What is so special about Gold Edition CDs?

I keep seeing ads for CDs being done on a gold disc.  What is so special about them?  Why do they cost more?  I see Retroactive doing them and putting a gold border around the artwork making the artwork smaller than the original.  Isn't that something we detested with M8 and Magdalan Records?  Is the sound quality really better? Why are they $5 more than a standard CD?

I am not making any accusations.  I just want to understand.  Any help is appreciated.

Suppposedly they do not have disc rot. Older CD's have started to rot, but to be fair my oldest CD is from 1984 (I bought it before I even had a CD player!). I have tons of early and mid 80's CD's and NONE of them have disc rot.




More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Finally, discs made with gold as the reflecting layer are considerably less vulnerable to corrosion problems, though no less susceptible to physical damage to that layer.

This one is good too:

So the music industry lied to us in the early days about how CDs were permanent storage of our music that we bought?

I have some CDs from the early 80s that have shown no decay.  I have some CD-Rs that are nearing 20 years old as well that still play.  Perhaps it is from overplaying or bad storage?  I have never had a disc do that.  I am not saying I won't, but I haven't yet.

If the industry sold us on permanent storage and then are trying to sell us gold CDs as the answer, then they probably will have some form of this as well.  Unless the sound quality is noticeably superior, then they probably aren't worth the additional $5 in my opinion.

I have hundreds of CDs that were manufactured in the '80s and ALL of them still play and sound as good as they did when they were new.  CD rot is a common problem with older discs.  If you hold them up to a bright light and have specks that you can see light through, then that's disc rot.  It's been my experience that this is caused mostly through not taking proper care of them to begin with.  You can't expect to store CDs in your car for instance and have them last very long.  Extreme temperatures and scuffing (especially the top layer) over time degrade the protective layers of a CD.  Eventually they will skip and just not play in certain areas.  On the other hand, if you have taken care of your old CDs, have stored them in a cool dry environment and not let them just lay around getting damaged, then you shouldn't have a problem at all.  As far as this Gold Disc thing that Boone's Overstock / Retroactive is doing, I think it's a total joke!  Do you see any bigger mainstream labels doing this?  No, you don't!  The only ones I was ever aware of were the Metal Mind reissues from back around 2007-2009.  It's just not a common thing.  Boone's will offer these gold discs for $19.99 but you have to order fast or else they will raise to $24.99 once the pre-order is over!  What a joke!  Apparently from what I've heard Boone's is going to continue doing these.  I for one, would rather have a regular, standard old silver CD, take care of it properly and pay a LOWER price to get it!  I'm sure my opinion matters not though.

They cost more so the label gets more money. Isn't that special?

alldatndensum wrote:So the music industry lied to us in the early days about how CDs were permanent storage of our music that we bought?

I have some CDs from the early 80s that have shown no decay.  I have some CD-Rs that are nearing 20 years old as well that still play.  Perhaps it is from overplaying or bad storage?  I have never had a disc do that.  I am not saying I won't, but I haven't yet.

If the industry sold us on permanent storage and then are trying to sell us gold CDs as the answer, then they probably will have some form of this as well.  Unless the sound quality is noticeably superior, then they probably aren't worth the additional $5 in my opinion.

I don't think they lied, I just don't think they saw this coming down the road. I also agree that I do not like the Gold border around the artwork. The artwork should stand alone and then mention gold somewhere else on the disc, perhaps the spine.

Nada wrote:I have hundreds of CDs that were manufactured in the '80s and ALL of them still play and sound as good as they did when they were new.  CD rot is a common problem with older discs.  If you hold them up to a bright light and have specks that you can see light through, then that's disc rot.  It's been my experience that this is caused mostly through not taking proper care of them to begin with.  You can't expect to store CDs in your car for instance and have them last very long.  Extreme temperatures and scuffing (especially the top layer) over time degrade the protective layers of a CD.  Eventually they will skip and just not play in certain areas.  On the other hand, if you have taken care of your old CDs, have stored them in a cool dry environment and not let them just lay around getting damaged, then you shouldn't have a problem at all.  As far as this Gold Disc thing that Boone's Overstock / Retroactive is doing, I think it's a total joke!  Do you see any bigger mainstream labels doing this?  No, you don't!  The only ones I was ever aware of were the Metal Mind reissues from back around 2007-2009.  It's just not a common thing.  Boone's will offer these gold discs for $19.99 but you have to order fast or else they will raise to $24.99 once the pre-order is over!  What a joke!  Apparently from what I've heard Boone's is going to continue doing these.  I for one, would rather have a regular, standard old silver CD, take care of it properly and pay a LOWER price to get it!  I'm sure my opinion matters not though.

Same with me, my old stuff plays just fine. I do know of some large labels making gold discs (Universal Music for one) but I have never bought one because they are usually imports and are high priced to begin with. And most of them are classic rock titles that I already own and play just fine the way there are. The colored vinyl thing IS cool but I am not big on Random. Plus, since there are only 100-300 pressed the prices are higher than if they pressed significantly more. I'll pay $25 for a record but not much more. Never $34.99 unless it is a double LP. 

I believe the Random Colored vinyl stuff will come to an end tho because Rainbo Records who presses them is closing up shop Dec 31, 2019 and are not taking new orders.

The problem with this whole issue is that there is a lot of mis-information out there. The first video above shows two of the same CDs that were artificially aged: one fell apart, the other didn't. This would seem to indicate that manufacturing or materials had nothing to do with it - but neither did handling. It was something else to cause the same CD made at the same time to degrade differently.

The second video shows one guy pulling out one CD with holes in it. There is no denying the holes are there, but he says "oxidation." The problem is, aluminum doesn't oxidize like that - it tends to form a hard aluminum oxide substance that is hard to get off. But if oxygen is getting to your aluminum layer, there was a bigger problem with the manufacturing or storage of your disc. Still, one example is not a whole lot of proof.

This article is the one most often shared as proof that Disc Rot is a huge problem, but it really only says it was a thing that happened to older discs, and doesn't go into how wide spread or common it was or is:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mg9pdv/the-hidden-phenomenon-that-could-ruin-your-old-discs

However, this Vice article and the videos above show that there are many that think Disc Rot is real. But does it come from manufacturing or handling/storage? They seem to lean on the storage side. Then there are others that think Disc Rot is a myth. They do seem to tell a lot more about how they researched their opinion, like this article:

http://www.newwavetech.com/vendor%20stores/resource_centers/rimage/WhitePapers/CD%20DVD%20Rot.pdf

This New Wave Tech article refers to a researcher who also publishes his own articles:

http://www.mikeshardware.com/files_public/Articles/DVD%20Rot%20-%20eweek%20-%2005-11-04.PDF

So its really up to you to look at the evidence and see if Disc Rot is real or not. Different people will tell you different things.

Nada wrote:I have hundreds of CDs that were manufactured in the '80s and ALL of them still play and sound as good as they did when they were new.  CD rot is a common problem with older discs.  If you hold them up to a bright light and have specks that you can see light through, then that's disc rot.  It's been my experience that this is caused mostly through not taking proper care of them to begin with.  You can't expect to store CDs in your car for instance and have them last very long.  Extreme temperatures and scuffing (especially the top layer) over time degrade the protective layers of a CD.  Eventually they will skip and just not play in certain areas.  On the other hand, if you have taken care of your old CDs, have stored them in a cool dry environment and not let them just lay around getting damaged, then you shouldn't have a problem at all.  As far as this Gold Disc thing that Boone's Overstock / Retroactive is doing, I think it's a total joke!  Do you see any bigger mainstream labels doing this?  No, you don't!  The only ones I was ever aware of were the Metal Mind reissues from back around 2007-2009.  It's just not a common thing.  Boone's will offer these gold discs for $19.99 but you have to order fast or else they will raise to $24.99 once the pre-order is over!  What a joke!  Apparently from what I've heard Boone's is going to continue doing these.  I for one, would rather have a regular, standard old silver CD, take care of it properly and pay a LOWER price to get it!  I'm sure my opinion matters not though.

I agree with almost everything you said except this part

" If you hold them up to a bright light and have specks that you can see light through, then that's disc rot." 


That is not always true. There were literally tons of cds back in the 80's, when brand new, that you could do that with. Little pin holes showing when held up to light is a sign of cheap disc manufacturing, not disc rot. I still have loads of cds I bought back then, with the pin holes in them, that still play fine.

As for gold discs, I think it is a waste of money. I wanted the 2 new released (Trytan and Shiloam, especially Shiloam since I don't have the original), but I don't want them bad enough to pay $20 + shipping for both.

If they are going to try and pad the profit margin by doing this, then I am probably going to cut waaay back in buying.

Bought4Life, I agree.  I will be cutting WAY back myself if Retroactive sticks to this ridiculous gold CD thing!  I would also love to have both the Trytan & Siloam remasters, but I absolutely will not pay that much extra when it could have been done with the same high quality silver discs that every other label (mainstream or otherwise) produces and at a reasonable price!  To be honest, some of the sales tactics being used of late have completely turned me against the notion of even supporting such labels!

Bought4Life wrote:If they are going to try and pad the profit margin by doing this, then I am probably going to cut waaay back in buying.

Usually the labels that put out these Christian metal re-issues don't make any money on it. The gold in Gold CDs is real gold, so the materials are expensive. So since they don't make any money on the silver discs, I doubt they will make any money on the gold discs, either.

grandeped wrote:

Bought4Life wrote:If they are going to try and pad the profit margin by doing this, then I am probably going to cut waaay back in buying.

Usually the labels that put out these Christian metal re-issues don't make any money on it. The gold in Gold CDs is real gold, so the materials are expensive. So since they don't make any money on the silver discs, I doubt they will make any money on the gold discs, either.

While I get that the owners are fans, too, what then is the purpose of putting out these albums and spending all the time, money, etc. on putting them out if you don't make a profit?  No other company would do this.  You either are making some profit, or you throw in the towel and shut it down.

If the gold discs cost more to manufacture, I am betting that these companies won't be making extra money off of them truthfully.  They will pay more per unit to have them made.  They pass that on to us.  ALL companies do this.  I am guessing, being a friend of Matt at Retroactive, that he simply wants to give us a better product (if it really is) so that we will continue to buy from him.  I doubt this is for a big cash grab.  As a matter of fact, after I started this thread, Matthew sent the MP3s of both the Siloam and Trytan discs to me and kicked in a bonus Mad At The World album.  If he were simply trying to bilk us, then why send these out even to a friend?

Let's put this Gold CD thing to a vote then, shall we?  I actually OWN a few gold CDs (Metal Mind) so I think I can accurately state that without question I would prefer the standard high quality silver discs hands down!  In the end, I don't want to pay vinyl prices for a CD!  Plain and simple.  So to Matthew Hunt at Retroactive, Bill Bafford at Roxx or Greg Hayes at Girder, since we know that you see these posts, please stick to what you have always done!  Stick to what works.  Provide us (the fans) who support you and your reissues with an AFFORDABLE product!  So Matt, most of us WANT to purchase the new Trytan or Siloam, or Crimson Thorn or fill in the blank CD reissue, but since you are not offering a standard, time-tested silver-pressed CD as an option, then you leave some no choice except to say "I'll pass!".  It's just that simple.  Don't force us to pay vinyl prices for a CD that we'd like to have!  That's all.

They're made of gold!

Nada wrote:Let's put this Gold CD thing to a vote then, shall we?  I actually OWN a few gold CDs (Metal Mind) so I think I can accurately state that without question I would prefer the standard high quality silver discs hands down!  In the end, I don't want to pay vinyl prices for a CD!  Plain and simple.  So to Matthew Hunt at Retroactive, Bill Bafford at Roxx or Greg Hayes at Girder, since we know that you see these posts, please stick to what you have always done!  Stick to what works.  Provide us (the fans) who support you and your reissues with an AFFORDABLE product!  So Matt, most of us WANT to purchase the new Trytan or Siloam, or Crimson Thorn or fill in the blank CD reissue, but since you are not offering a standard, time-tested silver-pressed CD as an option, then you leave some no choice except to say "I'll pass!".  It's just that simple.  Don't force us to pay vinyl prices for a CD that we'd like to have!  That's all.

The extra $5-$10 per cd adds up if you buy a lot of music. I definitely don't want the gold discs.

It's a shame.....they are going to kill off the last little bit of interest in cds most folks have

There was a time I never thought I'd say it but i'm about 90 percent done with cds. They take too much space after awhile, I don't have Scott Waters room just for music,  and dls are cheaper.

I really want to do a CD remaster comparison of Deliverance on my show TorrentiaL RIFF. I contacted Matt Hunt to see if he would send me a promo of Gold edition of Stay of Execution to review. But he was hesitant to send it to me to do a remaster battle, that scares me. So i will have to purchase it myself at some point and review it.

Seems that Roxx Records is also getting in on the Gold CD thing as well. I'm not seeing much positive feedback here or other places on the Gold CDs, so I am really confused as to why this is going full steam ahead. Is there a huge group of Gold CD fans out there somewhere I am just not seeing?

https://mailchi.mp/addc9f0ada00/happy-new-year-coming-in-2020

grandeped wrote:Seems that Roxx Records is also getting in on the Gold CD thing as well. I'm not seeing much positive feedback here or other places on the Gold CDs, so I am really confused as to why this is going full steam ahead. Is there a huge group of Gold CD fans out there somewhere I am just not seeing?

https://mailchi.mp/addc9f0ada00/happy-new-year-coming-in-2020

Agreed, I got the e-mail from Roxx about the upcoming releases and sadly there isn't a single one I look forward to. This Gold-CD stuff has gotta stop. As stated before I have CD's I have had since 1985 and they are still perfectly fine. Never had CD rot on any CD, ever.

There’s nothing special about them...my cd collection from the mid 1980’s are still perfect and play just fine...just store them properly and they’ll last longer than us!

My Awesome Timothy wrote:If disc rot was a serious issue, surely all future releases would be on gold discs but some new releases are being released on standard discs.  Am confused!!!  

Ammocas wrote:There’s nothing special about them...my cd collection from the mid 1980’s are still perfect and play just fine...just store them properly and they’ll last longer than us!

I SO wish that these forums had a like button right now!