Polydor/Polygram CD rot

I am new to the board and have gone through many old posts that recommend some older West German pressed CDs as "best mastered versions" (i.e. target labels, Elton DJMs, Mercury/Polydor/Polygram label discs, etc.) These discs were produced by Polygram and all have a mirrored center hub and most have rounded edges.

These discs are the absolute worst for CD rot and most of the ones you find in shops look like swiss cheese if you hold them up to a light source. While they may have been definitively mastered, the discs themselves do not hold up and bit data literally disappears off them as they age. Check your discs and you will see what I'm talking about. Maybe this has been discussed before but I couldn't find a previous post on it.

FYI...it's the same thing with early Warners discs. My original Brian Wilson s/t disc and Harrison Cloud Nine have several holes each that are clearly visible when you hold them up to a bright light.

Anyone else realize this? Might be time to ashcan some of these discs...

 

It might be so, I don't know, but *I* never had any rotting problems with any of the targets that I own, and I have quite a few.

I also have DJM Yellow Brick Road with no problems either.

Anybody else had any rotting problems with early discs?

 

I used to check my cd's for pin holes when they were new over 20 years ago.

Some were full of pin holes then and time hasn't made them any worse. I suspect the pin holes were a manufacturing defect and were a plating problem at the factory.

Even oxidation should not make the aluminum substrate just 'vanish'.

 

I own many of these and have none with "CD rot" . That being said I have seen many at used CD shops that were severely bronzed. In every case those were Polygram UK disc's and not Polygram W. Germany. If I remember correctly only the UK plant used silver in the CD process for a time and not WG. I've also never seen a WEA disc early or otherwise with any issues other than mistreatment (abuse) or poor handling of some kind, and over the years I've seen thousands. It could be I've been lucky or defective discs are not all that common?

Rick

 

Pinholes aren't really a form of disc rot, they're just an inconsistency brought on by a manufacturing process. They exist when brand new from the manufacturer, and neither spread over time nor cause any audible problems. I have indeed seen pinholes on West German Polygram manufactured CDs as well as ones made by US WEA. If I were to look through my collection, I'd probably even find other manufacturers whose discs exhibit pinholes.

As ricks points out in the previous post, there IS a form of disc rot which affects CDs manufactured by UK PDO called bronzing, and it's due to a flawed manufacturing process which was in place from around '89-'92. Another plant which used the same flawed process is the Italian plant OPTI.ME.S, and their CDs from the same time period are susceptible to bronzing as well.

More info on bronzing can be found here:

http://www.classical.net/music/guide/society/krs/excerpt3.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_bronzing

 

Correct Bronzing is CD rot, which is what I referred to in my last post.

Just 2 days ago I saw the worst bronzed disc I've ever seen at a local CD shop. It was a Polygram UK Who "Rarities Vol 1 & Rarities Vol 2" it was a deep rich bronze on both sizes. The print on the non play side was very hard to make out as a result with no silver to be found anywhere on the disc.

 

Hi ricks -- yeah, I was still typing when you posted and coincidentally brought up the same point. So, I edited my last post to mention that you'd addressed the issue before I brought it up, but not before you quoted me!

Oh, one more minor point: Visually, the OPTI.ME.S discs from the time period in question look identical to the UK PDOs, indicating that they were probably using PDO equipment, and therefore the same flawed manufacturing process. I've had several of these in my collection go bad. At least UK PDO replaced the CDs over the years (though not anymore), but no such luck with OPTI.ME.S.

 

I have a number of discs with pinholes. My observations, admittedly on a small sample, are:
1. The pinholes were already there when I bought those discs (mostly used in the late 1990s or early 2000s).
2. I have not seen any disc develop more pinholes over time.
3. All those discs play fine and can be extracted to .wav files without errors.

I have never seen CD rot in real life, only on pictures in the web, but one of my discs has a very light bronze tone (Genesis - Foxtrot, Virgin / Charisma).

 

Yes. I think you have a point here. I happened to end up with two copies of the fatbox Polydor 80's "Phantom Of The Opera" double CD. One Polygram UK and one Polygram W. Germany. Guess which one is bronzed!

 

Hmm, then I wish someone could tell me why my cd of 54-40's FIGHT FOR LOVE (Warners, 1989) which was riddled with pinholes, skipped like a bunch of little school girls (the disc was otherwise without flaw). I had to buy another one which thankfully had very few pinholes and did manage to play all the way through.

 

"Skipped like a bunch of little school girls!"


Well, I can't say what exactly went wrong with that particular disc, of course, but I'd bet money it had nothing to do with the pinholes. I've had a couple of CDs over the years unexplainably develop clicking or skipping with no visible or rational explanation. So there do seem to be CD gremlins, but thankfully, this kind of thing is pretty rare.

Occasionally, it can be player specific - a disc that acts weird will sometimes play fine on a different player. I'm guessing it could have to do with different error correction capabilities between players. In fact, I have a John Coltrane CD which looks perfect but simply would not play on a Yamaha CD player I used to have. It would skip all over the place right from the beginning - but my current Sony machine plays it right through. (No, I don't know if it has pinholes, because it has an orange printed label. )

Anyway, go through your collection and look for some discs with pinholes. I'd personally recommend checking out CDs manufactured by West German Polygram and/or US WEA, since they're known to have them. I guess you already know this, but look for ones on which the label side is primarily silver, to make it easier to spot the pinholes when held up to a light.

Now, pop 'em in your player - I bet they all play fine.

Honestly, one CD developing an inexplicable problem doesn't prove that pinholes are to blame. I've been buying CDs since 1984 and have gotten many which had pinholes right out of the longbox, but still play perfectly.

 

I have a MPO/France The Queen Is Dead CD which I am almost certain has developed pinholes over time. (It does play and rip fine, thankfully.)

 

Pinholes are a result of a flawed manufacturing process. Many of these discs had pinholes when they were new and have not worsened with time.

 

This year I've had a couple of those CD gremlins. Both of them had "The click of death™". One is a UK Mercury and the other was a Polydor Japan.

 

Ah yes, MPO. I forgot about them, they're also a big pinhole offender. At least they were back then, not sure about nowadays. But again, I don't think pinholes can develop over time -- more likely, they get noticed over time.

PERFECT!!

 

I lost my Cloud Nine to rot acouple of years ago (a lot of early discs had holes that were clearly visable with a strong light during that period). My Cloud Nine was a picture disc as well.

 

Glad my copy of that CD is Japanese!

I recently got a WG Who The Singles Polydor CD which has a few pinholes and it plays fine

 

These discs were probably manufacured by Discovery Systems. They produced a lot of promotional picture discs for WEA and Columbia, among others.
You hear a lot about the PDO bronzing, perhaps because they manufactured more discs, but the Discovery Systems discs were so poorly made that most of them became unplayable in as little as two years.

 

OMG, Discovery Systems!

Yeah, they were terrible. I mean you could tell just by LOOKING at them that they were really cheaply made. They almost look like toy CDs!

I have exactly ONE Discovery Systems CD still in the collection: Swans' "Children of God". Last I played it, about a year ago, it was still good. But I get nervous every time I pull it out!

 

When I first started buying CDs in the late '80's I used to hold them up to a light and sometimes see lots of pinholes. I was concerned at the time, but so many CDs had them that there was not much you could do about it.

I suppose I came to accept pinholes as being kind of normal. They are mostly very small and I suppose the amount of data they might effect is pretty tiny.
I've never noticed them getting worse over time, and I've never had a disc fail due to holes.

Disc rot does exist and I've had a small number of (mostly classical) CDs that got pretty "bronzed". This usually begins at the edge of a disc and works it's way in to the center. The color is usually not very even when this happens and the effect is usually pretty ugly.

You need to take care when you see a funny colored disc though because some makers added color to certain CDs over the years that is not that far removed from the color of bronzing! Don't automatically think a CD is bad because of color...

Joe

 

The only problem I had with any CD rot was a pressing from the PDO made in England (I think it was in Swindon specifically if memory serves but I know someone will correct me If I'm wrong about the PDO plant being there).

 

I can't believe that many people believe that CD rot/holes were part of a manufacturing defect at the factory. That theory is almost laughable. I have watched my copy of Elton John's "The Superior Sound Of Elton John" get worse over time with more and more holes present every year. This is some type of oxidation issue which will eventually destroy these discs and render them unplayable. In addition, these holes DO affect the sound. Track data is so small on a CD that any visible hole causes major error correction when the disc is read. The reason you don't always hear a skip is due to the fact that the laser is going right THROUGH the disc at that point and registering as no data to the player. Better backup your Polydor/WB discs onto CDr or you'll regret it in a few years.

 

I had a Ramones Mania US Warner Bros. CD that looked like swiss cheese. It skipped really bad and had little to no scratches, so there's no doubt in my mind that the pinholes caused the skipping. Bought another one, and it plays perfectly (little to no pinholes). All my other CDs play fine, even my other early Warner Bros. and West German Polydors. I have a copy of Yes's 90125 with a pinhole as big as a " ; " and it plays fine, for now...

 

Blackburn, Lancashire.