Bronzed CD

After watching that process, I still don't know exactly where PDO went wrong. I know people suspect it was because they used silver instead of gold in a solution. Silver will react with sulfur in the booklets.

BTW, the early WG Polygram process was different. They put a batch of discs in chamber, and then evacuated it before coating the plastic discs. No wonder they had a pinhole problem. My Bella Donna target has what looks like a speck of edge near the edge, followed by a hairline pinhole.

 

My 1988 pressing of Rattle & Hum is very bronzed on the label side (part of the label side has a black printed coating as well). I'll have to check if it still plays/rips, and buy a later edition if necessary.

EG.

 

Yes, the early WG Polygram manufacturing process was different in that they punched out the center hole after plating. That's why they had aluminum plating all the way to the center. However, they did not have as much of a pinhole problem as CBS did. I've always seen more pinholes in older CBS CDs
than WG Polygram CDs. But that could be due to the fact that most WG CDs have solid paint artwork whereas the old CBS CDs had simple text. You can hold up an old CBS CD to a light and see pinholes. If you do that with an old WG (like a target CD), the paint blocks the light.

 

Maybe you don't know this, but PDO made WG Polygram CDs as well as the UK PDO CDs. The only difference was the country of origin (different pressing plants).

There have been several theories put forth about the cause of bronzing - even from PDO themselves. Silver was thought to be the culprit but some have thought that they used some experimental lacquer that didn't block out oxygen. Others have thought maybe the ink printed onto the lacquer was causing the problem. All we know is that they figured it out and it never seemed to happen again.

 

My copy of Superstition is a PDO and bronzed and became unplayable many years ago before the remasters were available.

I replaced it with a Geffen copy.

 

Correct -brain fart on my part - I was thinking of the lacquer layer.

 

My 1988 wea CD of Enya's Watermark now has a tell-tale pinhole on the playing side. It still plays on my Denon, but won't on my laptop or external CD-RW.

EG.

 

My U2 War CID 112 Made in UK by PDO

U2 - War

 

Ugh

EG.

 

Norah Jones Come Away with Me hybrid SACD on Blue Note. 2003. This is definitely a bronze color. I haven't played it a lot, but I don't recall it being this color before. Anyone know if was always like this?

 

I have The Chiffons Greatest Recordings on the ACE label that has significant bronzing on the label side that plays fine. The inner ring says Made in the UK by PDO. I am curious as to how that will render the disc unplayable. Will the bronzing eventually spread to the information side? Does the bronzing affect the sound quality at all in it's current state? Hope not because I really like this disc.

 

I have the three disc Surfset from sequel records manufactured by PDO in the UK that I bought new and originally ripped at 128. I checked it recently, and much of it will not play or rip. At least I have the 128 transfer.

 

I just pulled out my hybrid SACDs of Bob Belden's "Black Dahlia" (incredible surround sound on this disc) and Bill Charlap's "Stardust", which were both issued on Blue Note at the same time as this Norah Jones SACD and they are also gold-colored like this. I don't know if they always looked like this though.

I wouldn't worry about it too much since these Blue Note SACDs were all made at the Crest facility in California so they're all doomed to be "Crest crackers". Both of my discs have several small cracks near the spindle hole, typical of these discs. I've always assumed it was just a matter of time before these discs became unplayable.

 

Hybrid SACDs are gold colored on their play side, but not like that Norah Jones copy.

 

I need some help here determining if my INXS CD is bronzing. It was made by PDO UK in 1990. And it looks exactly like this
It plays fine but I am worried now. I backed it up without any errors using EAC.

 

The cds I had that bronzed were not more or less a solid color like your photo but actually looked considerably darker at the outer edge. I have other cds that look like yours that I think were just made with a slight bronze tint from the get go. At least it looks to me from your photo that your cd has a consistent color and that the darker area around a portion of the hub that radiates out in the area where it says "selective INXS" is just an anomaly in the photograph. At any rate, none of my bronzed cds have a pattern like that -- they are all bronzed all the way around the outer edge.

 

I read up on the whole PDO UK back story and went through all of my CDs and found it was the only PDO UK pressed disc I have and its a darker gold color than most other CDs. I compared it to other discs but came up short as most were silver/aluminum looking vs the gold tinge it has. Thanks for the information. Hopefully I have dodged a bullet.

 

My Jimi Hendrix - War Heroes bronzed but only in the last 5 years. UK Polydor I think. A nice rare disc too. Still plays and rips perfect at least.

 

Hopefully. I would rip it, if you haven't already, just in case.