Many people have unofficial audio recordings - but I think mine are some of the best around. Not only that, I am one of the most reliable of people to deal with. Here's why:
1) I've been collecting for well over 20 years now - and have dealt with many satisfied people - I've never had an unhappy person I've dealt with. You know how some traders never send their end of the trade, or take forever to reply? You'll never have that with me.
2) When I obtained many of my audios (in the days before CD's), I tried to get as many as I could on good brand chrome/metal cassettes, rather than normal cassettes, which I stored in a cool, dark place away from dust and sunlight. These cost more, but lasted much longer than normal cassettes. This meant that as technology moved ahead and I came to transfer them onto CD, the sound quality had largely remained the same - unlike many people who had their old recordings on normal cassette, and found they deteriorated over the years. Remember - the vast majority of unauthorised/bootleg audio that dates up to the early 90's, would originally have been recorded or traded by someone, somewhere on cassette.
Also, don't be fooled just because a file is in lossless FLAC or WAV format - it doesn't always mean you're getting the best quality version. It's easy to take the crappiest, worst generation copy in the world, and digitise it into lossless FLAC! And then people assume, because it's FLAC, it's the best quality. Wrong!
(Although, having said that - when trading digitally please always use FLAC or other lossless formats to stop further quality loss. Lossy MP3 is a traders enemy!)
3) When transferring from cassette, I use a high end audio editing program to 'clean up' the recording - removing hiss, and pops and clicks, and maximising the volume over the dynamic range (being careful to avoid distortion or clipping or damaging the original sound).
4) If burning to CD-R, I always use a slow burning speed on a good brand CD writer (this means less jitter and deviation in the CD laser when writing). I use good brand CD-R's, such as Mitsubishi, Sony or TDK - not no-name generic brands. The burning software then verifies the written data, and then I play the disc through my own CD player afterwards as a double-check. Although every CD player is different, this means the chances of you receiving a disc that doesn't play are extremely low. If for any reason you do get a disc that won't play, I'll happily send you a replacement.
5) If buring to CD-R, I'll use CD text - meaning when you play it in a CD text compatible player, the correct artist and song will be displayed. Many people don't bother doing this!
6) Track listings are accurate - each concert is split into the correct tracks at the right time, without the default 2 second gap that some software inserts (some people don't bother doing this, meaning you can't fast-forward between songs, or have an anoying pause between songs).
7) I won't write on the physical disc with a permanent marker as some people do, as the ink in the marker can potentially damage the disc.
8) Every audio I have that has a 'more information' link, I have listened to in full - and graded it myself according to my rating system. I've also attempted to confirm date/venue/city details if possible. This an ongoing work in progress, which is why some shows don't yet have that link!)
9) I have many hundreds of audios available - there are few, if any, traders who have the range of audios like I do. I guess that's what happens when you collect for over 20 years! If I don't have what you're looking for, let me know - I may have it as a pending show and not put on my site yet, or one of my trader contacts may have it, and I can get it for you.
10) If you want CD-R rather than exchange digital files, I will always post the CD-R's promptly, and well packaged so they don't get damaged in transit. I used to trade with some people who just chucked the stuff in a normal envelope - the covers and/or discs used to get damaged in transit - that used to annoy me!
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