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Found in today's news:
- http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DISC_ROT?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=TECHNOLOGY&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT (Open in New Window)
Follow Ups:
...with my Great Dane Records "Piece de Resistance" (Springsteen boot from 1978).This was in the early , early nineties, the cds (3) became absolutely useless, with a brownish color all over.
Of course, with the coming of CDRs I was able to get that show again years later, and cheaper.... ;-)
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...notably the RCA box set of the complete Caruso recordings and (sadly) the Gala box set of Clemens Krauss's Ring Cycle. In both of these instances, the CD playing surfaces became badly 'fogged up' and cloudy. I believe these are isolated incidents from bad pressing runs. I've also had a handful of CDs with the well-documented 'bronzing' problem.I've had no discs develop pinholes where there were none before. (Many of the initial discs that were pressed by the Nimbus factory in the UK had these pinholes from the start; they played just fine, however.) I've also had several rotted laser discs, which has been a big problem for the format.
The overwhelming majority of my discs (some more than 20 years old), however, have been just fine...
I have these on a few English CRDs. They play ok, should I worry?
You can get free replacements for bronzed discs directly from the manufacturer, irrespective of label (see below for details). Get the OK first then send back the discs ONLY. I had a few replaced with this scheme. There's no reason not to. When ripped they exhibited some static/dropouts towards the end of the disc which wasn't evident on my CD player. It's good to know that some companies care enough to support their product decades after the event.
Stephen
Anyone who bought records when vinyl was the dominant format has stories to tell about poor LP manufacturing quality control.Buying an LP was always a crapshoot. Will it skip? Will it be noisy? Will it be pressed off-center? Will the label be stuck on off-center? Will it be warped? Will it be the right record? So many returns in those days.
Only records manufactured in Japan had good manufacturing quality control.
Even today, new records (including the pricey audiophile ones) suffer from the same manufacturing quality control problems.
CDs can suffer from poor manufacturing quality control, too, but I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to return a newly purchased CD over the past 15 years due to manufacturing defects.
Jeffery
I live in Corvallis, too, but it must be the writer's friend's wood stove and not the climate or my deodorant, since playability hasn't been a problem with my approximately 1200 CD's and SACD's.While CD ROT isn't exactly Hitchcock's Roger O. Thornhill (where the "O" stood for "nothing"), it's not news, either. Some years back, several labels (including, IIRC, Hyperion and ASV) whose discs probably came off the same assembly line issued lists of their CD's which had demonstrated susceptibility to deterioration traceable to a manufacturing problem and replaced--with good ones--defective discs returned to them by the consumer.
Despite the hype, nothing's indestructible...except perhaps the cockroach.
Around the edges, scattered little points can be seen where the light is coming through the aluminum layer. Among my collection, one other disc, Sam Hui SACD collection vol.1 is also having this problem.
Although my Norah SACD isn't showing any signs of rot, my CD version sounds just as good as the SACD when played on a QUALITY REDBOOK-ONLY CD player. Ymmv... mine doesn't. ;-)
Over the years I often wondered what the hype is about this or that audiophile CD. As my system improved, I better appreciated these discs. If in your rig the CD and SACD sound the same, something needs fixin'! First just about every other song on this disc is out of phase with the previous- that's bad enough to listen through. Hopefully, everyone has either a CD player/DAC, or preamp that inverts phase. If not, I highly recommend you get this capability into your rigs. It's shame so few are offering it these days.I probably have more invested in off the shelf tweaks than many have in their entire system, and that could be why I clearly hear the difference between layers. Basically the CD layer sounds fairly flat, the tonal perspective tilted up, it sounds like having bright lights shined in your eyes,washed out in the high freqs, edgy, - as good a recording as it is, it is fatiguing in redbook format. With my Sony DVBP 9000ES, it wasn't a heck of a lot better in SACD, however, with my Xindak SCD-2, I get a much more relaxed, deeper, natural portrayal akin to analog, and much like I would expect Norah's soothing voice to sound like in real life.
I did some A/B testing of the CD and SACD versions of this disc as well. As far as I could tell, they sound identical.
Although I hear a difference (read improvement) with most, if not all, of the DSD-recorded classical discs I've compared, for this particular case (no, I don't think it's classical) I do not hear a difference.Since I hear a difference on some discs but not others, I don't think I have a tin ear, or that my equipment isn't up to snuff.
When I have the information available, I've noticed some correlation between the cases in which I hear a difference, and cases in which the recording/mastering format is other than PCM. Perhaps I've become another anti-PCM bigot. I can live with that.
(I surmise that the above performance was recorded or mastered in PCM, based on its sound.)
"my CD version sounds just as good as the SACD when played on a QUALITY REDBOOK-ONLY CD player"Did you try playing the SA-CD in a QUALITY CD/SA-CD ONLY player?
Stephen
I agree that the CD it would sound even better than the SACD on the "Quality Redbook Only Player" given that the SACD track(s) won't play at all under those circumstances. Nothing new about that.
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" CD technology, since it beats vinyl LPs and tape for longevity. "Not true. Vinyl LPs will last virtually forever if stored, handled and played properly. Tape deteriorates, even under the best conditions. CDs eventually deteriorate too, but if stored properly (and manufactured properly) should last a lifetime. But vinyl LPs will virtually last forever if handled and played properly. I have LPs from the 50s that play as if new.
Is that still the case?
the Library of Congress still has thousands and thousands of LPs in their archive. They do not have one single "archival" format as your question would seem to imply. They also have cassette tapes, reel-to-reel tapes, Edison Cylinders, CDs and other recorded media in their archive. Below you will find a link to the guidelines the Library of Congress follows for storage, care and cleaning of all these media.You might note that the site states that: "Reports on tests of LP record wear, and on cleaning devices and agents, measuring the increase of noise and distortion in successive plays of discs cleaned each time before playing. Concludes that such a disc almost as good after 200 plays as when new, but that a dirty, neglected disk may be badly damaged in less than twenty plays." So you don't have to take my word for it, you can hear it from no less an authority than the US government. (And we all know the US government would never lie to us). The bottom line is most folks just don't care for LPs properly. If you treat them well they will outlive you and your children.
This site also has links to various stories on problems with CD media, so this is not really "news." My view is that much of this is likewise overblown, and that if cared for properly CDs too will last a long time. There have been a few well known manufacturing problems with CDs, but those problems have largely been addressed. Personally, I have yet to have a single problem with CD rot that I am aware of. But it is more difficult to say exactly how long properly cared for CDs will last for the simple reason that they haven't been around nearly as long as LPs.
Anyway, what the Library of Congress does or doesn't have in their archives has nothing to do with a given format's durability. They are preservationists and do everything they can to preserve the media regardless of its flaws.
I'm not a vinyl guy but I always thought that the more a record was played,the more deterioration to the grooves,regardless of how they were stored.I'm talking repeated play,over and over.I have some of my favorite cd's playing every couple of days,which is one of the reasons I never seriously considered vinyl.Is this a vinyl myth?Gary.
Okay, well not exactly a myth. You can damage a record with only one play if your cartridge is damaged or badly misaligned. You can damage a record with repeated plays if you are using too heavy a tracking force. And of course blatant mishandling or leaving a record in a hot car will destroy it.But under normal playing conditions, with a properly installed, decent cartridge, proper storage etc. you should not see or hear any damage to a record whatsover. I'm talking about under reasonable conditions (not if a record were played 100 times in a row or something, in which case CDs have a clear advantage--but other than 3 year olds, who listens to music like that?).
Unfortunately, most record owners do not care for their LPs properly, and do not know how to set their equipment up properly, so you see lots of unplayable LPs at Goodwill. However, a properly cared for LP will last virtually forever under conditions of normal usage. (For more info on this search the Vinyl Asylum).
There is no way you can eliminate deterioration of the grooves in a vinyl - think about it, you're dragging a diamond thru plastic, which one is gonna give first? Eventually, the vinyl wears out.There is also this thing called the "modulus of elasticity" wherein the viny deforms when the diamond is dragged thru it. The grooves in the vinyl, being quite elastic will (mostly) return to their original shape, but it takes some time. If you play the same LP twice in succession, you will irreparably damage it, because the grooves have not had enough time to snap back into place. As I remember it (from my hi-fi days in the 80s), it takes approx. 24 hrs. for the grooves to snap back, play it again before that time elapses and you get damage.
Diamonds Are Forever - Vinyl Is Not.
-rw-
Record wear is caused by the stylus contacting the vinyl. The only way you can eliminate the wear is by eliminating the contact.You can MINIMIZE the wear, but you cannot ELIMINATE it. Just because you don't notice the wear doesn't mean it isn't happening.
You should really take this up on the Vinyl asylum, but I think the key phrase is "under conditions of normal usage" and normally people simply do not play LPs enough to wear them out. In fact it has not happened to me once.
Read my post again. In a nutshell: Every time you play a record, it is worn.
and that fact does not contradict anything I said.
From your message:"But under normal playing conditions, with a properly installed, decent cartridge, proper storage etc. you should not see or hear any damage to a record whatsover."
"However, a properly cared for LP will last virtually forever under conditions of normal usage."
Both of these statements are not true.
Record wear happens every time you play a record. The wear might not be easily noticeable at first---aural memory is notoriously faulty---but it is happening. The wear occurs irregardless of your setup, cartridge or handling.
I suppose to some folks "normal playing conditions" means one play per year. But even if you play an LP just once a year, it is worn by the playing.
Jeffery
I still don't think you understand what I wrote. I never said that there is not wear to a record each time it is played, I said that you should not "see or hear any damage" under normal usage. My records surely experience wear each time they are played, but I don't care unless I can hear the wear in the form of clicks, pops, or overall loss of fidelity. As I stated before, I do not have a single LP that has worn out to the point where there is a noticable drop in fidelity, and I have many records that have been played quite a lot over many years.More importantly, even with whatever wear my LPs experience (audible or otherwise) they still sound audibly superior to their CD counterparts. But I guess that is why I like SACDs so much--no issues of wear or setup to worry about, the convenience of digital playback and sound that is competitive with good vinyl playback. That's the best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully, they will have the same longevity as the LPs in my collection.
The Laser Turntable distributed by Smart devises will certainly eliminate the wear problem.
So if using this devise and stored under optimum conditions, vinyl can last a lifetime.
nt
Just recently this machine was reviewed in Stereophile.
I don't think MF rushed out to buy one.
nt
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I've not had a single failing disc among my 2000 CDs, some of which are 15-20 years old. I haven't heard of a problems from other CD-collecting friends either. Appropriate storage is required of course (normal temperature, out of direct sunlight).There have been CDs with manufacturing problems in the early years of the CD era (discs made Nimbus UK who became unreadable after just a few months), but generally there is no durability issue at all with manufactured CDs.
I would only worry about burned CD-Rs, the cheapest ones can become unreadable after a few years.
I've bought at least 2,000 CDs over the years, and I've encountered CD rot ONCE: a limited edition Dusty Springfield boxed set released in the early 1990s. The ENTIRE run bronzed and rotted. It was a manufacturing problem.I store my CDs in jewel cases away from direct sunlight. I'm not worried.
Jeffery
I've had this happen...but it's only happened on CD-R's.
Can't say I have much confidence in hard drives either...over the years I've had enough of them fail too. On some I was able to run as a slave an still retrieve the information...but this isn't always the case.
enjoy the music!
CDs have proven quite reliable when handled and stored properly.Yes, they won't last forever. That isn't news.
The manufacturing process of a particular CD has great importance on the longevity of the CD, REGARDLESS of how well it is stored.CDs are much less reliable than many people think, even if handled and stored properly.
CD-R discs are likely to be even less reliable.
Most of my CDs are on hard-disk, about a third at full-rez but eventually all.
Stephen
almost every time I check a hard drive I find bad sectors.
I still can't get a grip on the thought of having my entire CD collection (about 1000 discs) at full-rez on a single 250/300GB external drive. And probably eventually a bus-powered pocket drive.
Stephen
one of my friends is fully into this new world...he gets almost all his music from downloading CD rate audio using lossless compression, stores it on one of his many hard drives, and plays it through a decent system, including an old Hafler amp I gave him. And it's all legal- the down side is that the music is exclusively "jam bands", including hundreds of Grateful Dead concerts...really I think it's OK, but I could not live on an exclusive diet of it. But if you combine this with the insane variety of music that you can find on MP3- if the variety comes together with the resolution- then my own music buying changes as well.
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