Degrading audio CD ?

[walker2]

I have created a number of audio CDs on standard CD-R media.

Fresh from press they play OK, but after a while (from about three months and up) they start to 'degrade'.

A certain 'beat' slowly appears in the played audio, that matches the rotation speed of the disc.
It does not seem to matter which player I use. (Not certain I have tried it on a PC, though)

In the beginning only on the last tracks are affected, but later on more early, and the last tracks are now almost nothing but 'beat'.

I have tried a couple of different brands of CDs, but with one or two exceptions they all degrade given enough time.

All tracks have been through the MP3 format for storage, but Nero converts that back to raw before burning.

Am I using a wrong media, too cheap or what?

To my knowledge I do not store the CDs under hot, humid, cold or UV intensive conditions. Neighter before nor after burning.

Should I use CD-R Audio media or are they for special purpose burners only ?

 

[Sympology]

A certain 'beat' slowly appears in the played audio, that matches the rotation speed of the disc

I'd be suprised if it is related to speed of disc as it would be a constant noise, not a beat.
A disc reads about 450rpm to start, slowing down to approx 200 rpm as it moves outwards.

Audio CDR are a much higher quality discs than the normal ones (and some HIFi recorders won't accept data discs), but this really shouldn't make much difference as I've used many CDR's from cheap bulk to expensive single brands and all have been fine, except the odd misburn.

So a couple of questions.

Do normal prerecorded CD's work fine?
Does audio from a normal source, e.g MP3 work ok when played one after another?
Do the cd's work ok in a standard CD/DVD player (not pc).
Are they ok, if you copy a standard cd to the CDR media?

Stu..

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[LawnBoy]

I've had similar issues in the past, it's always ended up being the media used.

 

[artyk]

Are you using anything in particular to label the CDs? I've never experienced it first-hand, but I've heard some markers/pens can degrade a CD over time. Not sure if it would cause that exact symptom, though.

 

[kmcferrin]

I would be inclined to believe that it is a media or labelling issue as well.

One other thing to note is that MP3 is a lossy compression format, so you do lose some of the fidelity of the music when converting it to MP3. Then converting it back to a CD-Audio format you will have less data present then on a direct copy of the CD. This means that your audio is already degraded to an extent to begin with. This combined with a media issue could cause audibly degraded audio.

 

[walker2]

Yes, all the discs are marked with some speedmarker kind of pen. (Alcohol based somehow, but at least two different makes/brands)

And the problem follows the disc. Stand alone CD player, HiFi set, car or PC.

I have two troublesome brands of disc at least one of which is low price/bulk. Both 700 MB.

Then two others that seem OK.

Kodak Silver Plus, InfoGuard

and

TraxData, DataGuard

Both of those 640 MB.
And these are the oldest!

Maybe I should not fill the discs as much as I have with the troubled discs ?
All discs did have 'plenty' of space left, however! (No overburn or what ever)

 

[cdogg]

walker2,

The materials/chemicals that CD-R's are made from have a shelf life of close to 25 years in an unsealed container (Commercially pressed CD's last much longer up to 100 years). I highly doubt that even in the cheap brands that they are degrading on their own in just a matter of months.

I would seriously investigate the process you are using to make the CD's, as it's probably software related. Also, burn an extra copy the next couple times and tuck them away. When the ones in use start to have trouble, check the copies you made to see if they experience the same issues.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
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