I recently picked up 3 different CHRONO TRIGGER ARRANGE ALBUMS, and can happily report that all of them are totally awesome.   These are independant works produced and self-published by Japanese Doujin Groups, read this wiki link for more information about what a doujin is.

I promptly got busy selecting samples and uploading for your listening enjoyment, so please enjoy all the delicious sounds and varied styles presented!  Check em out!

4 samples per album, around 2~3mb each in size.
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"Journey Through the Brilliant Days" by Takrockers
Cover Pic

03 it's fine today ~Millenial Samba~.mp3
Nice party atmosphere with this swingin' Samba, love the piano on here. Shake your maracas!

04 An old wind ~Autumn Day Feast Revolt~.mp3
The evening air has settled in for a sunset dinner, followed by a jazzy flare to welcome the night.

06 break time ~The Outskirts of Time~.mp3
Well after Midnight has passed, the stillness of the dark finds the weary travellers of time.

10 See you next time ~The Next Utilization~.mp3
You can't name your group "takrockers!!" without proving you can actually rock out, so here's ample guitar riffage.

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"Le Cercueil du Reve" by various arrangers
Cover Pic

01 Open the Gate of Time (クロノトリガー).mp3
Uptempo Rock party-starter anthem, this dude 'kazzy1kbt' could pass as a real band it's such a well done mix. The liner notes mention real Sax for this track, so maybe the other instruments are too?

04 Robo's Theme -君の見せた涙- (ロボのテーマ).mp3
It's Robo's Theme, so you can't go wrong here no matter what you do with it, hehe. 
Happy tune as always!

07 みどりの思い出 -Fresh Techno-.mp3
Over to the mysterious side of things, for a synthy soup with a haunting piano finish.

08 Black Dream (黒の夢).mp3
Deep sexy grooves and big beats means it's time to get your PIMP ON and nail that kitty.
Who knew the Underwater Palace was so hot and steamy?!

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"Art" Chrono Trigger Arrange Album by ACE.
Cover Pic

04 Theme of DENJIN P.mp3
Fast Techno/club version of Robo's theme, again you just can't go wrong with Robo.

05 Mad empress.mp3
Nice intro, Listen to the commentary guy talking in the background, hehe
DAY OF LAVOS approaching, OMFG!!

08 The crack of doom.mp3
Final Battle meets ESPGaluda

09 Requiem.mp3
Sweet Epic buildup and Finale, complete with holy organs and church choir, naturally.

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Well, I hope you've had as much fun listening as I have!
Comments are welcomed of course.

Are these doujin albums?

Where can I get these CDs? Especially the first one sounds very nice.

Yes, I'll edit the main post to add that in.

Since "The Brink of Time" wasn't to everyone's tastes, when Good Doujins of high calibur like these get made, there's no harm in building a "2nd Place Tier on the Platform of Official Arrange Status" to extend the limelight a little broader, eh?

Those who feel inclined to expand their catalog are being given more knowledge to go on, with no harm done to anyone who prefers to stick with the existing official arrange cd. 
(which we all know and love/hate).

The first album is very much in the style of Brink of Time, in my opinion; but with friendlier jazz. My complaint is that they don't seem to understand what dynamics are..

Putting that aside, how can I get these albums? I live in Canada, have no paypal account (international student) and no credit card. Please help if you can.

Cogo, h3:  I bought it new/sealed from Yahoo Japan Auctions, so I just have a quantity of 1 available.  I'll probably have to use ebay in order to give everyone a fair shot at it, rather than a first-come-first-serve where only the first passerby can get lucky.

The few online doujins webshops I've seen have a "no overseas shipping" policy, so the main available option is to use a middleman service or auction site for obtaining these and other doujin albums.

Dude? Awesome.

All good choices, I actually have that "Journey Through Brilliant Days" album on its way to me.  I'm surprised you didn't highlight "Dancing Schala", my favorite track from the "Le Cercueil Du Reve", I love the bagpipes.

I wonder why they don't accept PayPal payments and send overseas.

You're not the only one...*sigh* Makes absolutely no sense.

The front page of Cocoebiz (http://www.cocoebiz.com/) actually describes how companies have to reconsider deals with international dealers as it makes it easier for bootleg access.

OK, I've put these up on ebay now

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZspirit_of_gamerQQhtZ-1

12 Doujins albums total are up: Chronos, Dracula/Castlevanias, Shooters, and MegaMans.

how I longed for a proper CT arrange and piano album, like the other masterpiece, FF6...

BTW any more CT doujin albums?

That's a good question, and I really don't know...

There's likely to be a few more, but these things are much harder to track (from a historical yearly viewpoint) than official listings.   Sometimes these don't even print the year it was made on the damn thing itself!!

Wow, the "Journey through Brilliant Days" album is so good, it's like CT Pro-fusion, where as Brink was like acid jazz.  I have an extra copy I'm going to sell sometime soon.

Other Chrono doujins include "Type-2nd side Chrono Trigger" from Right Stuff, "Chrono Corridor" from 5/4 takepod, and "Chrono Distortion" from Project Scytia (despite only being 7 tracks I really like this one), plus I know of one another one that I believe was only sold at C71, I'm not even sure of the name of it, it's by piano-forte or something.

Here's the DRACULA doujin samples, I'll just post them here rather than make a new thread.
Just a few days left for these on ebay...
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"The Lost Vampire Killer" by Earth Japan Soft
(AKA: The New Dracula New Classic)

01. a clockwork pipes
The Clocktower is a Dracula staple we just can't do without...
A reserved Classical start which transitions into rockdom.
04. 招かれた千色
A lyrical beauty, with tragic tinges of course
06. Deep question from green owl
The mad forest gets a Swingin new bag, dig it cats!!
07. Out of the time
Out of Time sounding a bit like Linkin Park.
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"Akumajou Dracula ~Odi et amo~" by Magical Trick Society
(AKA: Dracula Energy Rockfest)

03 夜まで待てない.mp3
From the original Arcade, this is one of the first tunes that set the mood and tone of the entire Castlevania series.
05 Vampire Killer.mp3
The new modern-rock intro is 2k-era approved.
06 Stalker.mp3
This Funky stalker has a futuristic swagger going.
07 乾坤の血族.mp3
Straight Laced for the most part, so the solos are appreciated.
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Air Deja Vu Cover Pic
04 Silvery Wings Again [Salamander 2].mp3
10 Fly to the Leaden Sky [Battle Garegga].mp3

SFC Compilation #1 Cover Pic
02 ガンダムヒーローズ [Battle Dodge Ball II].mp3
05 Cammy Stage [Super Street Fighter II].mp3

Shooting Evolution Cover Pic
02 1943 Sea Fight Tour [1943 - Main Theme].mp3
08 Sky Flying Mission [Bio_100% Nyahax'93 - It's the Carnival!].mp3

Make of the Zero Cover Pic
02 ミズバク大冒険 ～1st BGM.mp3
07 Ｒ-Type ～1st BGM & BOSS.mp3

Ha, nice, I believe my exact coinage was "Dracula Neo Classic".   Both tracks on this album by "nijeil" (7,10) are phenomenal.

"Old Wind" and "Break Time" on JBT are good, and "Black Dream" from Cercueil du Reve are decent, otherwise, sorry to say, I'm not finding anything that trumps the quality of remixes on sites like OCR. Provide samples for the rest of the material?

Different strokes for different folks, I agree to an extent as some songs are worse and disagree to an extent as some songs are better, it's all about different interpretations of the same song, so everyone is going to have their preferences.  In terms of skill and the fact I prefer hard rock, IMO the best Western arrangers are better than the best Japanese arrangers, but this number is quite limited so once you get past the handful of cats who are super talented, you get a bunch of guys butchering songs on a crappy sounding eletric guitar or making lame techno tracks. Add to that most Western arrangers don't release actual CDs, so the sound quality is worse and the music isn't as polished as that of the Japanese arrangers. Overall though, Japanese and Western arrangers tend to have different styles (plus the huge difference in the songs they actually choose to arrange), so it would be foolish to ignore either group. 

As a side note on the "Journey Through the Brilliant Days" CD, the rock tracks on this sound like they were influenced by Western dojins (good ones).  I have no idea if this is true, but that would be pretty amusing if a japanese arranger was influenced by Western takes on Japanese-made music.

The people who put quality material onto OCR need to get busy publishing albums then.

That's for sure. I'm glad the Japanese arranged some obscure shit like the Type Moon and Alicesoft material, as well as the usual Square stuff. Some of the arranges for the former are such high-quality, they lead me to the actual music they were based off of. Even stuff like Falcom music, which is hardly ever arranged in the US, is done much more frequently in Japan. On the other hand, I'll never understand the endless supply of Ragnarok Online and Touhou arranges. Or SaGa, for that matter. On the other hand, I've yet to hear a Japanese Punch Out arrangement.

I'm not a huge fan of much of OCR...Just never got into it hardcore, because I was left wading through too much junk among the small number of gems and I just haven't gone back to it. There aren't enough good rock arranges up there. There are a number of American arrangers I really like, but overall, I think the better Japanese ones have a huge edge so far. Seriously, half the arranged stuff I keep on my iPod are doujin releases (or tracks on the sites) and they compare very favorably to the official stuff. I was never THAT serious about OCR stuff.

Yeah, besides Square stuff and Mega Man there's almost no common ground.  I've spent a ton of hours scouring OCR and DoD looking for some quality stuff, and I found it, but it was far and few between and the greatest value was discovering an arranger whose style I liked (so I searched out them) or just finally getting some arranges for a game that desparately needed some (Ninja Gaiden, DKCs).  It was worth it, but I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't at work .  Combined I have somewhere near 30 albums worth of music, but it's so time-consuming trying to sort through all this stuff and organize it. The Japanese stuff can be time-consuming too due to it's hard to keep up with, for obvious reasons, but the payoff is usually much greater. 

Like Carl said, more Western guys need to release actual albums, but for whatever reason it seems like only the guys that are pretty awful release CDs (Advantage, Minibosses, Brian Davis, etc.).

Aww man, just single bidders for the items...   
They're too far under the radar of most folks, I guess...

I don't even have a credit card or paypal account to bid these sort of items; hence my initial question.

Good luck.

Maybe if you don't have a bank account at all that would hinder your getting a paypal account, but it'd be a benefit to try and get yourself either (or both) of those eventually, as user-to-user transactions are so globally based these days...

Did everything sell?  I didnt see this until it was obviously way too late...

Yeah all the Chrono's sold.  Here's the assortment still onhand if anyone's interested:

Akumajou Dracula ~Odi et amo~ [Magical Trick Society]
SFC Compilation #1 [Cityline90]
Make of the Zero (DYCD-2202)
Rock Beat [Lunatic Gate]

Dang... anyone going to rip them .  I have always been a big fan of BoT so hearing these are fairly exciting... Only way to get them is YJA?