[Hajime]

I bought a collection of CDs produced by Hollywood Records and they have got to be the worst quality CDs I have ever bought. These CDs are extremely thin. When I picked them up by the edges they bent inwards. I have never had a CD do that before; CDs are supposed to be stiff! When I began playing the first CD I thought something was wrong with my Meridian. The songs were all really, really dull. There is no such thing as dynamics on this CD. I could turn the volume all the way up and it would still sound incredibly flat. I have some of the songs on other CDs and I compared them. The quality of the recording is incredibly terrible, which is a shame because I love a lot of the songs. The second CD was actually pretty good (which surprised me, but then I noticed it was produced by EMI--go figure). The third CD was just as terrible as the first. In fact, by the third song the CD was skipping every few seconds and kept making this "vvwwwwt!" sound.

So my question is, why can't they make good, thick CDs anymore? The older CDs I own are very durable compared to these. Some (for example, my old Beatles CDs which I abused a lot) have scratches on them and still play perfectly. If CDs are being produced like this I am not surprised in the least that they are having a tough time selling them.

 

[Fickle-Friend]

I've had bad experiences with CDs made by COLUMBIA. They are crap.

 

[KR...]

Isn't Hollywood Records owned by Disney?

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hajime So my question is, why can't they make good, thick CDs anymore? The older CDs I own are very durable compared to these.

Yeah, really. On the one hand, the record companies complain long and loud about people ripping, burning and sharing. On the other hand, they release these cheap, poor sounding CD's, as if the expectation is that people will simply rip/burn for portable usage (and file sharing) and then sell the CD on half.com immediately afterward. It's like they just don't care anymore about quality, yet they moan endlessly about piracy.

IMO the redbook CD format is dying -- this is the kind of cheap crap and lack of attention to quality that was seen at the tail end of the (consumer market) for vinyl records in the 1980s. If you ask me, the RIAA and MPAA may eventually merge into one umbrella group. Everything will be out on DVD's (with plenty of extras for music albums), and PCDP's will give way to PDVDP's. The price of portable DVD movie players has already dropped drastically, and it won't be long before portables will just play everything under the sun. Why keep video and music formats separate anymore?

 

[D-EJ915]

My CDs from SolidState records are really stiff, just as stiff as my "the transformers" cd, and my europe cd is flimsy, so I don't think it has to do with how old it is.

 

[Hajime]

KR,

I went to their website out of curiosity and it seems you're right. Mickey Mouse ruined my CD.

Fewtch,

I'm one of the few that enjoys a good CD as opposed to a burnt one, but I'm not going to buy them if they're going to give me such bad quality CDs. I could go to Best Buy and buy CD-Rs for $1 each and they'd be higher quality than this.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hajime Fewtch, I'm one of the few that enjoys a good CD as opposed to a burnt one, but I'm not going to buy them if they're going to give me such bad quality CDs. I could go to Best Buy and buy CD-Rs for $1 each and they'd be higher quality than this.

I don't blame you, I wouldn't be buying them either. Actually I don't, I buy only used CD's through half.com or eBay -- or I sign up for BMG and it all adds up to about $4.00 per CD at the end of the membership.

Please do boycott this cheap, overcompressed, poorly mastered junk that passes for consumer market Redbook these days. You might just have to wait a couple months after a major release to buy on the used market, but so what? Don't buy this crap at new-CD prices.

 

[Hajime]

I've been buying on Amazon used, Half.com and once or twice on Ebay. However, for a collections of albums it's sometimes easier just to buy new. I'm definitely not going to buy them new anymore, especially if this is what I get.

You know, this really makes me think about getting in to vinyl. The only problem with that is I literally own every Queen CD there is, as well as the Rolling Stones CDs and some newer recordings. At the moment, if someone offered to trade the same recordings I have on my CDs for vinyl recordings, I'd do it.

 

[gloco]

I remember when i picked up Tony Iommi's solo effort back from 1999 (i think) and the cd cracked in half when i attempted to remove it from the case! I went back to the store (where i worked at the time) and promptly tore open another cd and bam, same thing! Broke into pieces! Third time...same thing! I even showed the managers at the store and they couldn't believe it...really freaky. So the fourth copy i took home, carefully removed it from its case, made a cdr copy and kept the original in the case. I sent an email out promptly to the company that released the album and never heard from them.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Hajime,

Although Hollywood Records is a subsidiary of Disney, recent issues since '95 have been pressed mostly at PolyGram (Philips) Records (which is now part of the Universal Music Group that's about to become a subsidiary of the NBC television network). EMI did press a few CDs that were issued on the Hollywood Records label -- but those are exceptions.