Topic: Bronzing of CD's.

[hvbias]

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.

[Que]

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]

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...

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.

[Irons]

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. 

[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

[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...

[Irons]

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.

[Jo498]

Sure. But most of us have probably at least two or three players, including computer drives.