CDs Pressed by Specialty: SRC code?

Here are my SRC-01's. If there are any questions about anomalies in the matrix codes, I can scan and post a picture for visual assistance, reply in thread or privately, and I'll get on it asap. BTW, this is like a think tank for cracking the matrix code for CD's. If some definitive information can be gleamed from this discussion, perhaps we can move on to understanding the matrix codes from Sony, Universal, EMI, and some indie labels!

Anthrax - Sound of White Noise (Elektra, 93)
[s logo] 2 61430-2 SRC**01 M2S2

Anthrax - Stomp 442 (Elektra, 95)
[s logo] 2 61856-2 SRC@@01 M1S2

Body Count - Body Count (Sire, 92)
1 26878-2 SRC-01 M1S9

Candlebox - Candlebox (Maverick, 93)
[s logo] 1 45313-2 SRC**01 M1S8

Crow, The [soundtrack] (Interscope, 94)
[s logo] 3 82519-2 SRC@@01 ARC *M1(space)S2

Danzig - II (Def American, 90)
1 24281-2 SRC#01. M3S6 (asterisk encircled)

Faith No More - King for a Day... (Slash, 95)
[s logo] 1 45723-2 SRC@@01 M1S3

Helmet - betty (Interscope, 94)
[s logo] 3 92404-2 RE-1 SRC**01 M1S3

Machines of Loving Grace - Concentration (Mammoth, 93)
[s logo] 3 92282-2 RE-1 SRC**01 M1S3

Machines of Loving Grace - Guilt (Mammoth, 95)
[s logo] 3 92613-2 SRC**01 ARC *M2

Marilyn Manson - Get Your Gunn [maxi] (Interscope, 94)
[s logo] 3 95902-2 SRC##01 M1S4

Marilyn Manson - Lunchbox [maxi] (Nothing, 95)
[s logo] 3 95806-2 SRC@@01 M1S3

Marilyn Manson - Smells like Children (Nothing, 95)
[s logo] 3 92641-2 RE-1 SRC**01 M1S4

Meat Beat Manifesto - Satyricon (Mute, 92)
[HV printed over s logo][2 "blocks" over company code] 61395-2 SRC*01 M1S2

Meat Beat Manifesto - Armed Audio Warfare (Mute, 94) [Re-Issue]
[s logo] HV 9002-2 SRC##01 M1S1

Ministry - Jesus Built My Hotrod [maxi] (Sire, 91)
1 40211-2 SRC-01 M1S7

Ministry - The Fall/Reload (Sire, 95)
[s logo] 1 43630-2 SRC@@01 M1S1

Morbid Angel - Covenant (Giant, 93)
1 24504-2 SRC##01 M1S1

Nine Inch Nails - Fixed (Nothing, 92)
3 96093-2 SRC#01. M1S2 (asterisk encircled)

Nine Inch Nails - March of the Pigs (Nothing, 94)
[s logo] 3 95938-2 SRC**01 M1S4

Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (Nothing, 94)
[s logo] 3 92346-2 SRC**01 M4S13

Nine Inch Nails - Closer to God (Nothing, 94)
[s logo] 3 95905-2 SRC##01 M1S3

Nine Inch Nails - Further Down the Spiral (Nothing, 95)
[s logo] 3 95811-2 SRC**01 M1S5

Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power (Atco, 92)
3 91758-2 SRC=01 M4S5

Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill (EastWest, 95)
[s logo] 3 61908-2 SRC**01 M1S8

Primus - Tales from the Punchbowl (Interscope, 95)
[s logo] 3 92553-2 SRC**01 M1S3

Revolting Cocks - Linger Ficken Good (Sire, 93)
[s logo] 1 45407-2 SRC##01 M1S4

Skinny Puppy - The Process (American, 95)
[s logo] 1 43057-2 SRC##01 M1S1

Slayer - Divine Intervention (American, 94)
[s logo] 1 45522-2 SRC**01 M1S4

Stone Temple Pilots - Purple (Atlantic, 94)
[s logo] 3 82607-2 SRC**01 M5S3

Tad - Inhaler (Giant, 93)
[s logo] 1 24525-2 SRC**01 M1S1

Yankovic, "Weird Al" - Amish Paradise [maxi] (Rock n' Roll/Scotti Bros., 03/1296)
[s logo] 1 78061-2 SRC**01 M1S1

Yankovic, "Weird Al" - Bad Hair Day (Rock n' Roll/Scotti Bros., 03/12/96)
1 75500-2 SRC+01 M1S4 [note: for such a late release, no s logo, no wea mfg logo, just barcode]

Yankovic, "Weird Al" - Gump [maxi] (Rock n' Roll/Scotti Bros., 05/14/96)
[s logo] 1 78074-2 SRC**01 M1S1

 

Here's a couple I just found:

Ice-T - Power (Sire, 1988)
925 765-2 RE1 SRC-01

The Time - The Time (Warner Bros., 1981)
3598-2 SRC-01

Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club (Sire, 1981)
3628-2 SRC-05 M5S10

War - All Day Music (Avenue Records, 1971,1992)
3 R2 71042-2 SRC#3. M1S2

Yo-Yo - Make Way For The Motherlode (East West Records America, 1991)
23 91605-2 RE-1 SRC+1 M3S4

Zapp -Zapp (Warner Bros., 1980)
1 3463-2 SRC-02 M1S19

Zapp - Zapp II (Warner Bros., 1982)
1 23583-2 SRC-01 M2-S2

 

Phil Collins - Hello, I must be going (80035-2 SRC-05)....that would make for a pretty nice avatar!

If I ever figure out how to get pictures onto the forum though, I had always intended to use a picture of my cd player for my avatar. But now I'm thinkin' a picture of either my Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy (19130-2 SRC-01) or my Talking Heads - True Stories (25512-2 SRC-01) would also make a really great avatar too! Something for me to think about while I try to figure out how to get pictures up here!

Thanks for the idea, George!

 

At this site they also know about SRC!

http://www.depmod.com/misc/index.html

And now a nice picture.

 

I was diggin' through the bins today. I didn't have much time to look but I did come away with this interesting morsel:

6th. Generation Pressing
Wet Wet Wet - Picture This
Matrix code: 5 P2 26851-2 SRC**01 M1S1
Cd release date: September 26, 1995

This is an interesting disc because it is on the London label.

 

Judging from the "P2" prefix, it sounds like this is a Columbia House copy from the time when the club was co-owned by Warner and, therefore, used Specialty for some of its pressings. The catalog number for the retail release was styled as 314 526 851-2.

 

Your right Andrew. It is a CRC pressing. I noticed the P2 prefix at the store and looked on the disc and the tray card to see if it had any mention of a record club and I didn't see anything. There was, however, an owners name printed onto a sticker on the tray card. I was in a hurry because I didn't have much time so I ignored the sticker and the P2 prefix and bought the disc anyway.

When I saw your post, I remembered about the sticker. I was going to remove it from the tray card when I got home from work tonight but my curiousity got the best of me. I just removed it and wouldn't you know it, I found those three little letters I hate to see on a cd.....CRC.

I hate when that happens. I always try to avoid CRC discs. The unusual thing is that this is the first SRC 01 M1S1 Columbia Record Club pressing I've ever seen. They usually have higher glass master codes, as well as higher Mother and Stamper numbers, as I've mentioned before.

Oh well.....that's the way it goes sometimes. I'll just have to pay more attention next time!

 

I've searched for all of the release dates for all of the SRC-01 and SRC-01 M1S1 pressings that have been listed here so far, to determine if we can update the release information on the different Generations of matrix codes. Here is what I was able to find:


The previous end date for 6th. Generation pressings was September 1995. Sonophantasm's pressing of Weird Al Yankovic - Gump pushes that date forward to May 14, 1996. (Does anyone know the exact date that WEA took over SRC?)


Well, that's it. It's going to be tough to firm up the dates for the first 3 Generations of pressings because it is hard to find release dates for these older discs. Does anyone know of a source for this kind of information? It would need to at least include the month and year of release to be of any help.

I get most of my release date info from Amazon.com. Unfortunately, their release date information is consistently available going back only to the 4th. Generation.

 

Hi sonophantasm,

Can you tell me if this disc has either the barcode or stars in the inner mirror band. The release date for this disc is June 22, 1993. It should be a 5th. Generation release (stars, not barcode) but I just want to make sure. The ## instead of a - between the SRC and the 01 is what concerns me.

Thanks,
Doug

 

Found some more:

Mr. Paul Mooney - Race (Stepsun, 1993)
43 53748 3005-2 SRC*02 M1S2

Naughty By Nature - 19 Naughty III (Tommy Boy, 1993)
43 1069-2 SRC+01 M1S5

Ol' Dirty Bastard - Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Edition (Elektra, 1995)
2 61659-2 SRC##01 M1S4

Kool G. Rap & D.J. Polo - Wanted: Dead Or Alive (Cold Chillin', 1990)
1 26165-2 SRC-01 M1S5

Raw Fusion - Live From The Styleetron (Hollywood Basic, 1991)
2 61236-2 SRC-01 M2S3

Raw Fusion - Hoochiefied Funk (Hollywood Basic, 1994)
2 61452-2 SRC**01 M2S1

Roger - Unlimited! (Reprise, 1987)
925496-2 SRC-01

Roger - Bridging The Gap (Reprise, 1991)
1 26524-2 SRC-02 M1S2

Patrice Rushen - Straight From The Heart (Elektra Editions/Rhino, 1982, 1996)
3 R2 73508-2 SRC@@01 M1S4

Slave - Stellar Fungk: The Best Of Slave, Featuring Steve Arrington (Rhino, 1994)
3 R2 71592-2 SRC**02 M4S7

Stetsasonic - Blood, Sweat & No Tears (Tommy Boy, 1991)
43 TBCD 1024-2 SRC=01 M1S2

Various - In Yo' Face! The Roots Of Funk, Vol. 1/2 (Rhino, 1994)
3 R2 71615-2 SRC**01 M1S3

Phat Trax The Best Of Old School, Vol. 1 (Rhino, 1994)
3 R2 71752-2 SRC**01 M1S2

Phat Trax The Best Of Old School, Vol. 2 (Rhino, 1994)
3 R2 71753-2 SRC##03 M1S1

Phat Trax The Best Of Old School, Vol. 3 (Rhino, 1994)
3 R2 71754-2 SRC**01 M1S1

Phat Trax The Best Of Old School, Vol. 5 (Rhino, 1994)
3 R2 71756-2 SRC**01 M1S1

Spy Magazine Presents, Vol. 1: Spy Music (Rhino, 1994)
3 R2 71749-2 SRC##01 M1S3

Music From The Motion Picture Boyz N The Hood (Qwest, 1991)
1 26643-2 SRC=01 M1S6

Colors/Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Warner Bros., 1988)
925713-2 SRC-02

Music From The Motion Picture A Thin Line Between Love & Hate (Jac-Mac Records, 1995)
1 46134-2 SRC##01 M1S2

 

I probably have a few SRC discs in my collection. But one I haVe at hand is a WG pressing of Moondance matrix 246040 SRC-01

 

So you could have two CD's with the M1 designations, and everything else in the matrix exactly the same, but they could theoretically sound different because there is no chain of custody assuring they come from the same "father".

Is this correct???

 

Why? It has been reported here many times that Columbia House CD's sometimes sound BETTER than their "brick and mortar" counterparts. There have been attempts to explain this, but at the end of the day it's pretty much speculation.

 

Hi because,

I have wondered the same thing.....but that also assumes that there is more than one Father in existence. Perhaps only 1 Father is necessary since multiple Stampers can be made from multiple Mothers.....this is only speculation of course. I don't know what the real answer to this question is!

Your theoretical situation also presupposes that you believe there are differences in sound from one Stamper to the next, one Mother to the next, and one Glass Master to the next.

 

This goes back to an experience I had about 17 years ago. I had a cd that I listened to quite often. (Sorry, to long ago, and I can't remember which one it was anymore.) I owned a "High-End" audio store in the Detroit area at the time. One of my customers brought in a cd to listen to on one of the systems I had set up. The cd that he brought happened to be the same one that I was very familiar with. We used his copy for the demonstration.

Surprisingly to me at the time, everything sounded awful. Everything sounded muffled.

After the demo, I mentioned what I was hearing to the customer and told him that something must be wrong with the system. I checked a few things over to make sure everything was working properly. I decided to try a different disc that I had been listening to earlier that day. When I pulled his cd out of the cd player I noticed that it was a Record Club disc. I put in the other cd and everything sounded fine!

I decided to try my copy of the disc he brought in and, once again, everything sounded fine!

I asked to see his copy of the disc. We played it and everything sounded muffled again! We repeated this several times. Everytime we played his disc, the system sounded horrible. With mine, everything sounded fine.

From that point forward, I swore off of Record Club editions of cd's.

 

This thread has also prompted me to look at the matrix info on my CDs. A lot of mine came from Columbia House, though, so I don't have a whole lot of 01s...

One oddity I that I came across: My Columbia House copies of Led Zeppelin's 2-CD sets Physical Graffiti and The Song Remains The Same have discs that do not match in terms of pressing plant origin and/or matrix generation.

Physical Graffiti:

Disc One -- 3 200-2.1 RE-1 SRC-04 (solid band around remainder of ring, with "ARC" and "M8S4" stamped in the ring)

Disc Two -- 3 200-2.2 SRC=13 M1S4 (barcode around remainder of ring)

Both discs are marked as CRC pressings and state "Made in U.S.A. by WEA Manufacturing Inc." on their face.

I take it that Disc One was pressed at Allied using a glass master from Specialty, while Disc Two appears to be a 100% Specialty pressing (as are the vast majority of my WEA-pressed Columbia House CDs). Disc Two also uses an earlier matrix generation than Disc One.

The Song Remains The Same:

Disc One -- obviously not pressed by WEA, because the matrix info looks nothing like what we've been discussing in this thread

Disc Two -- 3 201-2.2 SRC-05 (solid band around remainder of ring, with "M2S2" in the ring)

Both discs are marked as CRC pressings. Disc One states "Made in U.S.A. by JVC" on its face, and Disc Two states "Made in U.S.A. by WEA Manufacturing Inc." on its face.

These obviously came from two completely different manufacturers. Disc Two is of the same WEA matrix generation as Disc One of Physical Graffiti.

I bought both of these new, so I know they were originally purchased as they are now -- there's no possibility one disc was swapped with another copy of the album after the point of original sale. I've owned these CDs since the early '90s but had never noticed that the manufacturing credits on the face of the two discs of The Song Remains The Same are different.

 

This is not uncommon for 2-disc sets. I've got a few like that, as well, and they are not record club versions.

 

Found one more SRC-01 M1S1 hiding in my collection. Actually, it was hiding in a box set:

6th. Generation Pressing
John Coltrane - The Heavyweight Champion: The Complete Atlantic Recordings
Matrix codes:
Disc 1) SRC**03 M1S5
Disc 2) SRC**01 M1S3
Disc 3) SRC**02 M1S3
Disc 4) SRC**01 M1S6
Disc 5) SRC**01 M1S6
Disc 6) SRC##01 M1S4
Outtakes:
Disc 7) SRC##01 M1S1

 

Found a couple more this afternoon:

6th Generation Pressings

David Sanborn - Pearls
Matrix code: 2 61759-2 SRC**01 M1S1
CD Release Date: March 28, 1995



The Ballads of Madison County
Matrix code: 3 8251-2 SRC##01 M1S1
CD Release Date: May 30, 1995

 

Sorry for the late reply...here's an image of the matrix ring.



No stars or barcode. Curious...

 

While I'm at the scanner. Here's a couple of the "oddities" in my collection...



What do you suppose HV means?



No stamper info on this one. Perhaps just a factory error?

 

Very interesting info. Great to read.

BTW, I was buying CDs when the first WEA Mfg CDs came out - SRC-01s. have a pile of 'em.

One thing I am pretty certain is that the plant didn't open up until 1987. Some new 1987 releases, including U2/Joshua Tree were still made in Japan and W. Germany, as first pressings and then the WEA pressings came after the explosion of popularity of certain titles.

The first WEA Mfg CD i got was the double fatboy of Genesis/Seconds Out. It was a first issue on release day. I was surprised to find them inside - I was expecting a DADC disc with no "Compact Disc Made in xxx" sticker on the outside.

WEA Mfg technology originated from Teldec, a former joint venture of Telefunken (electronics maker in Germany) and UK Decca in Germany. This used to be called Teldec Record Service and had a classical label. WEA acquired it in the mid-80s. Teldec had developed a cheap way to make stampers and therefore, reduced the cost of making CDs a lot. This became Record Service Alsdorf, later Warner Music Mfg Europe, and now Cinram Alsdorf.

The Teldec technology was used to equip SRC in Olyphant, PA USA to make CDs and was renamed WEA Mfg.

 

Hi sonophantasm,

Thanks for the interesting picture. The photo suggest that the disc is a third Generation pressing except for the artwork that shows through the clear plastic center of the disc. To the best of my knowledge, SRC discs didn't have elaborate artwork like that at this time. I still suspect that the disc is a 5th. Generation disc minus the stars from the inner mirror band. Very cool!

 

For the 1st photo, I suspect the HV stands for the label that the disc was pressed for. Can you tell me what label this disc was pressed for?


For the 2nd photo, I can't offer you much help on this one because I haven't studied the ARC pressings. I don't know if they include the Mother and Stamper info in the mirror band.

 

Thanks for the extra historical information ffracer! Greatly Appreciated!

Can anyone else out there verify that 1987 was the year that the SRC plant went into production rather than 1986?