CD fungus

Posted by: EJS on 14 December 2011

Scary... found a CD in my shelf collection, which shows the early signs of a fungal infection. Looks like condensation or clouding on the inside, around the rim. You can clearly see the strains coming in from the side of the disc. Hope this is the result of faulty manufacturing?

FWIW, it's an EMI CD from the mid 90s. So far, other discs are unaffected. It was kept in the original jewel case, on an open shelf but not directly exposed to sunlight...

As it's the only one, I re-ordered it new, via an Amazon seller (it's out of print).

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by hego99

Had it happened to one CD only so far.

Also called "CD rot".

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by GraemeH

Don't worry, it's not contageous. Some, very few, early pressings are affected. G

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by BigH47

If use the search function, there were several threads on this, I seem to remember one of the producers/distributers were replacing "rotting" CDs.

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by EJS

Hmmm this is different than CD rot (the brown-coloured bronzing rot that affected some early discs) - my disc shows a white substance along the rim of the metal, beneath the lacquer.

Cheers,

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by BigH47

Do they still play? If so CD-R them soonest.

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by hego99

Rot/fungus and bronzing are slightly different beasts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_bronzing

The disc I have that got rot became completely unplayable.

The entire surface was affected, a "swirling" pattern all over the disc.

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by Steven Shaw

I had that with a Sex Pistols CD. I tried polishing it with something slightly abrasive (I can't remember what it was but it was meant for cars) which did the trick enough to rip it.

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by hego99

I guess there may be two types of rot/fungus, which both are material aging:

- oxidizing of metallic reflective layer (rot stopping it from being as reflective as intended)

- aging of outer plastic layer (rot of plastic layer stopping it from being transparent for the laser)

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by EJS

It ripped OK, the contamination has not yet reached the data layer. When the replacement arrives, I'll dump the disc and its packaging. So far I haven't been able to find it on other discs, and I've checked a fair few.

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by Steve J

Oh the joys of CD's that were supposed to last a lifetime. When they're b'gger'd they don't play, gone forever. A bit of fungus and it's RIP, pardon the pun. I bought a vinyl LP today from a charity shop. It had been stored in a damp place and was affected with lots of spots of fungus. One clean on my KM RCM and I now have an excellent Blue Note album I had been looking for.

Lesson: vinyl was around for many decades before CD's, will be around for many more after CD's are gone, and sound better.

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by Guido Fawkes

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by TomK

Ho hum. We'll just have to disagree on all that won't we. I've never had to return a cd 20 times because it was so noisy.

Nearly 2000 cds, some more than 24 years old and not a single problem.

Here we go again........

Posted on: 15 December 2011 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

CD rot has nothing on the smell of a musty album cover. On the other hand, my cassettes haven't developed any odour over the years.

Posted on: 16 December 2011 by winkyincanada

Originally Posted by Steve J:

Lesson: vinyl was around for many decades before CD's, will be around for many more after CD's are gone, and sound better.

The one LP I had that was affected by fungus was theoretically playable, but far too noisy to be pleasurable. On the other hand, I have had CDs since the first year of release and not one has become unplayable or in any way less than flawless (not the recording - the CD itself). Admittedly I did have one that wasn't playable due to milky plastic, but that was from new. I just took it back.

Posted on: 16 December 2011 by EJS

It took 2 mins to rip and about 10 mins to burn a CD-R recorded at 4x, on MBP / iTunes, which sounds indistinguishable from the original. In theory, as long as a CD can be copied this way, no big harm done... It would be comforting to know that CDs indeed would last a lifetime, but alas once you've spotted a black swan there's no going back.