'Rusty' CDs

Posted by: DelR on 29 April 2012

While ripping my CDs to NAS I have come across a number of rusty CDs, as expected all manufactured by PDO. They look more golden than my Mobile Fidelity CDs!

However the only one so far unplayable has been Peek-a-boo CD single by Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Is this affecting many people?

Posted on: 29 April 2012 by Gale 401

Try burning the S&B CD to a new disc.

Type CD rot into the search,top left of the page .

Lots to read.

Stu.

Posted on: 29 April 2012 by Guido Fawkes

CD Rot occurs in older disks. The aluminium layer that reflects the light of the player’s laser is separated from the CD label by a thin layer of lacquer. If the manufacturer applied the lacquer improperly, air can penetrate to oxidise the aluminium, just like iron rusts in air.

When the discs were cut the aluminum layer was too close to the edge of the disk and not sealed properly exposing it to oxidation. The index on a CD is on the inside the disk; disks are read from the centre out. With CD Rot, the last tracks are affected first. Another cause was labelling inks were chemically active even after UV curing, which interfered with the reflective layer causing more problems. The result is the CD will have lots of background noise., which rises and falls with the volume of the music and gets worse over time.

CD manufacturers changed their manufacturing process and materials so it should not happen with newer disks.

Get ripping and make a back-up and you'll be safe from such issues.

Posted on: 30 April 2012 by Richard Dane

I have a few PDO pressed discs that are beyond recovery. I'm told that they will still be replaced for free where replacements exist.

Of more concern are the number of discs I have where there's creeping "black death", with black blotches and veins appearing, mostly from the inner and outer edges. Mostly it affects discs I bought back in the '80s.

Posted on: 30 April 2012 by EJS

I've had one disc affected by fungus (white spidery veins, around inner and outer edges), and a couple of older ones are showing 'pin holes' in the metal surface. Here's the good news: in all cases, I've been able to make a copy in iTunes / AIFF and burn a new disc without apparent loss in sound quality.

Cheers,

Posted on: 02 May 2012 by Ade

I've just recently finished ripping 1300+ CDs for my nd5xs, and have come across quite a few defects on some discs. I am using pbpoweramp to rip, with ultra secure mode, and I've lost probably 20 discs in total. Some discs had obvious flaws - a couple had pin holes through the disc, making them unplayable. I found 3 or 4 discs that had massive amounts of bad frames while ripping them. Interestingly these were discs from the last couple of years. No real signs of damage, I've now purchased these CDs again and got perfect rips, so a little puzzled. I had 3 or 4 CDs I purchased in 1988 when I first got a cd player. They were so badly scratched and stained, I nearly didn't bother trying to rip them, but to my surprise they ripped perfectly 1st time! The rest were cdr's, not played in 7 or 8 years and they wouldn't even read. I'm so much happier now I've ripped all my CDs and got them backed up - no more scratched CDs for me

Posted on: 02 May 2012 by winkyincanada

Originally Posted by Ade:

were so badly scratched and stained, I nearly didn't bother trying to rip them, but to my surprise they ripped perfectly 1st time! ...........I'm so much happier now I've ripped all my CDs and got them backed up - no more scratched CDs for me

Two points:

A friend's toddlers rendered his ENTIRE CD collection completely unplayable by his CD player. But he successfully ripped them all (using iTunes) and now has access to all his music.

And yes, not worrying about CD care is a big plus of hard-drive based music.

Posted on: 02 May 2012 by EJS

Originally Posted by winkyincanada:

And yes, not worrying about CD care is a big plus of hard-drive based music.

As long as you keep back-ups - which is not so much a worry as a chore. I've settled for two backups: one via Raid1, and one manual on a drive that is stored separately.

I hardly run directly from drive, and prefer discs. I've had to burn three discs to replace damaged originals, and agree that the ability to do so scores high on the 'peace of mind' factor.