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Or do they just last longer?
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Most, if not all of us, have been on the remaster merry-go-round for ages only to become let down by highly compressed junk. All I can say is that sound quality is mostly about the mastering, give or take a small percentage point regarding pressing plant variables.No amount of gold or silver will turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, at least in my experience. Same goes for SHM-CDs. SACD, DAD, DVD-A are also not immune to poor mastering. On the other hand, if a flat or eq'd mastering sounds good on CD and the same digital master is then used with other variations of the medium (gold, shm, blu spec, etc) they should also be par for the course. Many of the early MFSL compact discs, UDI, were flat transfers and sound marvelous, as do the DCC discs. They are gold yet in spite of that they were mastered well.
Edits: 04/26/16
Gold should be reserved for the golden.
Nt
No. And I won't share mine with you.
Recall the wavelength we're talking about is up around 780 nm, near infrared.
....
Edits: 04/22/16 04/22/16
... thanks to the generosity of John Marks of JMR Records. John was kind enough to supply me with the silver CD version of the JMR album "Songs My Mother Taught Me" that was missing from my collection of JMR Records albums. The gold CD and LP versions of this album have been in my collection for years, the acquisition of the silver CD has made this comparison possible.Circa. 1994 CD mastered by Bob Ludwig, circa. 1986 LP mastered by Greg Calbi. So it is almost needless to say that JMR's "Songs..." makes for an excellent audiophile-quality demo recording in either format.
The most noticeable difference between the silver and gold CD versions? While both versions sounded great, the gold produced slightly sweeter and more natural sounding highs. And a more full-bodied sound overall. The gold CD was the more relaxing listen somehow.
The silver CD sounded slightly less sweet, ever-so-sightly grainier in comparison. And the Silver seemed a bit more two-dimensional than the gold did. So, I think that it is fair to say that the gold reproduced a slightly better sense of natural 3-D room ambience.
I chose the listen to the title track (Dvorak, arr. Fritz Kreisler) for this comparison - roughly 3 minutes worth of excellent violin and piano playing.
Two different pairs of headphones were used for this comparison, Grado RS-1i and AKG K-701.
Note that not only do these two headphones sport slightly different tonal balances, they also "soundstage" quite differently. The RS-1i with it's meaty, midrange-forward personality and the K-701 with it's airy, slightly up-tilted presentation; the K-701 with it's wide soundstage, the RS-1i with it's deep soundstage. Working together as a team, I do believe that this dynamic headphone duo provided me with an excellent "window" into the meticulous JMR recording venue. I listened to each CD several times, switching between versions as quickly as I could.
Out of curiosity, I listened to the LP version as well. This is a high-quality vinyl pressing and so is very close in sound to the CD - a good thing. But (as usual), the vinyl did seem to provide a bit more warmth of sound and greater sense of *air* or *ambience*. Slightly less dynamic but even sweeter in the highs, with more of a trailing character in the decay of notes. Try not to cringe, it really is true!
And, thanks again to John Marks... for once again enabling my addiction.
Edits: 04/17/16 04/17/16 04/17/16 04/17/16 04/17/16
:-)
I've read that gold CDs cost about $2 more than aluminum ones do. $2 is not that big of a deal. But is it worth the bother? Sure. Or, maybe.If the entire production is an excellent one why not go for "the frosting on the cake"?
So, back when CD ruled the day I MIGHT have been willing to pay $2 extra for a gold CD. But the CD format is probably not going to come back into fashion in a very big way - at least not in this country. So, I'm not too worried about such things...
I will, however, remain on the lookout for the occasional gold CD that surfaces in the bins of thrift stores local and/or the listings of ebay international.
Edits: 04/22/16
Fine HF details are obscured with the gold discs.... But someone else, with different burn software and playback, might prefer them.... When it comes to CD-Rs, or anything else dealing with transfer of digital audio data, you should experiment on your own computer and CD rig. What's best for me might not be what's best for you.
Sometime in the near future I hope to review/compare aluminum and gold versions of the exact same album, both versions identically mastered by Bob Ludwig AFAIK.I also have the LP version to compare to those two CD versions. Although the LP was mastered by Greg Calbi of Sterling NYC, according to the liner notes. But, I'm anxious to discover any similarities or differences between the three versions.
Should be interesting, I'll report back later...
Edits: 04/07/16
I've had the chance to compare a number of gold CDs to aluminum ones and the gold ones always sounded better. Unfortunately none of them was of the same mastering, so I really don't know if it was the gold or the mastering.
I thought John Marks delivered an interesting post below based on his experience with gold and silver CD of the same mastering. It makes sense the gold would be better, but like I said, I really don't know.
Best regards, Ralph
It is a matter of mastering on those discs. Some will better an aluminum disc, while others will not.
Gold CDs don't sound better and probably don't last longer either.
the standard recording on silver discs. I don't particularly CARE for MFSL recordings (CD or
LP), but they certainly sound better typically.
Is that due to the mastering OR to the gold CD?
How would one know? HOW could one tell?
FEW MFSL CDs were ever pressed on silver disc and I don't believe anything pressed on silver was
also available on gold disc, so comparing equivalent recordings on the two different mediums is not possible.
Do you have a method for comparison or is your view just based on your opinion?
I'm thinking JM has a point.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I only have one MFSL CD. That is the Grateful Dead's "From the Mars Hotel". I also have the standard vinyl and a Gem Mars Hotel/ Wake of the Flood, double album set. It sounds very good to me, but I am thinking of shelling out the money for the latest release CD which is on HDCD. I have a few Grateful Dead HD CD's and they all sound excellent. I do have a few CD players that can playback HDCD, and they are superior to the earlier non-HDCD releases.
I have never had a CD wear out, and I have ones dating back to the earliest days of CD.
Dave
A CD should never wear out if it is stored properly, handled carefully and played in good equipment.
There is a risk of "disc rot" but that is not a function of physical wear but more tied to defective manufacturing that allows the reflective surface to oxidize over time. This eventually results in playback errors and may render the disc unreadable. I've only had a few of those over the years -- from a quality control standpoint, the risk of getting a bad LP pressing is multitudes worse.
It has never happened to one that I own, but I have seen some flakey looking disks at the thrift stores.
Dave
Because the aluminum used in silver discs can corrode, and because gold will not corrode, 24K gold CDs probably won't suffer from as many de-lamination problems over time.As far as I know, SACD's were always made using gold rather than aluminum, befitting one of it's intended functions (the super and super-durable archival medium for the new millennium). Not to mention the fact that gold looks somewhat blingier than silver does.
But, does gold really and consistently sound *better*? It's possible, but I don't know why it might do. And I don't know that anyone has said that gold ALWAYS sounds better than aluminum does. We know that Mofi and a few other audiophile labels preferred gold over aluminum. OTOH, it's rumored that JVC actually rejected the use of gold for use in their XRCD reissue series.
Edits: 04/04/16
SACDs are not actuually sputtered with gold. Being a dual layer disc (virtually all are hybrids and have been for many years), one layer is made with a semi-transparent coating and it is this which gives the disc a gold sheen. If you compare a real 24kt CD with an SACD you will see the difference.
As has already been posted it is difficult to compare the audio performance of gold v. alumnium discs as all of the gold discs are (as far as I am aware) different masterings to the aluminium offering (and usually from another label).
Insofar as durabilty is concerned gold discs will last longer than aluminium ones but we are talking very long periods for both. The US Library of Congress has published a white paper exploring the long term storage characteristics of optical discs and aluminium scores well ( hundreds of years in normal storage conditions). Available online.
Unfortunately many people confuse the tarnishing etc. which mainly occured during the early production years of CD with an inherent problem when it was virtually always caused by manufacturing error. For example the problem that arose at PDO (Blackburn UK plant) when it was discovered that chemicals found in the paper booklets reacted with the aluminium in the discs.
Yeah, I did not know that about SACDs. I had only noticed that the gold CDs (two total!) in my collection sported a darker, richer golden hue than my SACDs did...
Very interesting!
But I am not being paid to educate you.
jm
From the Goldmine article "Audio Fidelity's gold CDs put the label in a class by itself"
Posted in Articles, High Fidelity | Tags: 24-karat gold CD, Audio Fidelity, audiophile record label, gold CDs in October 31, 2011
GM: Beyond the remastering process, what's the biggest difference between Audio Fidelity's 24-karat gold discs and redbook CDs?
MB: It always comes down to how well it was recorded to begin with and the source that we're working with. When we get our hands on the original masters, it's always a joy. But sometimes you don't have the luxury of getting an original master and what you get is a "one-off" from the original master. We have to make sure there's no EQ, there's no Dolby [Noise Reduction] — it's a clear, exact identical copy of what the master would have been like. And that goes back to the talents of Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, and their ear and knowledge of where the tape came from, who tested it, who used it, how it was stored — all those factors are considered. But we're pretty lucky in that we usually can get a hold of the original master, and we work from that when we can. If not, we make sure that the source quality is something we know will yield a final Audio Fidelity product we can all be proud of. We always want to try and meet a standard so someone can listen to it and know that what they're listening to is different than a traditional CD. It's a better sound; whether it's 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent, in some cases it's 25 or even 50 percent better. It's for those people that hear the difference. That's whom I always wanted to make music for.
Notice that there is no mention of the technical superiority of gold over aluminum in regard to sound quality and Audio Fidelity has produced more gold CDs than anyone in recent memory. The response basically ignores the actual question and falls back to the response that the sound is really all about the mastering!
Comparing the files for gold and conventional CDRs a while back showed both copies were essentially bit perfect and that was enough for me to forego any further evaluation until someone issues a disc in both that shares a common master.
Bling factor?Or maybe, it's a combination of color and price? I've read that 24K gold CD blanks cost $2 more than silver CD blanks do. Could it be that higher retail price contributes to "expectation bias"?
Or maybe, gold CDs really do sound better?
Edits: 04/05/16
I never considered whether the material mattered. I always thought it was used by Mo-fi and DCC, as part of the premium packaging. That the magic was in the remastering from the best possible source.
And I have yet to see any CDs go bad, do to age.
John, I really would like to know what the real story is.
To start with, people have to realize and accept that:
THE COMPACT DISC IS AN ANALOG MEDIUM AND IT IS READ BY ANALOG MEANS.
Period. End of story. The only zeroes and ones are not on the CD; they are in peoples' heads.
The laser that cuts the glass master (BTW, there have been at least 100,000 CDs pressed up in the last 26 years that say "JMR" on them) cuts pits or divots in the glass and those are eventually molded into the polycarbonate.
In order to give the CD player's laser something to "read," the polycarbonate has to be plated with something reflective--usually aluminum.
The difference in reflectivity between the smooth surface of the CD and a pit in the smooth surface creates a difference in the ANALOG output of the photocell that is the origin of the signal that, through processing, is DEEMED to be "digital."
As it turns out, the sharpness of the transition between a shiny reflection (CD surface) and a diffuse reflection (a pit) makes a big difference in the timing of the digital signal train. Remember, the thing that made the S/PDIF protocol economically feasible was that the timing signal was embedded in the music signal. Both a strength and a weakness.
The crystalline structure of gold (an amazing element--you can beat out a one-inch cube of gold so thin it will cover a football field) is more supple and ductile than aluminum. The gold folds over the edge of the pit more neatly, and so the transition time is shorter and the read is more accurate.
Now, feel free to ignore what I say and email John Atkinson and ask him to recall what he heard in my listening room about 5 years ago, when I played for him aluminum and gold JMR CDs made from the same stamper...
He heard a distinct difference. I don't think it made him happy to find out that gold made a difference, but, he heard it. He said that the ambient sound of the church fit in better with the sound of the violin. Or words to that effect.
jm
from a differing mastering or are they just 'gold' CDs?
If I bought a gold one it should sound better based on the 'gold' in the pits, no problem understanding that.
Now what happens when I 'rip' the CD to my hard drive and compare to a ripped silver one?
Would be worth a try if I were sure the TELARC 'gold' CDs from Japan are the same mix with just a differing CD material.
I have several JMR recordings. Most are silver CDs but I do have "Songs My Mother Taught Me" on both gold CD and LP (but not on silver CD). I'd gladly compare all three versions of "Songs" for myself and for the other interested parties here, but I doubt that I'll ever find that particular silver CD at this late stage of the game...
Edits: 04/05/16
THE LEAST HE COULD DO!!!!
... um, ahem.
jm
Very cool-Its great to learn something. Keep posting!
> Gold CDs don't sound better and probably don't last longer either.
They sure look better, though! ;-)
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