The Advantages of Gold CDs

Posted by: Hot Rats on 02 April 2010

I have recently had an opportunity to listen to some audiophile recordings marketed by MFSL and DCC and have been wondering whether or not their are any sonic benefits to using gold discs.

Wikipedia offers the following information regarding these discs:

"A gold CD is one in which gold is used in place of the super purity aluminium commonly used as the reflective coating on ordinary CDs.

The gold coats more evenly and reacts with oxygen slower, thus reducing CD rot and providing greater longevity.

The high fidelity usually associated with gold CDs is actually a result of the remastering process and not of the gold coating itself. Gold CDs can be played in any CD player. Blank gold CD-Rs are also available. They can be recorded in any CD recorder and played in any CD player."

I thought the sound of the CDs that I heard was impressive, particularly 'Late For The Sky' and 'The Pretender' by Jackson Browne. If the information posted at Wikipedia is correct then the benefits of these discs is solely in the mastering process and the material used in the media only promotes greater longevity.

Can anyone shed any more light on this (No pun intended!)
Posted on: 02 April 2010 by u5227470736789439
I have nine gold layered CDs, which make up the three volumes [of three CDs each] of the Elgar Edition issued by EMI in the early nineties. This was a preproduction run for critics and illustrious people associated with getting this exceptional [now deleted apart from some individal discs, and a complete MP3 download] issue released.

It is a clue that I was "given" these! I worked hard with others lobbying for it at the time. I guess that these would be worth a great deal more to collectors than the standard commercial Alluminium backed issues available to the public, but I could never sell them!

They sound identical to the normal commercial realease, but they look nice!



ATB from George
Posted on: 02 April 2010 by MilesSmiles
While in the early days of gold discs the surface argument was used in marketing, it soon became just an added tool to distinguish audiophile remastering and support the higher price point. IMHO it's the mastering and not the gold surface that makes the difference as it comes to MoFi's and DCCs. Early MoFi's and DCCs were on silver and sound just as good due to the outstanding mastering.

Other companies like Cisco just adopted the gold format for their more expensive remastering.
Posted on: 02 April 2010 by BigH47
I've decided not to pay any premiums for these MFSL etc type discs , I can't hear enough if any difference to warrant the extra cost, and to have a MFSL disc start to skip for no apparent reason(maybe a thin label coating) is another reason.
If they come up cheap, which is unlikely as they attract a huge undeserved premium IMO then I may buy.
Posted on: 02 April 2010 by MilesSmiles
Regarding longevity: There have been a few studies spanning regulard CDs, CDRs, DVDs etc and they did indeed put the longest shelf life on gold CDs.
Posted on: 02 April 2010 by Joe Bibb
quote:
Originally posted by BigH47:
I've decided not to pay any premiums for these MFSL etc type discs , I can't hear enough if any difference to warrant the extra cost,


Pity. Some of them are better by quite a margin, certainly more improvement than a typical box upgrade. Source first and all that. It's a case of researching which are best. But don't limit it to expensive discs, some of the masterings sitting in bargain bins slaughter the current versions.

Joe