CD quality reduction in general?

This is something I hoped wouldn't happen. The player at Casa Buchanan has a CD quality indicator and it appears that the quality of more new CDs is markedly reduced compared with older CD production.
The latest Who Live At Hull Geffen USA is a case in point - it is interpolating from the very start of the disc and gets worse as the disc goes on to audible "mistracking" as the numbers slowly but inevitably increase across the disc eventually leading to skipping. This is far more common in recent discs than older discs played again to check (indeed, the Studer passes the "tracking" torture tests of the Pierre Verany very nicely thank you).
Older CD plants in need of maintenance and unlikely to get it? Or are there other steps in CD production that can cause this also.

 

John, I thought of you when I saw this photo.......

 

Tee hee - I must admit that is part of the reason why the Stax Omega 2 Mk 1 went up for sale a couple of years back - squashed head and melting ears. The Sigmas are a far less arduous headphone for warmer climes, despite allowing the kids and their friends endless amusement - they are what appears on my scone in the avatar.

 

I've been wondering about this very topic myself. Granted, I've got a cheap-ass CD changer but it has served me well enough for close to 10 yrs. or so now. Lately, I've been noticing that not all but some, brand new flawless-looking CD's have been skipping and mistracking and never in the same spots but usually within the same "region" of the disc! Strange, because I never have this problem with older discs. I am working on getting an oppo for the holidays, so I am hoping it will solve all of my problems.

 

Interestingly enough, Japanese CDs seem to be virtually flawless (and it's not a surprise there), but Australian CD production is very bad. The worst companies in the USA are MCA, Sony (who used to be flawless), and whoever presses CDs for the King Crimson Collectors CDs. EMI produced a few substandard CDs in the Beatles stereo box set, whereas the mono set is flawless.

 

to me, it is better to focus on who, rather than just where the discs come from. Most US CDs from the majors come from: Sony DADC in USA (Sony BMG, EMI, and Universal) or Mexico, Cinram USA (old WEA Mfg. plant) (WEA). The rest of the companies left (JVC, etc.) press for independent labels or other uses (books on disc, commerical stuff, etc.).

I have gotten more poorly packaged and scratched (due to paper sleeves or digipaks) or poorly printed labels in the last 18 months than I have since buying CDs from beginning of the format. Most have been Sony DADC USA or Mexico discs, regardless of label. I did get one recent WEA disc that was made at Cinram that looked almost like a bootleg until I exchanged it, but I haven't bought many recent Cinram made discs.

Both Sony DADC and WEA used to make very good discs. Not sure what's going on.

 

Agreed. There was a run of the new Sony Jimi Hendrix CDs that wouldn't even play at all. Spun forwards, then backwards, then stopped. In the old days, this wouldn't have happened. And replacing these faulty CDs often just gives you more of the same.

 

The worst CD's in my experience over the years, have been the old 'Polygram' pressed CD's, whether manufactured in West Germany, or the USA. I'm talking mostly about the ones that had aluminum hubs. The ones that have been bad, usually have wobble issues. They have also proven to be some of the most difficult CD's to rip to FLAC on my hard drive. The only other CD's I have issues with when it comes to ripping to FLAC, are the old JVC pressed CD's (again, whether it be Japan, or USA), and coincidentally they are usually the ones pressed for MCA titles. I haven't had hardly any problems with newer CD's in recent years.

 

I've never bothered to keep track of what CDs (by label or by year) are more difficult to rip or are slower to rip in general. And I don't archive the logs. Bummer. I wonder if newer CDs are slower to rip than older CDs? There are some software utilities that can measure BLER (block error rate), but they're commercial and require specific brands/models of CDR drives. I've never been able to measure BLER for any of my CDs.

 

One thing for sure is that your Stax don't suffer from any blur error.

 

LOL.

 

Maybe the CD players have gotten worse in their capability to read discs?

 

Thee CD player is the same and had a replacement CD drive inserted about 3 years ago. It passes all reasonable tracking tests on the CD mentioned above too. I think CD manufacture quality has taken a big dive recently.

 

I first started having issues with official release music CD's around 2007. Prior to that I had never had any skip. A few CD's I have purchased after 2007 have developed skipping issues during playback. I think something has changed and they are pushing out cheaper CD's with higher fail rates.

 

I still remember the days when a CD manufactured in Europe, The US and Japan looked like something well made, that care was taken to manufacture it. That was the 80's and the mid 90's. In the mid 90's I started to see CDs with inconsistances (under an halogen light) on the aluminium plating, but they played without a problem (I'm extremely careful with my CDs, DVDs and BDs). Later on, another batch of CDs showed up made in Italy and Spain (I'm Spanish and live in Spain, I must say CD manufacturing here is terrible) and some eastern countries.I must say first say that I buy 99% of mu music on line, mostly from amazon (mainly US) and play.com
I avoid certain record labels by manufacturing country: I don't want anything from the Waner Music Group from the US, Cinram USA (Ex-Wea Manufacturing) are dreadful, among the worst I've seen from a major label.
Sony/BMG and also now Universal music as Sony makes their CDs, used to be very very good back in day, you hold one Sony CD on your hand and kept it under an halogen light and you had the impresion that you had some wel made, robust and with care, the aliminium plating was extremely even. Not anymore.
Waner Manufacturing in Germany makes pretty good CDs in my opinion, also from Germany, I like CDs made by Sonopress, they made good golden (or gold) SACDs too.
I avoid any release by Virgin Europe, they are not made by EMI Uden (Holland) anymore, which wasn't very good by the way, but now they got worse as they manufacture their CDs in Romania or the likes, the CDs looks cheap.

I ordered some month ago the Gattaca soundtrack (I've been a fan of both, the movie and the soundtrack since the beginning) for a friend from amazon Spain and he got one of those Romanian or whatever discs, when we compared it (again, under a halogen light) my Dutch EMI Uden looked OK (a 1997 original), my US manufactured by EMI Manufacturing looked pretty good and my Japanese EMI-Toshiba from 1997 looked like something bought at Tiffany's.

Do some of those esoteric so called format from Japan make sense? It dependends. If you're looking for something more than CD has to offer, then you're wrong as they are red book CDs after all. If your looking for a well made mostly error-free CD, I'd say yes. I have Van Halen's A Different Kind Of Truth on both the De luxe US release and the SHM-CD japanese edition. The US CD (made by DADC) looks cheap and flimsy, the Japanese SHM-CD looks rock.solid.

 

Like most of the music industry regionally, Japan's CD pressers have consolidated to a small handful. Sony DADC Japan (old CBS/Sony plant), Victor-Toppan (old JVC plant, now a JVC-Toppan Joint venture), and Memory-Tech (Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim plus old Sanyo and Toshiba-EMI plants acquired) make most of the major label CDs in Japan today, with some small indie plants amking the rest.

Like most markets, the remaining CD plants make primarily video discs (DVD, Blu-Ray) as their money makers.

 

I have what?.....something like 6000 to 7000 at least. Can't be bothering exavtly counting them. I still buy at a large rate. 20 or more of them at a time. YET, I am amazed at the fail rate, people are reporting here. I have had no more than 10 max. in number - fail- and get returned at the most - in the entire time, I have been collecting CDs.And they all were .....before the last 15 years. I am fully alert to any faults / bad engineering etc.
I never buy dubious crappy brand or second-hand CDs, even if there was some particular material on say one, that I may perhaps want. I never ever touch the CD surfaces. I always check for dust flecks, before playing.. If they were, "a slight fog breadth" on the disc and a slight gentle touch -off of the flecks with a 1st grade cotton wool ball. I spin a CD lens cleaner disc in the CD machine from time to time. If CDs are in paper or cardboard envelopes, always gently squeeze the corners to remove or replace a disc to avoid any possivle scuffing.
Plus...I expect '"brickbats,'" mentioning this.... I 'Green' the edges of the CDs. Under a halogen light - the light projecting / reflecting off the CD disc at a dark ceiling.....the increased light reflection ( and also , one supposes ,when played by a CD laser - in the CD machine) is greatly intensified.

Any way I do not have a problem of CDs skipping or refusing to continuously play any disc.

 

I have been railing about this issue the past few years. The current state of CD production from the major labels in the U.S. has gotten horrific. The average quality of a new CD I buy is worse now than the worst possible CD made from the '90s or earlier. The plastic substrate is thinner and weighs less now, and new CDs will often have imperfections along their inner holes and outer edges.

The corporate cost cutting and moving much of the production to Mexico has seriously hurt the quality of new CDs. The only CDs still produced to the older standards are coming from Japan. Even the European issues are starting to show some of the same problems that American-made CDs started having in the 2000s.

 

The primary reason why I shop for mostly 2nd hand CD's is the poor quality of most of the new CD's - overspray, thin discs, flimsy jewel cases, scratched discs etc etc. The heyday for CD manufacturing quality wise IMHO was the early 90's.

The current state of affairs seems to be the result of a format in its later stages of life. I remember records suffering the same fate in the late 80's - thin and flimsy. The CD is not special anymore and companies taking no pride in their product.

The common atrtitude of most is "well who buys CD's anyway?"

 

This all sounds very much like what the manufacturer's were doing before they tried to get rid of vinyl. Reground vinyl sometimes including bits of label, poor mastering as well as slogans such as "perfect sound forever" in describing cd sound!

 

Overpopularity of card sleeve editions = more scratched discs. Not counting Jap card sleeves which i find always have a nice inner. Otherwise, i seem to have been lucky. Haven't noticed any decline in quality. Some jewel-housed discs are also scratched, and this has always been the case. I put it down to bad packaging procedures in factory.

 

I must be doing something wrong because I haven't noticed manufacturing issues with new CDs.

In all seriousness, I have encountered a fair number of new CDs with scratches, particularly discs that come in sleeves as opposed to jewel cases. I place the blame on the handling of the discs in the plant and the packaging, but not the process to manufacture the discs.

 

The Cds that I have noticed with poor quality have no apparent surface blemishes.

 

Do they rip accurately?

 

I have experienced this on a few newer releases myself. In my case they might play okay or skip occcasionally. Those same CDs may have issues ripping, or not. I wonder if the stamped image has less depth and /or the metal layer is thinner? Maybe the stamped "bits" have fuzzy edges.