Early days of CD: they "will never scratch"

In the booklet of a 1984 PolyGram sampler titled Hear the Light, Vol. 2, the marvels of CD technology are revealed.

In those days, was it really believed that CDs were impervious to scratches?

 

I heard a bit of this at the introduction of BluRay as well.

 

I just love that optimistic use of the word "forever".

 

I remember watching a guy in a music store extolling the virtues of the new compact discs that were coming on the market. He took his keys and scratched the hell out of a CD and proudly claimed that it will play just fine!

 

I think this is supposed to mean that normal playback won't scratch them. Then again, normal playback won't scratch an LP. (And I've heard LPs are not supposed to wear out either if your turntable is set up properly.)

 

Actually Blu-Ray uses a Durabis coating (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durabis) which is said to have far greater scratch resistance than regular CDs.

From my experience with Blu-Ray video disks this is quite accurate as surface scratches are pretty much non-existent even on rental disks.

Sorry for the OT.

 

CD's contain error correction sections. Because of this, they believed that a CD would play, even when scratched. Of course they weren't counting on CD's being thrashed. It is only through "normal use" that a CD would be fine with some light scratches as, should the laser not be able to pick up the data, it reads the error correction data. Major scratches, as we know, will create a disaster.

 

You can't go by rental discs because the companies who rent out these discs have refurbishers that remove the scratches from damaged discs.

 

CDs were promoted heavily for their durability in the early days. Sure, CDs are less fragile than a record, but you can ruin a CD easily enough if you want to.

Along these lines, I always took "perfect sound forever" to be marketingspeak for the CD's durability, not so much that the format was the last word in fidelity. A record wears out and loses fidelity after much use. So does a tape. A CD does not. Play an LP, a cassette, and a CD 100 times each. The CD will sound the same on the 100th play as it did on the the first play. The LP and cassette will sound worse on the 100th play than on the first play. That was the argument, anyway.

 

I'm pretty sure my local store doesn't do that at all, it amazes me when some of the DVDs I hire actually play!

I also own around 50 BRDs and I have not found any scratches on any of them.

 

I've scratched a compact disc with a pair of scissors and it still played. And I mean a deep scratch. The secret? The scratch was perpendicular to "the spiral". A scratch "in parrallel" will wreak havoc.

 

I remember hearing the "they will last forever", "never be damaged" and "perfect copies of what the artist recorded" back then. There was no reason not to believe the hype.

Then, morning radio shows would a multitude of ways to scratch the crap out of 'em and then try to play 'em. It was entertaining back then. We were easily amused...

 

I heard at the time you could put them in your dishwasher - oh yeah I'll go do that right now...

 

Well, you can...

 

Remember "perfect sound forever"?
Give me a f****ing break!

 

... but pls put it on Quick Wash or Low Rins.

 

I remember the CD being promoted as able to play even when scratched. This feature allowed USED stores to really blossom. Before CD I didn't buy too many used LP's because I was concerned about condition. With CDs I was less concerned as long as visually acceptable.

I remember CDs being promoted with the idea that you can stack them or place them on a table top w/o as much concern over scratching like lps....of course we now treat them with the same care as vinyl.

My experience with BluRay disks is that they are notably more resistant to scratches and I like that feature. They seem to be more brittle and I have seen more cracks than DVDs.

 

I remember our cd store used purchases & mainly the heavy metal cd's that would come in back in 1987-88 were TRASHED (we couldn't buy them more than 1/2 the time) but the word got out that they weren't indestructable & people started taking care of them (somewhat?) but definitely they were not damageable was the rumor from the get go (til about 1990 around here in the midwest).

 

I think the point was that CD will not scratch from playing.

 

Exactly. Neither will they pick up small particles from electrostatic attractive charge and so on.

For the average vinyl buyer in 1981, the news about the pending arrival of CD was a huge thing. No one had record cleaning machines (there was one at the famous Record Mart in Brisbane and they charged a dollar to clean your LP on a Keith Monks machine and put it in a new sleeve).

Even for an extremely fastidious audiophile as me, it was hard to keep the clicks away. I had a good set up - Linn Sondek, Garrott P77, Russell Woolcock hybrid preamp, Metaxas A1 (100w class A), Yamaha NS1000s - and looked after my records. But no matter how careful you were, one day you'd play a record that was previously noise free and there would be a click that wasn't there before. If we had owned record cleaning machines, things would have perhaps been different. And there was always the drama of buying records - sometimes they were not flat, had excessive vinyl roar etc. But I loved it all the same.

So we certainly anticipated CD. I read deep articles on CD technology in "HiFi News and Record Review" and knew quite a bit about CD, how it worked and so on. I studied this stuff.

Then the day arrived and I went and listened to the first CD player. What a shock that it sounded so awful. Yes, the bass was precise and seemed good, but the midrange and treble were woeful. So much for CD, I thought. Back home to my records.

I did not think about CD for another 10 years.

 

Again, see my take on "perfect sound forever". With CDs, no pops, clicks, or groovewear.

 

Well it does ''play'' perfectly forever ''and if mastering engineers didn't **** with them they would ''sound'' perfectly forever as well'' this is obvious to most of us,but obviously not to snotty CD haters everywhere.

 

I remember at the time journos smearing jam on the discs and putting them in the players.

I also remember to Tomorrows World showing off a prototype CD player in the late 70's.

 

They hold up better than records for sure. Do they sound better than records? Not always.