Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

I have not found a disc that needed to be returned due to defects, but I have
found several that have so much TAPE HISS on them that I could not stand to
even insert them into my CD-2.  Stay away from AIR SUPPLY'S GREATEST HITS,
it possible the worst CD I have ever heard. (My wife bought it, not I)

Brian L.

All my CD's were Telarc, Delos, and that ilk, with no problems.
(About 6 disks)  Then I got a CBS disk and it had a few drop-outs
about 3/4 of the way through.  I didn't bother returning it,
though, as I bought it in Cambridge at the Coop and didn't want
to go back down there just for this minor defect.

As CBS has their pressings done by Sony in Japan, there SHOULDN'T
be any quality difference between CBS and any other label pressed
in Japan, should there?

Oh, I did buy one Telarc recording whose outer box was cracked.
At the store we opened it up and peered at the disk - it looked
ok, and when I got it home it had no problems.

I have mentioned this case of dropout before, but one more time for
the sake of this note.

I bought Frida's "Somthing's Going On Around Here" album at Rock'n Mania
in Framingham and experienced drop outs in the last song on the disc.
Careful inspection revealed bubbles in the vinyl coating spanning maybe
half an inch.  I took it back and got a replacement which has been fine.

The other problem I have had was with my original Sony CDP-101 player,
the first night I brought it home it was skipping wildly all over the
any disc I inserted, at one time it jumped forward about a minute and
a half, other times it would jump forward lesser amounts and even
backward.  I promptly took it back to Tweeter and got a replacement,
which has served me well for about 1 year and 1 month.  I suspect that
the unit may have been binding on the laser track, causing it to jump
when it finally unbound.

I now own 80 CD's and have no complaints other than the fact that my
Sony produces a mechanical hiss (no worse than a good tape deck)
that, depending on the level of the noise floor in my apartment, can
be audible.

					-Dave

My Technics makes that hiss too.  Not audible when I close the glass door
on the cabinet, though.  I don't know why they should be making thay
noise - the disk turns relatively slowly.

I have about 40 CDs at this point and have had no defective ones yet. The
only times I have noticed any dropouts have been with analogue masters
so I assume the dropouts were on the master tape. A couple of CDs that
I have that have dropouts I have the LP of and they also have the dropout.
Unfortunatly I also find about a 40% defect rate in Laserdics. I just assume
that since they are larger and recorded in analogue that any defects in the
recorded surface will show up easier.

    I have about 50 discs now, and have found only one defective: Al DiMeola's
"Elegant Gypsy" on Columbia.  It has dropouts for a few seconds at 2:21 into
the third track.  I got it at Strawberries (Chelmsford), and when they finally
got a replacement for me, it had the same defect.  I have asked them to try
and find a good one for me, but since they have no player in the store,  they
said they'd have to get one from Manchester.  I haven't heard any response 
from them in about a month.  I'm tempted to call 
Columbia to see if this is just a bad "master" or whatever.
    Has anyone out there got a GOOD copy of "Elegant Gypsy"?

				George

	I can only agree about the quality. Own about 20
	now and no problems at all so far.

	>>>Peter

HELLO CD FANS!!

This is Masami Takeuchi speaking (Kobe, Japan). This is the first time of
visiting this notes file.

I bought Sony's CDP-101 2 years ago (oct. 1982) and have 60 disks now.
I'd like to show you my case (in Japan).

First, I experienced the player was skipping over the disk forward or
backword. (Especially, when temperature is cold.) In this case, Sony's
player itself was bad, so I claimed to the store then got new one.

Secondly, T.O.C. couldn't be read, so it didn't start to play.
(T.O.C. is important information, which is used to address the location
 of music on the disk. It is placed on beginning of disk.) 
This symptom was caused by slight mechanical missalighnment of CD player.

Then, "BLACK SPOTS, MICROSCOPIC BUBBLES, DEEFFECTIVE MIRROR SURFACE"
caused drop outs. This occured very often. Whenever I claimed record store,
they willingly changed the deeffective disk, since symptom was evident.

After that, I experienced servo problem due to disk contamination and
"big" dust and scratch. These are affect to servo system, then become
drop out or skipping. Finger print was especially bad to disk.

I suppose there are still some minor problems around CD system. (ie.
servo system, quolity of disk, protection against disk damage, etc.)
I hope that these problems to be solved soon.


		MASAMI

P.S. There should be slight hiss noise on disk. Because disk manufacturers
     are still using "ANALOG" tape recorders and mixing consoles. Mechanical
     noise from CD play should become bigger if disk is dirty. I recommend
     your disk keep clean. In general, the first generation of CD player
     was relatively bad, but we can buy improved one, now.

	Some copies of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours have a "skip",
	problem.  I went though a couple of copies and finally
	gave up.  One of the problems it had was that it got
	stuck at -2 on the second track.  Since it happens
	between tracks I don't worry that much about it.  Maybe
	some day I'll buy a good one and see much abuse the old
	one can take.

	Miles Davis's "Sketches of Spain" is very noisy.  CBS
	must have used a bad analog master.  Another problem
	was that there were no liner notes.

	I am kind of leerey (spelling?) of buying Denons.  The
	liner notes of the one I have are all in Japanese.  In
	this case I was very interested in reading the notes.
	Other maker (Polygram) print their notes in English,
	French, German...

	I have heard a complaint of the hiss on Karajan's
	Planets.  I have the record and didn't really care
	for the performance.

					Alan  (also NEXUS::ROLLOW)

I now have 6 CDs as I just bought a player lat week.

The Greatful Dead/Terrapin Station (Arista) is very good. Sounds better
than the pressing did (and I thought that sounded great).

King Crimson/The court of the crimson king (Polydor) is muddy with lots
of background his. Seems like a poor master was used.

Stravinsky/The Firebird (Telarc) is flawless. Great sound.

Jean-Pierre Rampal/Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano (CBS) has good sound
quality but noticable background hiss.

Chick Corea/Again and Again (Electra) is good.

Bach/Toccata and Fugue in D minor etc.. (Philips) is excelent.

(lynx)

I own about 12 CDs now, no problems with any of them. 

	Laurie

So far, I own 25 disks of a varied nature.  The only one that is not top
rate is the sound track from the Sound of Music.  Since this was made from
an old sound track, it was expected.  Passage through an audio processor
fixes most of the noise though.

The best so far, I think, is the Boston Pops recordings.  Playing these sounds
like your at the concert itelf.
DF

I'd be interested in hearing if anybody else has heard a "picket fence" type
distortion surrounding high frequency transients. I've heard this on a
couple of disks (Pat Benetar's "Tropico" for one), but not on others.
By "picket fence", I mean a sound like "fuff-fuff-fuff-fuff". At first I
thought it was due to excessive car hair on the surface of this disk, but
I'm now less sure. The positioning and severity were not stable enough
for me to be convinced it was a feature of the disk; would any problem
in the player possibly explain this? (The player being a Yamaha CDX1.)

The "dropouts" I mentioned in .3 made that type of sound.  It sounds like
a defective disc, I would take it back and exchange it for another.

						    -Dave

    I bought a copy of Vivaldi's L'ESTRO ARMONICO with I Musici on
    Phillips.  Great until a minute from the end of the second disc
    where it skipped.
    
    
    By the way, I brought it back to Strawberries and was told to come
    back when they had it in stock.  Three trips later they suggested
    they special order it for me.  It's now been 3 1/2 months since
    the backorder.

    I had bought the Beethoven symphony set by Kurt Masur a while ago
    and have notice some sort of distortion at the end of #9, during
    the chorus section.  It sounded like saturation problem.  I also
    have the record (bought 7 years ago from England when it was not
    available in U.S) and when I listen to the record I don't get that
    distortion at that section.  Has anyone bought that particular set
    and has heard of that distortion?   
    
    Is it possible that the master was o.k (judging from my record)
    but during the transfer to CD they screw it up?
    
    Thanks
    Charles
    
    

    I heard the Steely Dan "Gaucho" CD a while back and I remember a
    skip in the third or fourth track.  I exchanged it but the new disk
    had the same problem.  Does anyone know if the problem has been
    fixed?
    
    Jim

 
    Re: .17
    
    Never noticed any obvious breaks in the music.  Next time I play
    it on my D5 I'll listen closely for drop outs.
    
    Gary

I bought a European release of Led Zepplin (4) at Stop & Cop in Fitchburg,
that had too much hiss.  It sounded worse than my 10 yr old LP.  Returned 
it with minor problems...the clerk said that it was common to all copies 
of LZ4 and Houses of the Holy, and had to get the owner's permission to allow 
the exchange.  They will preview any CD you want to buy, however, and I'll let 
them do just that from now on.

A copy of Grusin & Rittenhour's Harlequin that I bought at Strawberries in the 
Searstown Mall in Leominster was dirty, scratched, and had little bubbles in 
the media.  It didn't seem to affect the sound however.  The sound was not 
what I expected from these guys, though.  Half the cuts were latino vocals, 
the rest were what I wanted.  Strawberries accepted the disk back and let me 
pick a different one, buy I suspect they would not have done so had it not 
been for the visual imperfections of the disk.

						     
							- JP

    I have a Yamaha CD2 and about 180 disks. I've only had 4 disks that
    had problems. Van Halen 1984, Julian Lennon Vallotte, and Secret
    Value of Daydreaming, Jackson Browne Saturate Before Using ( which
    only had problems on my DiskMan ). On the whole I'd say that's much
    better than my success with LP's .
    
    tom
    

    
    I have a grand total of 10 disks, two of which had problem.
    
    Paul McCartney's PRESS TO PLAY had the dark bubbles on the reflective
    surface, this caused skipping. (It had to happen at a party where
    I was showing off the player) Returned the disk back to Strawberries,
    the new copy plays perfectly
    
    HEARTS latest album has a few spots on the 4th track (I think)
    where it skips, always the same spot so I assume it's the code.
    There are no visible signs of damage.  Still have to return this
    one.
    
    Mike
    

    I own about 60 discs.  Not one has failed to play on my Sony D-5.
    I also own some of the "problem discs" mentioned in earlier replies.
    				Steve

    The only problem disk that I've encountered is a transitory glitch on a
    disk of Gregorian chants. (Can't remember the name here at work, where
    rock'n'roll prevails.) The problem appears on occasion, in between
    two tracks.
    
    Oh, and the Led Zepplin (I) album has some echo from adjacent tracks. I
    can't decide if it's a feature or not. I've not returned the disk
    because that's the way the record sounded. I think Jimmy Page liked to
    foreshadow, using a faint echo of the upcoming vocals. But, I
    digress... 

    I have 200+ CDs, and no failures (Technics SLP8 and Sony CDXR7).  My
    Pretenders _Learning to Crawl_ CD skips on a friend's Yamaha,
    apparently due to a tangential (sp?) scratch. 
    
    GAS

    re:.24
    
    200? Hmmm, and I thought I was going to have the, if you'll excuse
    the expression, record with 150+. Like some previous responses,
    I have had absolutely no trouble with any one of them on my Mag
    2020.
    
    --- jerry

    Well, I have about 350 CDs in my private collection (I haven't counted
    in a while), so let's not start any volume competitions.
    
    By the way, I have a cheapo Fisher player, and I've never had a
    problem with any disc that couldn't be cleared up by removing and
    reloading the disc.  Even that's only happened a few times.
    
    -pd

    At the moment I have 594 and have only had a few that were un-
    playable.  The ones that noticed on first playing I took back
    soon after and got replaced.  I've had two discs "suddenly"
    become unplayable, but managed to get one them replaced.
    
    I have one disc that would pause before starting the 2nd track
    when I lived in Oklahoma, but when I moved to Colorado it started
    working (must of been the altitude :-).

    I still have a bunch of discs that will skip, but when I play
    the section over the skip is gone.
    
    

    Well, I have 3 million disks, and have never had a problem!!
    
    	:-)	:-)	:-)	:-)
    
    Really, now, I have about 80, and no problems.  In fact, I consider
    the reliability of CDs to be good enough that I won't hesitate to
    buy them through the mail!!  (I've regretted doing that with video
    discs...)
    
    				Vernon Miller
    

    
    Well, I just returned my first damaged CD.  The jewel box was cracked
    and there was a blotch on the music side of the plastic large enough
    to sound like fuzz.  The player could track through it.
    
    This is after 50 cds.  Still a much better return rate than I get
    for LPs.
    
    
		    						-mr. bill

    I recently bought "How Will The Wolf Survive?", by Los Lobos. A
    pretty good album (although I'm no HiFi snob so I can't judge the
    sound quality), but it usually takes a long time to find the beginning
    of the disc (you can hear the player seeking), and then often starts
    several seconds into the song.
    
    I returned it and got another copy which does the same thing. I
    haven't tried it on another player.
    
    By the way, I have a Yamaha (forget which model, but it's black).
    

    RE: .30

    That Los Lobos disc does the same thing on my Yamaha CD-2. I also have
    had multiple copies. It plays fine on my Technics SLXP-7 portable so
    I figured my player was ill, but I've since found that my friend can't
    play yet another copy on his CD-2. I guess that model wasn't designed
    to play music with Mexican roots. :-)

    What I usually do is wait until it finally starts up (wherever that may
    be), then I search back to 0:00 for track 1. If you go back past that point
    it's back to square 1.

    
    I picked up Jefferson Airplane's compilation disk (2400 Fulton Street)
    and at about 1:21 into white rabbit, the disc would jump back to
    1:15 over and over and over ... just like a record skip.  I took
    out my handy Sony Cleaning Rag (the one that came with the player)
    and wiped the disc in the prescribed manner and it played fine after
    that.  First problem I've ever had with player or disc.
                                     				-rjk

     Well, after having bought nearly 80 CDs, I encountered my first
     defective one last week, and my second mere days later!  I bought
     the Mamas & Papas 16 Greatest Hits (or whatever it's called) on
     MCA (Lechmere had a sale on MCA discs last week for $11.98).  At
     1:51 into track 10, it got stuck.  Just stuck (like when a needle
     gets stuck on an LP).  So, I brought it back, but couldn't exchange
     it for a new copy because there weren't any more.  I got merchandise
     credit and used it to buy the Broadway soundrack of "Man of La Mancha,"
     also on MCA.  Well, that one gets stuck in THREE different places!
     I don't know if it's just MCA or what (I think these are the first
     MCA discs I've gotten).  Though I also got an MCA classical CD when
     I got the Mamas & Papas one, and it is fine.  I bought "Sgt. Pepper"
     at the same time, and it is fine, also (of course, it's not MCA).

     The player is a Sony D-5.

							-- Nina

     P.S.  My Significant Other got a really screwed up CD of "Rocky Horror"
     at the MIT Coop a few months ago.  He exchanged it for a new copy, which
     was fine.

    Unless MCA has had a recent slip in quality control, it's not
    a problem with them. I've got a fair number of MCA disks and not
    one problem among them.
    
    I had a similar problem to yours with one disk: RUM, SODOMY AND
    THE LASH by The Pogues. At about 2-1/2 minutes into the last track,
    it got stuck at one bit and started alternating between that bit
    and the previous one. I could FF past that point, but the same
    problem occurred wherever I stopped. There wasn't another copy
    where I bought it (The CD Store on Newbury Street), but when I
    bought another copy at BCD, it played fine.
    
    I now have over 250 CD's, and other than this one, I've had no
    problems.
    
    --- jerry

    I have nearly one hundred CDs and I have encountered about ten that
    I had to return because of defects.  One reason I have found so
    many is that I have a first generation CD player that does not track
    as well as the newer ones.  If a disk has a defect my player finds
    it.
    
    In every defective disk I have found you could find the defects without
    magnification (so when I took them back I never got any s%^t from
    the dealers).  Under a microscope that were obvious.  The most common 
    defect I have found is air pockets in in the plastic casing.  I have
    also found disks with dark spots and the reflective surface.