CD Deterioration (1 Viewer)

[Angelo.M]

This may be a very ignorant question, but...

Just got around to spinning a couple of CDs that are 18 and 16 years old, and I've noticed that some of the tracks have all sorts of audible problems, including skips and distortion.

I keep my CDs in what I like to think of as 'pristine' condition, without dust or fingerprints, and they've only ever been played by me, on my equipment. Is there something going on that I should know about, like oxidation or some other deterioration.

Help... :frowning:

 

[TomCW]

Angelo, it's called CD rot.
Read about it here .
I feel you pain.
Tom

 

[Angelo.M]

Well, that basically describes the situation, although I'm not certain if the discs were manufactured by Philips and/or PDO. I'll check.

 

[Joel Fontenot]

I bought my first CD's back in early 1985.

The first two CD's I actually bought (a few months before I bought the player) were Heart's Little Queen and Tangerine Dream's LeParc. Both of those CD's play just fine today.

The only problem CD I've got was Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good from A&M in the late 80's or early 90's (not sure exactly when it first made it to CD, but that's when I bought it). That one started self-destructing about 7 years ago when a cd-rom drive I had then refused to spin it up - it would just spit the caddie back out. The thing is that it played every other CD just fine. Today it will play on a cd-rom drive and regular cd players, but not without serious pops and clicks throughout the disc.

I was able to extract the songs using EAC, but it took 5 hours to do it with all the read and sync errors. I made a new cd-r from it that now plays just fine.

But, I've since recorded my old LP into my computer, did a clean up and burned that to cd-r and that one sounds nicer.

Joel

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

Well, I bought my first CD player in 1985, and have since accumulated about 800 CDs, but I have NEVER had one die on me...
Some have been bad from the start, and have been replaced, but I have not seen any rot at all on any CD, maybe I've just been lucky...

 

[Grant B]

I have some from 1982-3 when they were hard to find.
They still play but seem to skip more in the car

 

[KeithH]

I collect early West German and Japanese pressings from 1982-1985, and of the 300+ of these discs that I own, only one seems to give me problems. It's a GRP jazz CD pressed in Japan. Although it has no scratches, it will not play in my computer CD burner drive or my Harman/Kardon CD burner. These devices cannot read the TOC. The disc does play on my other CD players. The problem is that I cannot readily make a CD-R copy, which I like to do with these early CDs.

 

[Danny Tse]

I have a CD from Hong Kong on the the then-Polygram Records that's practically disappearing in front of my eyes. It was perfect when I first purchased it back in 1992, then as time goes on, the aluminum within the disc starts disappearing, leaving the clear layer behind. Now I would estimate that about 35-40% of the aluminum has disappeared, with clear plastic streaks all over the disc. I am actually waiting for it to become completely clear. The CD has always been inside my home, never lend to someone else, and is stored in its original jewel case. I have since learn from someone working within Polygram's HK CD production plant that these were the first production batch produced there. Apparently, there was some chemical reaction happening between the aluminum and the light blue colored ink used for the printing of words on the disc. I did pick up another CD of the same title, light blue ink and all, and so far it's fine.

On the other hand, some of my HK pop CDs goes back to 1984. Have some manufactured by Philips in Japan and some in West Germany. Later, by this I mean 1986 or so, Polygram/Philips CDs were pressed in Japan by Sanyo, and those are all fine. Also have some Sony/CBS CDs made in Japan that're still in perfect shape. Same with BMG CDs made by Denon in Japan. BTW, all highly collectible.

 

[John Watson]

In several thousand cds, starting from the mid 80's, I've only had 3 cds with defects, one of which was a rotter. I just wish DVD's were as reliable.

Tho, as a cautionary measure, I do have a few hundred LPs left.

 

[KeithH]

Danny said:

BTW, all highly collectible.

Don't I know it!

 

[Angelo.M]

Well, the CDs in question are Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles and ...Nothing Like the Sun (the only solo stuff by him that I like, but that's another discussion ).

Anyway, these are from 1985 and 1987, and the only CDs in my collection that I'm having problems with, despite having treated them w/ kid gloves for all these years. Examining the discs, they do not appear to show signs of 'CD rot', as described on the webpages above.

Tried extracting the data with CDEx, but the clicks/noise remained, and a couple of tracks wouldn't extract at all (first and last tracks most affected).

Guess I'm ordering the import remasters...

 

[Felix Martinez]

I just wish DVD's were as reliable.

Knock on wood - no probs here. Yes, even the notorious "Contact" and other early dual layer DVDs have not changed over time.

Now, don't get me started on the DVD player compatibility of DVD-R media currently on the shelves. This has been a nightmare!

Cheers,

 

[Joel Fontenot]

Angelo, try using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio. It's the best one out there that gets around those read/sync errors. It may take forever to do it (like I said, 5 hours for my 40 minute A&M cd - yours may take longer), but it may get enough out of those constant re-reads to make a good extraction. It will let you check all the places where it had problems to see if the pops/noises are still there. But, you might just skip that and listen to the whole thing when it's done, because you'll know if it worked once you play the resulting wave file. You can extract to individual files per track, or the whole cd image with .cue file.

BTW, my cd in question (again, Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good) also had no visible effects of deterioration - no pin holes (at least, no more than usual), discoloration or scratches on the disc of any kind. It just started being noisy and playing badly.

Joel