Physical CD quality - new is crap / old is good ?

[Peter Galbavy]

I've been encoding my CDs to FLAC for a while now and I am sure I ma not the only one who has observed the huge variability in the physical quality of the CDs we get sold.

The really old ones, from the late 80s, are almost all are all heavy and solid and scratches or no scratches can be read by my PC. There are a couple that seem do have discoloured but still read fine and others that have rotted without any visible impact and can't be read.

The newer stuff, thinking about Hawkwind's Levitation 3 CD set and most pop stuff, seem pressed on something akin to paper and are stupidly sensitive to any scuffing or the tiniest of scratches.

What worries me, apart from the time factor of rotting aluminum layers, is that all those cleaning and de-scratching methods we have adopted over the years including the cool gadgets for polishing the surface scratches away etc. will be dangerous to the new crap they are selling us.

What's the best way to protext CDs in the long term, especially the newer, cheaper, more fragile stuff ?

[Themis]

What's the best way to protext CDs in the long term, especially the newer, cheaper, more fragile stuff ?

You have to keep them away from dust, light, high temperature and humidity.
(and buy good quality CD-Rs).

It seems that the best way to protect them is to make a new copy every 5-10 years.

You have a research made on CD getting old, made for the French Archives (in French) here : http://www.lne.fr/publications/reche...ement-CD-R.pdf

[DSJR]

I have discs dating from 1985 (when I first started collecting CD's) and only one or two have shown any degradation. Only one deteriorated so much that I've had to replace it (Ozric Tentacles - Erpland on Dove records - the re-master from 1996 approx appears out of absolute phase and sounds "squashed" by comparison unless this is attended to...).

Modern CD's are *supposed* to be better, as machines made since the mid nineties don't like out of spec CD's, where it was almost a competition to get phenominal tracking of bad discs before this time...

Sorry to hear of the problems you're suffering. I haven't bought many new discs in ages as I can't really afford to and I have a huge LP collection to re-discover.....

[Soundhaspriority]

I made the very same observation with LP's, how the new pressings were much poorer quality than the older ones, so it doesn't surprise me at all this would happen with CD's as well. I know from my experiences that different CD pressings from different countries or plants or what you have, do sound different. I find that CD's wear out surprisingly fast from simply letting them get scratched. Then they skip not unlike... LP's! Only they are even more annoying when they skip, and have to run to the volume button, not walk. So handle them like they are LP's, by the edges, never rubbing them on any surface or having one against another, or putting them in tight sleeves where you have to slide them out.

[Rare Bird]

I don't play my CD's if i can help it, staraight onto an outboard hard drive in the form of FLAC.I'm get more & more lazy these days.I thought turning a record over was a pain, now pulling a CD off shelf is equally as painfull..

[Themis]

I don't play my CD's if i can help it, staraight onto an outboard hard drive in the form of FLAC.I'm get more & more lazy these days.I thought turning a record over was a pain, now pulling a CD off shelf is equally as painfull..

Same here. My CD player is not even connected to my system anymore...