War MFSL track timing errors

[Brad]

I recently discovered that my MFSL pressing of War has track boundary errors. For the majority of songs on the CD, the first snippet of each track is actually attached to the end of the previous track. For example, the first tenth of a second of “Seconds” is tacked on to the end of “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” The error isn't noticeable when listening to the album straight through, but when listening to a single track, it's obvious that the first sound is cut off and there is an extra sound at the end. As far as I have been able to discover, the error was never corrected with a repressing, so I assume it affects all MFSL copies of War.

I was able to create a lossless rip with the timing corrected by ripping the entire CD to a single FLAC+CUE file with XLD, manually editing the CUE file to adjust the track boundaries (using a different pressing of War as a guide), and then using XLD to split into individual tracks according to the edited CUE file. XLD is my ripping app of choice, but I think the same thing can be done with EAC on a PC. I have posted the edited CUE file below if anyone is interested in re-ripping the CD with the timing corrections.

Code: [Select]

TITLE "War"
PERFORMER "U2"
REM GENRE "Rock"
REM DATE "1983"
REM DISCNUMBER 1
REM TOTALDISCS 1
REM DISCID 860A030A
FILE "War.flac" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
    SONGWRITER "Adam Clayton/The Edge/Larry Mullen/Bono"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:00:37
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Seconds"
    INDEX 01 04:40:26
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "New Year's Day"
    SONGWRITER "The Edge/Bono/Larry Mullen/Adam Clayton"
    INDEX 01 08:02:72
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "Like A Song..."
    INDEX 01 13:40:49
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
    TITLE "Drowning Man"
    INDEX 01 18:40:44
  TRACK 06 AUDIO
    TITLE "The Refugee"
    INDEX 01 22:55:20
  TRACK 07 AUDIO
    TITLE "Two Hearts Beat As One"
    INDEX 01 26:36:11
  TRACK 08 AUDIO
    TITLE "Red Light"
    INDEX 01 30:39:19
  TRACK 09 AUDIO
    TITLE "Surrender"
    INDEX 01 34:27:46
  TRACK 10 AUDIO
    TITLE ""40""
    INDEX 01 40:04:72

[God, Part II]

As far as I have been able to discover, the error was never corrected with a repressing, so I assume it affects all MFSL copies of War.

It's not just yours. It affects mine, too. I discovered it when I ripped some mp3 files from it for use on a flash drive plugged into my car stereo, which doesn't allow for me to remove the space between tracks, so I hear a second or two of silence separating songs as heard on the CD, a swift blip of audio from the next track, another second or two of silence as the next track is selected from my flash drive, then the next song with a tiny sliver of opening audio missing.

[The Hermit]

A topic on SteeveHoffman forums talk about this

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/u2-mfsls-war-has-beginnings-of-songs-cut-off.306749/

I think all the War MFSL are mispressed, some people told me their CD are correct, and when they send me a rip of their own copy, they are all corrupt.

[Brad]

Yeah, as best I can tell, all copies are affects.