Has anyone ever returned a CD as defective...

...when it actually was just a bad remastering job?

I'm curious. I've only had two CD's myself, that I bought and thought that the remastering/quality was so bad that it must have been a defective copy, and that if I exchanged it, that it would be okay. Of course, I soon realized that all copies will be the same and that I would just have to live will the crappy sound.

The first was Bob Dylan's "Nashville Skyline", way back in the late 80's, when I was a young 'un. The sound of it was (is) so low-fi and muffled (not what I was used to with CD's back then), that I tried to take it back and exchange it (for the same title), hoping that it was just a fluke. Well, it wasn't. Much more recently, Red Hot Chili Peppers "Californication", which I actually ended up getting 3 different copies of- still can't believe they ever released that CD sounding so bad. But, of course, all copies sounded the same.
Oh, if I had been able to get another copy at the time , I would have returned my MoFi "Who's Next" to try and get another copy that didn't sound like total garbage! Absolutely nothing on it sounded good, but by the time I blew $30 bucks on it, it was already rare. What a sorry excuse for a gold CD, but then, reading this board, I now know why it sounds like that.. (but I still don't know why MoFi ever, EVER thought about releasing that disc the way it turned out ! )

Anybody ever have a store/website not take back something, just because you thought it sounded poor?

nashreed

 

I've never returned a CD because of poor sound, but I have returned a CD because a hair (eyelash) was pressed into the plastic of the CD. Needless to say, the CD skipped...

 

The Who - Tommy (remix).

Full of digital clicks. Brought it back to Best Buy, the next copy had the same problem. E-mailed MCA, which I don't believe went anywhere. Eventually (out of the blue) got e-mail from Bob Ludwig saying the clicks were on the digital tapes given to him to master. Seems as if Jon Astley did *something* between the mixing (by Andy Macpherson) and mastering (by Bob Ludwig) stages to the tapes.

 

I think this falls in to the category of:

"Things that make you go, hummmmmmm."

 

In the early days of CD some of the discs seemed to have pinholes and they skipped when played. Unless you own a high end player or CD transport it's hard to know if its your player or the disc that has a problem. I believe that some discs are marginal and will only play properly in certain players, likewise a well aligned player with a good laser is will be able to read the discs that are marginal. Shouldn't the difference between a 'defective' disc and one that is simply badly recorded or mastered be obvious? It's a little trickier in the analog domain, but not that much.

 

I returned a Jackson Browne disc because it simply wouldn't play on my cd player. After two returns of the same disc Circuit city returned my money. I also returned JT's Stand Up. It sounded so horrible I became angry at the record company for even trying to sell it. Circuit City to their credit returned my money. I later paid the big bucks for the Mofi UDI, which sounds terrific and well worth the money.

 

The First Biob Dylan album on CD. One of the songs - I don't remember which, had a bad dropout so I returned it for another. That had the same defect so I figured it was going to be on all of them. I don't know if this ever got corrected.

 

I have returned a couple of CDs (very few though).

My Rhino Nuggets CD had a very annoying series of "glitches" on the song Journey To The Center Of The Mind that made it unlistenable (to me). The next copy was MUCH improved but, still NOT perfect (I kept it)!

Sad to say, I had to return my (DCC) 10cc CD 10cc/Sheet Music because of major problems with the bonus track - Waterfall. Different CD player than my FIRST return, so that was not an issue. Had to choose a different title because there were no more 10cc CDs. Got Yellow Submarine Songtrack in it's place (sigh!).

CDs are NOT perfekt!

 

I returned David Bowie's "Young Americans" on EMI Sound & Vision (Released on Ryko in USA) in the early 90's due to a loud scratching/screeching noise on the "Young Americans" track at about 1min15secs. I later discovered that all copies were the same and it was a production fault.



I think in general I have less problems now than when I first started buying CD's in the 80's....

 

This was the original release. I haven't heard the remaster. I have an extra mofi if you really want to hear right.

 

Are you sure the CD skipped? Perhaps it only blinked.

 

I've only had to return two.

One was a copy of Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly" that wouldn't play.

The other was The best o Cadence Records vol. 2 on Varese Vintage. It had a weird echoey/hash sound. It was my Sony player that wouldn't play it but it's the CD player I mainly use, so I got rid of it. I have a "Peter Frampton Comes Alive" CD that does the same thing but I still have it.

 

Best Of Sting Fields Of Gold

Bought the 1998-99? remaster to replace my original 1994 release only to find that it sounded brighter and harsher PLUS they changed the track lineup deleting some cuts and adding different cuts. Did not change the cd graphics to let people know of the changes. Returned it and later found the original 1994 issue again.

 

As long as it wasn't the dreaded...wink...wink..nudge...nudge...

 

I returned the Who Sell Out because of skipping near the end of the disc - no visible faults.
Many years ago, I corrected an unplayable disc by reaming out the centre hole - I could see that the disc was not seating on the spindle correctly as the hole was a little out of spec (Studer top loader allows viewing of the CD through a pane) Derek & the Dominoes "In Concert" on Polygram now played perfectly.

 

Like Nashreed, I also got rid of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cd Californication due to the poor sound quality not because the disc was bad.

My The Who Sells Out also had a skip on it caused by a manufacturing defect which I was alerted about via ICE magazine's CD Watchdog column. At that time I hadn't played the entire cd through but when I read about the defect, there it was on the disc.

I have to say that cds have been a great technology. I would say they are 99% goof-free. I own a lot of cds and I can't recall hearing a skipping cd in my collection for years now.

CD-r's though tend to have problems.


BTW, My first copy of The Eagles/Hotel California on DVDA did go bad on me for some reason. The Multi-Channel tracks worked fine, but the Stereo Mix stated to sound like a bad vinyl record. Clicks and pops were everywhere. Very strange.

I exchanged it at Tower for a new copy.

If you bought this DVDA right as it came, check the Stereo Mix to see if you have one of these defective discs.


JohnG

 

Working in a music store, I get so many people coming in who say that their CD they just bought is defective, when it obviously has been either handled poorly, been played on a crap car system or they just didn't like it (amazing how most of the CD's we have to "exchange" are rap). It's good to hear some legitimate instances. Funny how there's a lot of defective Who CD's (if the Hoffman Forum was a music store, we'd be sending MCA defects by the ton !
I guess I've been lucky, in that I can honestly say I haven't ever had a CD skip on me, so other than the two examples I gave, I've been a pretty firm believer in the quality of CD's, so that I'm pretty skeptical at all CD defect stories. I've had CD's I've bought used that have been scratched pretty good, (only because the music was rare), and they play. Of course, I've seen CD's with the wrong music and the disturbing CD rot that seems to infect a lot of import EMI CD's...

nashreed

 

I had to return a defective Gordon Lightfoot UA Collection to my local FYE (then Record Town) as Rich Man's Spiritual couldn't play in my main CD player at the time (The Samsung which I no longer have) and it never played in my CD-ROM drive, but it played in my portable CD player so I returned the Lightfoot and bought Don Williams's "I Turn The Page" by special order at the same store as a refund. I would later see the Lightfoot at Columbia House for cheaper than I paid for it at Record Town so I ordered it from Columbia House and the club copy wasn't and still isn't defective. I bought a copy of Conway Twitty's "Silver Anniversary Collection" used and it had a barely visable scratch that caused one track on the CD to skip, and it sounded worse when the store tried to fix it so in exchange, I got Olivia Newton-John's "Back With a Heart." I got a used copy of Conway Twitty 20 Greatest Hits which wasn't and still isn't defective later on. I had bought Petula Clark's GNP Crescendo comp which does have poor mastering due to damaged master tape copies used so I could hear the music and when I saw that the Hip-O comp was being released, I listened to Downtown on the GNP again and a Oldies on CD/Both Sides Now review mentions major dropouts on Downtown due to damaged tapes. I had sold the GNP to my local used CD shop and special ordered the Hip-O at the same time and when I got the Hip-O, I noticed an improvement in sound quality in Downtown and throughout the disc.

 

I returned the German pressing of Hot Rocks 1 by the Stones. I told the clerk at Strawberries it was defective, and they gave me a new one. I thought the bit of static on 19th Nervous Breakdown was a defect. Of course, the new disc they gave me had the same flaw.

 

Yeah, when I worked at a record store, a college basketball player with a reputation as a "gunner" for the local team, the University of Kentucky, used to bring in the most beat up CDs I ever saw, claiming they were "defective". He was used to the star treatment, and was somewhat taken aback when I asked him, in my most smart-assed tone, if he had been using the disc for shooting practice.

 

i bought a sealed fu manchu cd from a disc jockey and it had no cd in it. empty! i never got my momey back because i bought it pretty far away from me and didnt open it till i got home. emailed the record company with no response.

 

...say no more!

 

I got into a phase a while back where I wanted to exchange my box sets for smaller compilations. I bought the 40th Anniversary James Brown double-CD a few years ago, hoping to replace my "Star Time" box. (When do I have time to listen to the whole thing at once? I asked myself.)

Upon hearing the edited versions of songs I had grown accustomed to enjoying in their full length--and then hearing what must have been an entirely different version of "Licking Stick, Licking Sticking," with tons of disturbing echo effects in the background--I quickly returned the double CD to Circuit City. I told them the sound quality was terrible and they credited my account without a hitch. (I was kind of surprised.)

Anyway, hearing that crappy double CD has renewed my appreciation of "Star Time." Today I wouldn't think of parting with it for anything.

Don