Bronzing of CD's.

Started by Irons, February 28, 2020, 06:44:28 AM

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staxomega

Quote from: aukhawk on February 29, 2020, 12:29:36 AM
Audio CD players are designed to play audio CDs in a fault-tolerant way - computer CD drives are not.  So in general if there is an audible fault on a CD player that problem will almost certainly be present when ripping.  On the other hand, good ripping software can be set to scan problem areas several times (a very slow process) with varying degrees of success.

It did rip fine in EAC secure test & copy, but still makes me a bit nervous for probably dozens of others still lurking in boxes that might not.

Irons

A big thumbs up to eBay. I purchased a used CD on the site of a Chandos CD of the Bax Piano Quintet/2nd String Quartet. The Quintet played perfectly, and very good it is too. However, halfway through the quartet the music started to brake up badly. I nervously placed another CD in the tray which played faultlessly.

At £7, keep - the quintet was reason of purchase - or return. I decided on the latter. It could not have been easier. A short message to seller then on "My eBay" a pre-paid tracked postage with the return address popped up to print off and tape over the original packing.

I have had three or four defective CDs in a hundred or so. Is this normal? (I purchase mostly 2nd hand) I have not read any comments on GMG on this subject.
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

Que

#22
Quote from: Irons on June 07, 2020, 01:25:49 AM
A big thumbs up to eBay. I purchased a used CD on the site of a Chandos CD of the Bax Piano Quintet/2nd String Quartet. The Quintet played perfectly, and very good it is too. However, halfway through the quartet the music started to brake up badly. I nervously placed another CD in the tray which played faultlessly.

At £7, keep - the quintet was reason of purchase - or return. I decided on the latter. It could not have been easier. A short message to seller then on "My eBay" a pre-paid tracked postage with the return address popped up to print off and tape over the original packing.

I have had three or four defective CDs in a hundred or so. Is this normal? (I purchase mostly 2nd hand) I have not read any comments on GMG on this subject.

Was it bronzing, scratches or a factory (pressing) flaw?

I only encountered bronzed CDs three times, but it depends on which labels you buy. It's a thing of the past, but can be encountered when buying used
Factory flaws only a couple of times (say five).

With 2nd hand things get trickier... 
Sometimes it's just dust or finger prints, and a piece of paper kitchen towel with a alcohol based spray is a good fix.

I hate scratches... How on earth do people scratch their CDs?
Unless the disc is not always either in the case or in the player?  ::)
This why I never buy "good condition", but new or like new.
If it is something I really want, I'll take a chance with "very good"...

Q

Jo498

Quote from: Que on June 07, 2020, 01:45:51 AM
Was it bronzing, scratches or a factory (pressing) flaw?

I only encountered bronzed CDs three times, but it depends on which labels you buy. It's a thing of the past, but can be encountered when buying used
Used or new old stock. It's probably about 8 years ago now but I once got a sealed disc (Tactus) that was bronzed. It had probably remained sealed for about 20 years in some warehouse or so...

Quote
I hate scratches... How on earth do people scratch their CDs?
Unless the disc is not always either in the case or in the player?  ::)
CDs are quite robust, so I also wonder how some people manage to scratch them so badly. But there are some cases and apparently also some player (older car players?) that can produce scratches, I believe.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Irons

Quote from: Que on June 07, 2020, 01:45:51 AM
Was it bronzing, scratches or a factory (pressing) flaw?

I only encountered bronzed CDs three times, but it depends on which labels you buy. It's a thing of the past, but can be encountered when buying used
Factory flaws only a couple of times (say five).

With 2nd hand things get trickier... 
Sometimes it's just dust or finger prints, and a piece of paper kitchen towel with a alcohol based spray is a good fix.

I hate scratches... How on earth do people scratch their CDs?
Unless the disc is not always either in the case or in the player?  ::)
This why I never buy "good condition", but new or like new.
If it is something I really want, I'll take a chance with "very good"...

Q

Not bronzing, this seemed a convenient place to post query. The Bax CD appeared fine without scratches so assume a manufacturing fault but admit not attempting cleaning with alcohol, maybe I should have tried that. I understand all players are equipped with error correction but I wonder with error correction working at full tilt the quality of sound suffers? My knowledge of digital recording technology is minuscule.
A guess-estimate of CDs on my shelves was conservative, at least double that, so buying used roughly 2% purchased are unplayable due to faults. I would double that at least buying vinyl. 
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

accmacmus

Flac and (if possible) offsite copies.
Some photographers are pretty serious about so copying/taking inspiration from their backup system a good idea.

Pohjolas Daughter

Irons,

I ran into problems with one eBay seller (a big small company if that makes sense) which would auction off CDs claiming that they were 'as new' (or other such words); I received one 2-CD set from them and realized that they were re-surfacing them (basically taking a thin layer off of the shiny side).  The way that I discovered this:  the first CD was pristine looking and the second was badly scratched in a number of areas!  Some CDs that have had this 'polishing method' done to them will play fine, but it can also vary depending upon how sensitive your CD player is.

Note:  depending upon how deep the scratch is, even this method may not work.

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Jo498

I overall had very few bad used CDs among the many hundreds or even thousands I have bought over the years. Sure, I got around 3-5 bronzed ones (but with the very even kind of bronzing one could hardly blame the seller as there are some discs that look like that without being bronzed) and a few scratched or dirty ones (that would play anyway most of the time). I was probably more frequently angry about broken cases (if non-standard cases that are not easily to replace) or booklets in a bad state. And with many sellers the "like new, very good, good" is not very helpful. I have received "good" ones that were like new and supposedly "very good" ones that showed marks or had pages of booklets missing etc. The professional resellers buy them in bulk and cheap part time labor puts them online; they are not going to spend a lot of time writing descriptions...
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Irons

Quote from: Jo498 on June 08, 2020, 07:27:08 AM
I overall had very few bad used CDs among the many hundreds or even thousands I have bought over the years. Sure, I got around 3-5 bronzed ones (but with the very even kind of bronzing one could hardly blame the seller as there are some discs that look like that without being bronzed) and a few scratched or dirty ones (that would play anyway most of the time). I was probably more frequently angry about broken cases (if non-standard cases that are not easily to replace) or booklets in a bad state. And with many sellers the "like new, very good, good" is not very helpful. I have received "good" ones that were like new and supposedly "very good" ones that showed marks or had pages of booklets missing etc. The professional resellers buy them in bulk and cheap part time labor puts them online; they are not going to spend a lot of time writing descriptions...

A CD may play fine on one player and not on another.
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

Jo498

Sure. But most of us have probably at least two or three players, including computer drives.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Irons

#30
Quote from: Jo498 on June 08, 2020, 07:27:08 AM
I overall had very few bad used CDs among the many hundreds or even thousands I have bought over the years. Sure, I got around 3-5 bronzed ones (but with the very even kind of bronzing one could hardly blame the seller as there are some discs that look like that without being bronzed) and a few scratched or dirty ones (that would play anyway most of the time). I was probably more frequently angry about broken cases (if non-standard cases that are not easily to replace) or booklets in a bad state. And with many sellers the "like new, very good, good" is not very helpful. I have received "good" ones that were like new and supposedly "very good" ones that showed marks or had pages of booklets missing etc. The professional resellers buy them in bulk and cheap part time labor puts them online; they are not going to spend a lot of time writing descriptions...

I must be unlucky. Compared with most if not all forum members my CD collection is miniscule and yet here we go again! Seriously miffed to receive yesterday a full priced Dutton CD (new but not purchased from Dutton) still in shrink rap in a bronzed condition. I will get my money back but I am unable to listen to a piece I was looking forward to when I wanted to.
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

aligreto

Quote from: Irons on September 11, 2020, 12:38:46 AM
I must be unlucky. Compared with most if not all forum members my CD collection is miniscule and yet here we go again! Seriously miffed to receive yesterday a full priced Dutton CD (new but not purchased from Dutton) still in shrink rap in a bronzed condition. I will get my money back but I am unable to listen to a piece I was looking forward to when I wanted to.




That certainly is unlucky and worrying. Do you know the date of manufacture of the CD?

Jo498

Maybe you are, but you are also in the UK which was the main "basis" of bronzed discs and labels like ASV and Hyperion were among the most afflicted. I also once got an old stock still sealed disc from Tactus (Italy) that was already bronzed. And I once or twice forgot to never buy old used Hyperion or ASV discs and got 2-3 bronzed ones.
There are other ways discs can be faulty but if someone acquired a huge collection in the last 10 years mostly on the basis of these huge cheap boxes with dozens or >100 discs that are all fairly recent, he will not have any bronzed discs because this particular fault only concerns discs that are ca. 30 years old.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

vers la flamme

I got an old Hyperion disc recently that was totally bronze, but played just fine. Is this abnormal?

Jo498

No idea. The additional problem is that some hyperion discs do regularly (i.e. without being "bronzed") the bronze-ish color. That's why it is often very difficult to see. Of the handful of bronzed discs I have seen only one or two had the typical discoloration pattern with much darker zones, all the others were so evenly and slightly discolored that it might as well have been the real proper color.
Usually the playback problems start on the last track(s). My first bronzed disc was Mozart's c minor mass with Fricsay on DG resonance. For a long time, I could still play all but the last one or two tracks.
I'd rip/copy the disc ASAP and then you will probably be fine. Or maybe ripping/copying will already exhibit some reading problems.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Irons on September 11, 2020, 12:38:46 AM
I must be unlucky. Compared with most if not all forum members my CD collection is miniscule and yet here we go again! Seriously miffed to receive yesterday a full priced Dutton CD (new but not purchased from Dutton) still in shrink rap in a bronzed condition. I will get my money back but I am unable to listen to a piece I was looking forward to when I wanted to.
Sorry to hear that Irons.  Out of curiosity, is the whole CD unlistenable?  Or as Jo had mentioned, 'just' the last few tracks?

Best wishes,

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

aligreto

Quote from: Jo498 on September 11, 2020, 03:42:47 AM
No idea. The additional problem is that some hyperion discs do regularly (i.e. without being "bronzed") the bronze-ish color. That's why it is often very difficult to see. Of the handful of bronzed discs I have seen only one or two had the typical discoloration pattern with much darker zones, all the others were so evenly and slightly discolored that it might as well have been the real proper color.
Usually the playback problems start on the last track(s). My first bronzed disc was Mozart's c minor mass with Fricsay on DG resonance. For a long time, I could still play all but the last one or two tracks.
I'd rip/copy the disc ASAP and then you will probably be fine. Or maybe ripping/copying will already exhibit some reading problems.

That is good advice because, in my experience, the deterioration is gradual. So, it may be fine today but in say a year's time it may be unplayable. I would certainly rip it now to be on the safe side.

Irons

Quote from: aligreto on September 11, 2020, 05:43:07 AM
That is good advice because, in my experience, the deterioration is gradual. So, it may be fine today but in say a year's time it may be unplayable. I would certainly rip it now to be on the safe side.

You have hit nail on head, aligreto. I have since discovered the vendor is in fact Dutton trading under another name on eBay. After emailing them I received a prompt reply informing me they sell "thousands" of discs without issue and to return CD and they will "test" it - by playing I guess. If a defect is discovered they will forward me a replacement. As I pointed out in my reply the CD will quite possibly play OK but that is not the point. After paying 13 quid + postage (+ postage sending back) I do not wish to own an item with questionable longevity and I am definitely not prepared to transfer to CDR or similar.

I will post the hopefully satisfactory outcome of this. 
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

aligreto

Quote from: Irons on September 11, 2020, 07:01:51 AM
You have hit nail on head, aligreto. I have since discovered the vendor is in fact Dutton trading under another name on eBay. After emailing them I received a prompt reply informing me they sell "thousands" of discs without issue and to return CD and they will "test" it - by playing I guess. If a defect is discovered they will forward me a replacement. As I pointed out in my reply the CD will quite possibly play OK but that is not the point. After paying 13 quid + postage (+ postage sending back) I do not wish to own an item with questionable longevity and I am definitely not prepared to transfer to CDR or similar.

I will post the hopefully satisfactory outcome of this.

You are quite correct and they will know this. It will be interesting to see how they ultimately respond to you. Keep us informed.

Irons

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on September 11, 2020, 03:52:30 AM
Sorry to hear that Irons.  Out of curiosity, is the whole CD unlistenable?  Or as Jo had mentioned, 'just' the last few tracks?

Best wishes,

PD

Did not play it, P. Second-hand is different but this is a new item. It will play perfectly for all I know but for how long?
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.