Newer CDs just better???

[Jay481985]

Yes they use a mylar sheet and press it and then metalise it with aluminum and or silver.

http://www.groovehouse.com/assets/pdfs/How_CDs_are_Made11.pdf#search=%22how%20cds%20are%20made%22

[Rivendell61]

You might re-read your source.....

Mark

Edit: Jay, your source says aluminum--but other metals can be used (gold most prominently--certainly silver could I should think).

The point being the known issues with CD failure relate to oxidation of the metal layer--most commonly aluminum as in the PDO 'bronzing' (look up CD Bronzing).

If the layer of protection is not breached the CD will be fine.

[Daddy Dee]

I have been pleasantly surprised at how much better the remastered CD's can sound.

One example (I heard on Napster) the original "My City Was Gone" by the Pretenders came to life on the remastered version. I think Rush must have the remastered version for his bumper music.

I was personally disappointed with SACD. I know that some folks have really enjoyed it. I did not invest in an expensive SACD player, so perhaps that was a problem. Anyway, not my cup of tea.

[oldbuckster]

Silversport how many of these threads did you start? Remastered or Remasters seem to be best............Better quality players, optical cables, better CD's all contribute to the final sound our ears hear.............

[garyrc]

My old recording teacher was in the business from about 1939 on ... he pointed out that digital is young (he said this in about 1986), and recordists had many decades to learn how to baby and get the best out of the various forms of analog: records (mono & stereo), magnetic tape, magnetic film soundtracks, and the old optical soundtracks. They managed to develop techniques to make all of them, except the old optical soundtracks (not Dolby optical), sound excellent, but it took time to get to the point of reliably achieving FM, which he said was the industry term for Fu**ing Magic.

[SamS]

oh the battle of maxing out spl on cd mediums......

If I can find the website I will post it

edit* here you go http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicdeath.htm

Thank you! This site should be required reading for all that are satisfied (or prefer) modern remasterings.

I cannot agree with the folks on this thread that feel that modern CDs sound better than ones recently issued. The majority of CDs issued from 1983-1990 were 'flat' transfers of tapes, sometimes the actual master copies were used. Starting in the mid-1990s, more master tapes were being used to compile these reissues, however, the mastering engineers started the unexcusable procedure of maximizing and clipping the signal for the sake of "loudness" and "punch". No thanks! I'll take a smoother, more quiet version any day of the week.

[Lascaladan]

Good thread here. After many years, the cd surface might get dirty or "filmy". Some of the optical systems are of a plastic, some are of a glass. Clean the cds from in to out, never circular,clean the cd /dvd player optical system(using one of the commercial discs available). If the unit is out of warranty, you can open it up(unplug it)and use a camera lens cleaner or a Qtip. I do not recommend any fluid on the lens. I also recommend appying(at 1st just on 1 cd)a dark green, or black, magic marker, along the edges, both inner and outer,of the "unplayable" cd. For those of you who think "outside the box", optical information is better "contained" for the machines "head" to read. This tweak is not new, nor is it mine. Quite remarkable. Do not care if some might laugh at me(not any more). Just sharing some info,FYI. Let me know how all of this goes. LSDan

[Lascaladan]

PS, I have been buying cds from the very beginning('83-'84). They all play well. Some of the earlier cds are quite harsh by todays standards. Technology at the recording end(I agree with DRWHO)has come a long way.

[Jay481985]

Good thread here. After many years, the cd surface might get dirty or "filmy". Some of the optical systems are of a plastic, some are of a glass. Clean the cds from in to out, never circular,clean the cd /dvd player optical system(using one of the commercial discs available). If the unit is out of warranty, you can open it up(unplug it)and use a camera lens cleaner or a Qtip. I do not recommend any fluid on the lens. I also recommend appying(at 1st just on 1 cd)a dark green, or black, magic marker, along the edges, both inner and outer,of the "unplayable" cd. For those of you who think "outside the box", optical information is better "contained" for the machines "head" to read. This tweak is not new, nor is it mine. Quite remarkable. Do not care if some might laugh at me(not any more). Just sharing some info,FYI. Let me know how all of this goes. LSDan

Also please use a dustoff type product before rubbing the disc. And then make sure to clean just the underside as the other side can flake off and such.

Also when you place a cd on a table or so just place it normally not the other way

[oldbuckster]

When I first went over to CD's I got all the Led Zep discs, never liked the sound of the earlier discs, got the Led Zep box set and wow, what a difference..........Has any one got Remastered Led Zep 1 thru 4, do they sound like the Box set or are they different sounding. Many on here before have stated they didn't like the Page remix of the Box set, is that the same remix the others use? I thought the Box Set was great, well worthy of Led Zep, remixed" dead nuts" to me.............great sound......

[jcmusic]

oldbuckster, IMO the only zepp that I have that sounds good is the Presence cd. All the others sound like mush.

Jay

[oldbuckster]

oldbuckster, IMO the only zepp that I have that sounds good is the Presence cd. All the others sound like mush.

Jay

Are they Remastered, or the first ones that came out? The first ones I bought were awful, no where as good as the box set, you couldn't turn them up loud they sounded so bad, like I said, the Remastering on the Box set was good, no problems. Would love to hear Led Zeppelin III remastered................All I own is both Box Sets.......have owned them all at one time or another 8 track, Vinyl, cassette, reel to reel,single CD's, and CD Box Sets........guess I've spent enough on Old ZEP...........DVD is Good, too..........

[garyrc]

I get the feeling that those who remaster have (sometimes) not heard the original versions as they were on Lp, and assume that the quality was not very good. It should be SOP that they listen -- and savor -- the Lp, with a good cartridge, to appreciate the artfulness of many of the originals, before attempting a remaster. The same goes for the people who transfer old movies to DVD. It seems to me that the magnetic track movies of the 1950s & 60s, as well as the Lps of the 60s and 70s are often not near as good as the originals (which I have, in the case of Lps!).

[PrestonTom]

I suspect that is not the case.

I assume these engineering-folks are using the original master tapes. With the wide tape & at a higher speed, the original masters are going to sound best. Frequently, what ends up on the LP has been compressed and filtered for various reasons. I have heard direct transfers from original tapes, they can sound absolutely wonderful.

Good Luck,

-Tom

[SilverSport]

I can tell you I grew up on LPs and the first CDs I heard while at first sounded pretty good, sound like $#$%%^@*)(& today while the newer CDs (and even newer recordings of older recordings) sound better to my ears...perhaps I used the wrong adjectives but you know what I mean...[]

Bill

[garyrc]

Tom,

I guess what I was visualizing was the first generation 1" or 2" 30 ips analog tape being mixed down and sweetened in the process; the second generation analog tape (the sweetened one) might not be used in the transfer to CD, because it would have one more generation of distortion on it .... now if the transfer people did their own digital mix down from the first generation tape (as in ADD), and didn't happen to hear the original mix down, with the original artist's and producer's final, tender loving mix, they might remain unaware of its potential.

Offhand, I can't cite examples of hi tech remasters that this happened to, but here are three ordinary CDs that fail utterly to come up to the quality of the original, when played on the same amplifiers & speakers, and in the same room:

1) Original Lp Surrealistic Pillow, much better than the CD I have (not a true remaster).

2) Film (VHS HI FI video cassette) 'Round Midnight, infinitely superior to the congested CD

3) Film (DVD) Shakespeare in Love much better in every way, especially more "open," and "airy" than the grounded CD.

Ironically, films on tape or DVD would be expected to be at least one generation farther away from the original music tracks than CD, since the films must have dialog and sound fx mixed in.

Which is supposed to be the better medium for sound -- the sound portion of an ordinary DVD that also has the visual portion on it, or an ordinary CD? I honestly don't know about the comparitive audio resolution and other qualities, and would like to.

Sadly, any of the early Dylan Lps seem clearer and more articulate than his latest CD.

[Mighty Favog]

I have a sizable number of CD's in my collection - built up since 1984 when I first bought a CD player.

A goodly number of these CD's have now failed. As Dr Who says - this is not a degradation of the audio quality that one would get with a vinyl record - it is a complete failure of all or part of the CD.

For example - I have a CD of the Police (remember them) that from track nine onwards is toast. The first 8 tracks are fine - from there on in its just garbage, noise and finally nothing - the CD basically stops playing altogether and I cannot select a single track from that point on.

The proportion of failures I have is actually quite high. I suspect that my long serving original Sony CD player was actually damaging the CD's in some way after a decade or so of use - although I have no way of proving that.

Has anyone ever heard of an old player doing something like that? Is it possible? What is the life expectancy of a laser on a CD player?

As for quality - XRCD's were always generally of a higher quality than most anything else. I have not heard anything new that betters those - although they have a signature sound that you may not like - all close miked stuff.

I also bought my first CD player in early 84'. It too was a Sony ( CDP-111s ) and was a real monster/tank. The laser in it bailed in about 4 years later. Then bought a Carver TL-3100 around 88'. It' still going strong and will even play CD-R's. Bought a McIntosh MVP-841 about 5 years ago and the laser in that went kaput just last year. Replacement wasn't that expensive to replace considering ther price of a new one.

[keepinitcool]

I would say that the technology allows better source material and the ability to improve the signal quality of older recordings. Newer recordings use better equipment.

However, most newer mixing, especially pop, rock, hip-hop use a lot of compression. If you listen at moderate to lower levels then this will sound fuller and louder, but it loses dynamics. An old Eagles CD will have a lot more dynamics than some like Interpol (which I recall looked like square waves on one song). But it will sound soft if not listened to at higher SPL.

I don't know that many people listen at levels that are very dynamic. Probably around 90 and higher peaks, which is fairly high. This is where you will notice most the dynamics from soft to loud in a song.

Some people have commented that the lastest Rush CDs have not sounded that good, apparently they used a fair amount of processing and compression, perhaps not in the best way.

[oscarsear]

Ok.. Now y'all can poke fun at me.... Here's the story. My oldest son brings some of his CD's to listen to on a decent system. Don't know where or how he stores them but these were trash. They looked like they'd been in a ice hocky match. The worst of the batch literally would not read.

Now, some years back my loving new wife in an effort to link to my HiFi hobby purchased for me the "Auric Illuminator" CD preparation kit. It uses some sort of wax/polish on the front and back of the CD plus the controversial non-opaque black marker for the inner and outer edges.

Well I took the horrible CD and used the Auric Illuminator system upon it. In appearance it's sheen returned (albeit still scratchy) and the play returned. Not all the play and not especially good to my ears. But Matt said that what did play sounded better than it did when new.

So are there ways to improve or revive CD play in the field that are not done to the product when manufactured?

Oh..SACD... IMHO some are really grand while others suck....again probably the caliber of mix/production versus the quality of the original analogue or digital recording. Fleetwood Mac redbook CDs seem as good as some of my SACDs while the Dark Side of The Moon SACD is unparalleled.

[Jay481985]

"However, most newer mixing, especially pop, rock, hip-hop use a lot

of compression. If you listen at moderate to lower levels then this

will sound fuller and louder, but it loses dynamics. An old Eagles CD

will have a lot more dynamics than some like Interpol (which I recall

looked like square waves on one song). But it will sound soft if not

listened to at higher SPL."

However you will get distorted speakers playing it at normal volumes that people listen to pop, rock, and hip hop. Basically you have to play at a lower level just to hear it without sound like a fly was on the mic.