Anyone Bought Commercially Released CDs That Seem to BE CD-Rs?

Stored properly vs. improperly, can you please give an example or explanation for which is which? (i.e. how to store them properly and what way would damage them or their lifespan) Also what is the life span of CD-Rs? Do you (or anybody on here) know? And is it definite as word has been that they won't last long, or theory from fear

what

I don't know what happened here with the words coming out crossed out! it should be readable - wtf?!???

 

In Europe it's viable to produce a real glass master CD in pressings of 500 and up. I believe the price is just under 1000 euros for 500 copies in digipak sleeve. Don't know about the quality though.

 

lemme try again - above I wrote the question of what storage way or ways would damage them or their lifespan, for examples.

I don't know what the hell happened when I tried to edit it.

 

Interesting hearing European plants can do that small a run.

 

Which means there is essentially no reason why some well known PD companies such as Acrobat and Retrospective are resorting to CD-R or even licensed reissue labels such as Bear Family using CD-R for their lower demand material, but still, it is better to use the plants for higher demand material.

 

Sunlight makes some dyes fade. In a worst case scenario, direct sunlight can kill a CD-R in a couple of hours. A good stress test might be leaving a disc, say, on the dashboard of your car on a sunny day and see if there is a change of colour after a few days. Humidity is supposedly bad too. To my knowledge, storing the CD-R's in a dark, dry place (a drawer, closet etc.) and not subjecting them to mechanical stress (keeping them in cases or wallets) should be enough. Storing them in an oxygen-less container might be overkill.

 

How could a disc appear to be a CDR?

 

CD with print in 6-sided Digipak- from 100pcs - www.discrepublic.co.uk »

That's one example I've seen - offhand, I don't remember if anybody I know have had CD's pressed there so I can't comment on the quality.

 

I agree with @stetsonic ... A cool, dry place out of the sun and in some kind of protective cover (cases, wallet etc.). I think Case Logic wallets or jewel cases (traditional or slim) are the best. I suspect the sun is the biggest threat to the dyes.

That said, I've had random failures of some discs that were stored at home in cases within 5-10 years. And, I've had some junky brands hold up stored on a car visor for about 10 years. The good news is most of my CD-Rs burned in the 90's are still fine. I recently copied quite a few of them over to a portable hard drive and I was quite pleased they held up.

 

If it wasn't already mentioned. some of the City Boy re-issues were CDRs. Renaissance was the label.

 

That would seem to be true. In fact, even in the US, silver, factory manufactured CDs could be made for a fairly reasonable price as recently as 13 years ago (maybe that has changed in the last few years). I base this on the fact that I was a pretty active member of the Faust list back in 2003, when the Faust "Abzu" disc (https://www.discogs.com/Faust-Abzu/release/1486941) was considered and ultimately manufactured. In the early planning stages, there was talk of presenting the disc on CDR, but Keef Roberts (also an active member of the Faust list at that time), who performed many of the manufacturing and assembly duties, suggested, based on his experience, that a silver, factory-pressed CD could be made as cheaply (or almost as cheaply) as a run of CDRs if as many as 200 (if I recall correctly) discs were requisitioned (possibly less; I once had all of those old emails but they are probably long gone). The idea, at the time, was to make enough copies for commitments from the Faust List, and for various other participants (members of Faust, Andy Wilson, the List Administrator, etc.) so even a run of 200 is probably on the high side based on considerations of how many discs were needed. The original release did end up being on a silver CD, containing 4 different discs, very nicely put together by Keef and friends, and those of us who bought copies were glad we did because, eventually, as so often happens with this type of thing, acrimony developed among several of the most active participants in the project based on various interpretations of verbal agreements, understandings, misunderstandings, rights over the intellectual property, and hurt feelings. There was a "second edition" (or whatever you want to call it) made from extra discs by Keef, but packaged with different, less elaborate (though still very nice) artwork, but the one shown on the Discogs page I have linked to above is the first version, using the spiral bound artwork.

I guess this was a lengthy (but maybe interesting to a few) way of confirming that manufacturing silver discs, even in relatively small runs, has not always been cost prohibitive. There may be other explanations for the use of CDRs by some of these small and large labels. When this post started, I was unsure as to whether certain Sunbeam releases (including Morgen), and a 2013 EMI/Harvest 2 disc reissue of Gravedigger by Janus, that were on CDRs, were legitimate or bootleg. Since then, I have learned that Sunbeam did start using CDRs for some subsequent pressings/issues of discs. I am still not sure whether the Janus "Gravedigger" release is a boot (it sure didn't look like one). Even the guitar player, Colin Orr, was not sure when he replied to an email inquiry I was able to send to him. I do know that there are silver disc versions of the 2CD "Gravedigger" reissue and that sometimes labels release promo copies as CDRs.

 

Renaissance Records was one of the first labels to use CD-Rs for commercial release although in the early years of the label, Renaissance did license from the majors and the majors replicated the CDs, but they had gone bankrupt and have come back as essentially a bootleg label with CD-Rs featuring very poor artwork.

 

not me, but theyer available in markets on street

 

You can order 500 "real" pressed CDs from German plants for about €500-600 in the cheapest variant of digipak, so hardly very expensive. 500 as a minimum order have been available for at least a couple of years, probably longer.

Edit: At this Swedish plant you can order glass mastered CDs from 200 and up. Pressa CD hos MediaPlant till Sveriges absolut bästa pris »

 

And I'm willing to bet that high-quality blanks (read: more expensive) are not the ones being used.

 

500 has been the minimum quantity for a real manufactured CD from plants/agents in the UK for as long as I've been aware - over 20 years.

I recently ordered the 2007 2CD re-issues of 'Shift Work' and 'Extricate' by the Fall (on Universal) new from a reputable online store. Both arrived shrinkwrapped, the former as manufactured CDs as expected but the latter were CDRs. No indication on the packaging, same barcode and cat no. Also, playback cut out after a minute in my CD player then nothing. Was disappointed but got a refund and found a proper copy elsewhere.

 

Why don't they just sell lossless downloads instead of a CD-R?

 

That's exactly the kind of thing that set me off on my search to find out whether the Gravedigger "Janus" 2CD set was a boot or an authorized CDR. My preference of course was for the 2CD set on silver discs, which I ended up with, but I think I bought two or three copies that were on CDR. No cut outs on the sound or anything like that, but they were definitely CDRs with well made artwork and disc labels, not like some of the Russian counterfeit discs I've seen that were pressed on silver discs, but where the CD label may be blurry, or the booklets might be cut unevenly or printed poorly, or the tray card is cut wrong or even has different typesets on some of the text than the legitimate versions (for example). Weird, kind of sloppy stuff.

I still haven't figured out the Gravedigger CDR mystery, but your "Extricate" 2CD set (on Universal) sounds like a similar type of disc situation. The Gravedigger 2CD set came out on Harvest/EMI (Germany) in March of 2013. At or around that same time, Harvest became jointly owned by Universal Music and the Warner Music Group for all regions except the United States, so it may be something that Universal Europe is, or was, doing. I think I recall an earlier post in this thread mentioning Universal as a culprit in releasing discs without disclosing they were on CDR.

 

My copy of the Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown compilation "Dirty Work at the Crossroads 1947-1953" is a CD-R ripoff. As has been the case with many of the Acrobat releases, product information provided to retailers indicates this is supposed to be a replicated CD. Acrobat's lack of honesty and transparency are creating problems for retailers and unsuspecting buyers.

 

I just got one of these and it's a CDR

Better Off With the Blues Better Off With the Blues: Junior Wells: Amazon.ca: Music

 

The first CD-R I ever received (back in 2013) was an ACROBAT recording - Jazz At The Philharmonic Seattle 1956, 2 disc set. Fortunately it didn't cost much, around $10. I made a backup copy at the time, just in case it went corrupt.

Worst part is, according to the liner notes this recording is/was only ever issued by Acrobat and is unavailable anywhere else.

 

What a shame. The source material used by Acrobat can vary from decent to very poor and I find that strange, as they seem to spend a substantial amount of money on packaging. Those I've discussed this issue with have suggested that certain titles include a mixture of needledrops and tracks cloned from other releases. Not sure about the cloned tracks as I've never done any direct comparisons to other releases from different labels, but I have definitely noticed a large number of needledrops.

 

Recently got this cd but when I opened it it certainly looked liek a cdr...Polygram is the label....

 

Some of the stuff sold on Jimmy Sturr's website is CD-R including "The Greatest Hits of Polka!" and Polka Christmas (a reissue of the LaserLight Polka Christmas CD, the LaserLight CD is a pressed CD, what is sold on Jimmy's website of this Christmas album is a CD-R). Forgive Me Never is a pressed CD.

 

I bet in you resold one of these cd-r's into the wrong person, you probably get sued by the band and label and anything associated with it. This seems to really screw up the resale market. I mean anyone could make a copy of a cd now and say they got it from amazon or some jive