[jude]

thomas,

Are BMG CD's made any differently? I was under the impression that they were pressed for BMG by the record companies in a distribution arrangement. I have no idea, actually, I just always assumed.

I have several BMG CD's, and they sound good to me. Is there a way, by looking at the inside rim of the CD itself, to tell where it was pressed?

For example, I received my Dire Straits Brothers in Arms CD from BMG. Anyone have a non-BMG copy? On the reflective side of the CD, on the inside rim (just at the outer edge of the clear part in the center) is the following text, from left to right:

wea mfg. OLYPHANT

Y13685

1 47773-2 01

M1S1

Does that indicate where it was pressed? If so, does anyone else have a non-BMG copy of the Brothers in Arms remaster CD that was obtained outside of BMG (like at a store)?

 

[thomas]

Personally, i think those claims that BMG discs sound worse are BS, i also own many BMG discs, some are better than others but i'm sure its due to the original recording rather than problems with BMG's production methods.

And you're right, in the past few years (well, this year BMG canada went bankrupt

) BMG's discs are made by the original manufacturer, probably on the EXACT same equipment. They are labeled differently, however.

But many audiophiles have started rumors that BMG discs are intentionally "sabotoged" to mess up the sound. stereophile did a test on this, and concluded that there was no deliberate effort to ruin the sound quality (duh!) but said that it was still possible for poor manufacturing to cause differences in sound quality (but they also did extensive testing and found NO differences between them) I think (can't remember, it was a while ago) the conclusion was that there was likely just as much difference between reail CDs mastered in different plants as between those CD's and BMG discs.

THe reason i mentioned that discussion was that many interesting points about CD production and possible errors were mentioned....

All the Cd's i have are mastered in Canada, usually by EMI, Cinram, or Sony. Since they are different from the US versions, there is the possibility that differences in quality control can result in slight differences in sound quality. (i hope audiophiles don't start importing albums from around the world to find the BEST version

)

 

[lini]

Oh, well. it's a question of combination and optimization, actually:

Older blanks were optimized for being burnt at lower speeds (1x, 2x), whereas modern blanks can give you better results at higher speeds (8x, 12x...).

Then it depends on the burner: The drives have a blank database with optimized parameters in their firmware, so keeping the firmware up to date is usually a good idea. Another trick here is the use of some auto calibration - that's what newer Philips drives do with their thermo balanced writing technology.

In addition, it depends on how the burner works: For example, some modern burn-proof burners produce controlled buffer underruns while they change their speeds, which can prevent the use of the burnt blank as a golden master, because it contains too many breaks. Even more modern burners already use additional tricks to prevent this - Yamaha's CRW2200-series, for example.

As a rule of thumb, you're generelly safe when you use half of your burners' maximum speed - and blanks of a well known brand, because these will most likely included in the firmware database.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[grrr223]

I dont' know about the burner, because I only have used one burner that I have listened carefully to it's results (My new Sony 12/8/32 firewire Spressa burner) but the discs certainly make a difference. I am right now listening to an old Maxell CD-R copy of Chicago's greatest hits, and it came from a direct CD copy that my parents own, so no mp3s involved, and it sounds attrocious with all these pops and clicks and hiss and things like that. My home CDP won't even play it. But the new TDK discs I bought that were kinda expensive, $.50 a piece in a spool of 100, sound almost perfect, the only pops I ever hear on them are due to my old portable CDP.

 

[jaskin]

Hi,

Since we're kinda on the topic of cd burners, let me poise this questions. Let's say I copy a cd on my PC Yamaha Cd write at 4X and I copy the same cd on a NAD CD Writer.
Would there be a difference in sound quality? After all it's only the data that's being transfered.

 

[grrr223]

In my experience, it's not that the data being written is any different, like you said, it's all just 1s and 0s, but the quality with which it is written can vary, especially (see post above) depending on the quality of the CDs you are writing on. Things such as jitter and write speed can have a big effect.

Sorry to ramble, to answer your question: Yes, there may be a difference, although as far as I know, it wouldn't so much be distorting what was being written as much as maybe adding pops and clicks caused by being written poorly. So what you will get is the original sound with annoying noise added to it.

 

[sapphiremodena]

Quote:

Originally posted by chych Do this simple test... find a good microscope (like 10000x or something, I dunno) and look at a 1x burned cd, 8x burned cd, and original, you will see big differences. Do it with different burners to get your answer...

Hmmm....now all we need is a 10000X microscope....that shouldn't be too hard to find!