Requesting Sources for old Hindi CDs

[Deleted member 15865]

Hi friends,

I am frustrated with the quality of CDs available (typically Saregama/Venus/T-series) of Hindi soundtracks up to the 90s. Typically these are cheap - Rs 100-200 max and available plentifully on the net. I have tried various sources (Amazon, Infibeam, Induna etc), but all with poor results. The CDs start skipping after a few uses. Or they develop artefacts that spoil the music. (Please note I am not referring to recoding quality, but CD print quality here)

I don’t mind paying for quality. Most of my western music CDs are sourced from the US via Infibeam and I am extremely happy with their quality even after repeated use. Also the relatively cheap locally available CDs of newer Hindi music (00’s onwards) are much better and so are CDs of ghazals and classical music.

Is there a source you have tried to get good print CDs of Hindi music from 70s-80s-90s? Even if imported.

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[Indranil Sen]

sachin- I buy a lot of hindi bollywood album cds (1960-1980) from India from time to time but they are mostly purchased from brick and mortar stores. I had several issues with the quality of mastering of these Bollywood CDs but that's very different from the skipping issue as you mentioned. Could you try transferring those songs into uncompressed wav file and then play it through a DAC or play it through the same CDP by copying the WAV files into a blank CD? If the WAV files sound ok then you don't have to buy these CDs again.

Thanks.

 

[sanjivnayak]

Simply copy the CD to a good quality blank CD and enjoy. No need of ripping. Keep the original for next copy.

 

[sanjivnayak]

Audio CD can be copied using any CD/DVD writer.

 

[jls001]

Copying an entire CD to another writable CD would simply copy the defects in the original too.

My suggestion is to secure rip the original CD with something like EAC or dBPoweramp and extract the wav files as individual files.

Play these wav files on your PC and check for skips in the same places you heard on the original CD. If skips are heard, the skip is in the wav files itself and it's not due to the CD media, and there's nothing you can do about it.

If it's not there, you can blame the CD media as the wav files are intact. Use Nero burner to burn a fresh CD with the wav files and it won't skip anymore.

 

[Naturelover]

Look for old music stores and see if you can find CDs pressed before, say, 2001. Earlier the better.

 

[sanjivnayak]

Yes. Isobuster is a useful software to rescue lost files from a bad or trashed CD.

 

[tuff]

Is there a list of CD's that we have on the forum up-to say 1990's of high quality Bollywood music? That would be mighty helpful for people looking to buy.

 

[Naturelover]

Is there a list of CD's that we have on the forum up-to say 1990's of high quality Bollywood music? That would be mighty helpful for people looking to buy.

High quality old Bollywood music will be available only on old pressings of CDs and vinyl. Both are difficult to find and expensive when available. Anything recent will not be of that quality. Even much of the so called HD quality at saregama.com is not of original quality.

This is probably the most exhaustive list available
http://discog.piezoelektric.org/hmvindia/index.php?prefix=PMLP/PSLP