written in other blogs about the reasons why the satellite offering is low bitrate, I think Charles has a case. Understanding that all of this is opinion and conjecture, it was said that XM has a set amount of bandwidth to use for its satellite transmission (which makes sense) and that a programmer at the station determines how to divide that available bandwidth up among the many channels they broadcast. The writer states that the options for this programmer are to send the signal out as either 32 or 64 kbps. Since TTRH is a premier show in the lineup and is recorded in advance, I would think that the compression used on the show is the highest they offer. However, the internet is not constrained in this way, and they could send the highest available quality by streaming method without the bandwidth restraints inherent in satellite radio. This is only based on other opinions I have read. Unfortunately, there doesn't yet appear to be that mole inside who is willing to divulge the technical secrets of how XM is broadcast. I would suggest that anyone who is serious about the show (and if you are reading this forum, that is you) go ahead and get the tbuick and Charlespoet flacs of a particular show, see which sounds better to you, and then compare the one you like to the MP3 offering of the same version. You can then make an informed choice based on your own preferences. In the interest of full disclosure, I had been getting the tbuick versions from Hunger City since show #1 (and still do as a backup), but then would use Exact Audio Copy to join them all together and recut them to my own liking. Since I have been recording them myself, I save the step of joining them together and feel better about sending a little cash to XM for the offering, though with the recent talk of bankruptcy I fear it may be too little too late.

Does anyone know if the BBC Radio 2 FM broadcasts are of a higher quality? I'm not sure how you'd record / convert to MP3 but my (limited) understanding is that FM is better than digital radio.

Any news on season one flacs? Ive still only got up to episode 9. Cheers

You might want to contact "carpydylan" and maybe band together - maybe put a group together - to get a new set of torrents/flacs on hungercity. See his post here...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=40413

Blindwillys theme times have been invaluable but yes I was questioning whether Croz's versions sounded better which is why I asked about joint versions but that sounds ungrateful without the work of Blindwilly and co not many of us would have heard these incredible shows yet alone collect them.

MP3 takes "information" out of the audio to keep the file sizes low. So even if you convert a 32kbps MP3 to 64kbps, you are still degrading the quality of the file in a massive way because it is going through the compression process all over again.

The guys who capture the Theme Time broadcasts for us undoubtedly do it in the WAV format. There is no loss in quality when converted to FLAC because they are both lossless formats.

So while it is true that the XM broadcasts are pretty low in quality, to further degrade the audio by re-compressing for MP3 is just crazy. Stick with the FLACs.