Early days of CD: they "will never scratch"

You guys are reading WAAAY too much into the marketing stuff....it TRULY is perfect sound forever. EVERY single CD I have ever purchased...(( about 600 or so )) STILL plays and sounds EXACTLY the same as the day I bought them. (( many from the 80s even )) ....And yes ive never had a single defective CD or one that would skip or not play or do anything out of the ordinary....


That alone tells me...maybe you guys are mishandling your CDs???

as for PERFECT SOUND....Yes, each and every one still has the same sound as when it was pressed...no additional noise, hiss, reduction in treble, tracking issues and so on. To me that is pretty perfect. I cant say the same of ANY other media ive ever owned, including VINYL< 8- TRACK>CASSETTE>OPEN REEL>VHS and even the old big video discs.

 

Bad mastering negatively impacts every format. Then again, that's obvious.

 

I dont think we will ever truly know that chris, being serious for a second. There are just too many differences in mastering, playback systems and many other parts of the chain to really compare these 2 wildly differing systems. In fact, just our ways of relating to what good sound is, makes it difficult to compare 2 very similar medias. Ive listened to recordings that were relayed by others to supposedly sound fantastic, and upon listening to them, thought, hmmm.......okay but nothing great. Its all subjective. Ive heard classical stuff on vinyl that I could barely listen to when in the wrong mood ( surface noise, whooshing sounds in quiet passages, break up on loud parts, and so on.)) other days it didnt bother me at all. On CD ive "thought" some days hmm..maybe not the "final" word in low level resolution, other days, I dont even think about it. Our brains play a huge part in what we WANT to hear, or what we believe we are hearing, or what we think sounds more correct and so on.

 

I only ever had one faulty CD, The Doors Greatest Hits. It had a few pinholes during 'Riders'.

The rest still play as though I bought them yesterday.

 

In the late '80s, I bought a few new CDs that skipped. The play surfaces looked perfect to the naked eye, so I guess there were encoding errors. In my experience, quality control has improved over the years.

 

Very true. I love vinyl, but only about half of my records I could honestly say
sound better than c.d., and when I say "better" that is just my opinion.
C.D.s have generally been a good thing for everybody, especially when they
made c.d.r.s The Mofi and DCC's are just incredible, and are great examples of
how c.d.s CAN be.

 

My friend Marc and I worked at Record Bar when CDs first came out. Sony had sent us a player and a few CDs as a demo. As usual, Marc was always trying to impress the ladies, and one day we were at the back counter with a few females showing them CDs and Marc had a Van Halen 1984 target cd and says "and their indestructible" slamming it on the edge of the counter. It shattered into a million pieces. The girls left.

 

I remember a similar story from this "know it all" guy whose friend had a cd player early on. To prove the "indestructability" of the disc, he took the disc from the case, and proceeded to "frisbee" it across a wooden floor, pick it back up, and put it in the player, where it purportedly played perfectly.

I know I must have had a look of total horror that someone would do that, "indestructable cd" or not!

I took care of my cds just like I did the vinyl. Transferred it to cassette, and put it away. Now I just transfer it to a cdr, and put it away.

 

Well pinholes were quite common in the early days. It was a problem with the aluminium data layer. somehow the layer would get bubbles or small holes formed in it which would skip or click. If you hold the CD up to the light you can see white holes through the disk.

Rather annoying but not the end of the world.

 

I've heard vinyl will never scratch either.

 

I know that some used stores sell "refurbished" discs, does anyone know if this degrades the sound or is it as "good as new"? Love to hear some member's feedback on this.

 

A used CD shop I used to frequent had a buffing wheel setup right next to the checkout counter (I tried to get a few employees to share what compound they were using, but alas, no luck). Unfortunately I had seen them buff several CDs to the point where you could almost see right through them. I can't say if it degraded the sound or not but I remember thinking "this can't be good". Some of discs I purchased were overbuffed like this and skipped, and I never could get a good read off of in EAC, FWIW.

 

The cd will not scratch, if handled properly...

 

In the early days, the classic demo was to take a CD, smear some peanut butter on it, wipe it off, and play the CD to demonstrate that they weren't as delicate as records.

 

Vinyl has more midrange, treble, and bass information than cd, imo.

 

I have a bunch of nearly 60 year old LPs and 45's that play beautifully.

 

Recently, I've been looking for early CD pressings in used music stores by scanning for smooth-sided CD cases.

90% of the time the CDs were in near-immaculate condition! Makes me think really early adopters took quite good care of these things.

 

I'm really picky about used CDs. Even if they have light to moderate scratches or marks, I usually pass on them unless it's something extremely hard to find. I picked up a Toshiba Abbey Road with just a few light scratches for $7 a few months back.

 

Back in 1984 I remember my professor demoing a classical CD at our college radio station and saying:

"Finally they made a record that is DJ Proof!"

 

Really?

What about the high-mids and the low-mids? Sub-bass?

 

Mmm... polycarbonate crackers....

 

Yes, but not as beautifully as they did the first time. Playing vinyl is a mechanical process. Wear can be minimized with careful handling and properly calibrated equipment, but not eliminated. That's just the way it is.

That was the point of the original ad copy as I took it, or more accurately, that a CD is not prone to mechanical wear ("scratches") during normal usage.

 

I remember one of the anti-CD writers at STEREOPHILE complaining how fragile CDs were, how the jewel boxes broke into pieces when dropped on the floor or how easily a CD could be dropped while removing it from the disc tray.

All I could think of was "And what happens when you drop an LP on the floor? Is removing a CD from its jewel box inherently more hazardous than removing an LP from its jacket?" It was clear the writer had two different standards of handling when it came to LPs and CDs.

 

That too.

 

Maybe the designers had thoughts about adding a protective layer, making them scratch resistant.