Can anyone tell me where you guys get shows that are of better quality
then mp3, when from looking on ftp sites most of the shows there are in mp3? Is there other places I should be looking?

Thanks

It all depends on who uploads. Virtually all older shows are MP3, because they went to MP3 right from the source, but lately people have been using SHNs. The FTPs are the single best source for shows; you could always look on etree or sharingthegroove, but only a few isolated shows are posted there (however, the ones that are posted there are all SHN).

For some reason The Hip's trading community has never been insistent on SHNs. Most trading circles are picky about it, but it's never been a huge deal here. The ones that are SHNs are good, and we pretty much just have to accept that many of the Hip's shows don't exist in SHN form unless all the original tapers want to come back with their source tapes and make them directly into SHNs.

Thanks

I feel better knowing that some of the crap sounding shows that I have,
sound crap to others as well. With no disrespect.

None taken...you know, virtually all of the SHN shows on the FTP are garbage. I mean, the majority of them are among the worst sounding shows that exist, in terms of audience recording quality. I don't know why that is...if you completely ignored every single SHN show you wouldn't be missing much. Only a few are truly worth having unless you're an ultra-Completist!

I have a little experience with SHN format music from being a dead trader but correct me if I'm wrong, but peeps can convert mp3 files to shn files. I would be highly suspect of any shn's from before 2002. For hip stuff that is. When I got into hip trading a couple of years back no one knew what a shn was and no boots were available in this format. Now some peeps only trade shn sets. Shn sets are incredible ways to store music but are unplayable in your stereo or car stereo so most peeps don't want them. I just don't see why peeps are so crazy about only trading in this format. If you are like me you will want a copy of the show in shn format to keep in the files and a copy that has been converted to a playable format. It just means alot of dvds full of hip shns. If peeps want mp3 get them out to them, it won't affect your shn sets.

Unless you created the shn set from the original yourself or by some one you know very well I don't believe that it originated as a Shn set. Harsh but reality.

You can very easily turn MP3s into WAVs and turn the WAVs into SHNs. It takes mere minutes. Another reason I'm not picky about SHNs...I have always been suspicious of a lot of the SHNs that come my way.

If you pick 10 random bootlegs off Sharing the Groove and do a spectral analysis, I bet you will will find half of them show signals of being MP3'd at one point. It's very hard to keep it honest.

grooveless (dammit.. what is your name? ) is right. it is hard to keep people honest. i know that in the DMB community there is a "master" set of MD5's for all show in SHN. if you take a show and go WAV > SHN you get a set of md5's. of you took those shn's and went SHN > WAV > MP3 > WAV >SHN you would get a new set of md5's.

the dmb community always checks any shn's they/we get against the master set of md5's. if they match then we know we have a "true" set of shn's. otherwise we know they have been altered in some way.

that is really the only way to make sure you have real shn's. the Hip trading/taping community is just too small to take on something like that, i think.

mark wrote:grooveless (dammit.. what is your name? ) is right. it is hard to keep people honest. i know that in the DMB community there is a "master" set of MD5's for all show in SHN. if you take a show and go WAV > SHN you get a set of md5's. of you took those shn's and went SHN > WAV > MP3 > WAV >SHN you would get a new set of md5's.

the dmb community always checks any shn's they/we get against the master set of md5's. if they match then we know we have a "true" set of shn's. otherwise we know they have been altered in some way.

that is really the only way to make sure you have real shn's. the Hip trading/taping community is just too small to take on something like that, i think.

Not to mention that the quality gets worse and worse the more you encode to MP3.
SHN>WAV: Best
SHN>MP3: Good
SHN>MP3>SHN or WAV>MP3>SHN or WAV>etc...: Bad, very bad

I archive all my shows in SHN format, even if I do not know the source, that way I keep the integrity (what little there could have been) that I have when I downloaded the show. Then if I wanted to make a CD or MP3's, I always decode from my archive CD's.

Cheers!

Chad

How come nobody can ever remember my name?? Am I doomed to wander the net in anonymity like a ghost for all eternity?? It's Neil...