Gold CDs

[TSG]

Hi all..

I recently purchased a few Mobile Fidelity and DCC gold disks. I was wondering if anyone has any gold disks and what your thoughts on them are? I do not have the regular version of the ones I purchased so I don't know whether they are of higher quality... but they do sound very good. If you have compared I'd be interested in your findings.

Thanks




Tom

[David Meek]

Hi Tom,

No, I don't own any of the MoFi Gold CD's but I did get to hear an A/B test of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon a few years ago. Yes, there is an improvement over "regular" CD's. Better detial definitely - subjectively better dynamics (a lower noise floor?), and cleaner bass.

Enjoy 'em man! I don't think you can go wrong with those. . . .




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[Burke Strickland]

I have had Joan Baez Diamonds and Rust on vinyl, regular CD and MF Gold Disc CD. This one happens to be my favorite pop album of all time, so over the years, I've listened to all three copies a lot. The regular CD is no longer playable so I cannot do a side-by-side comparison anymore, but when I first bought the Gold Disc, I did compare them and noticed a marginal improvement in the spaciousness and clarity of the sound. I did not consider it to be "twice as good" although it was twice as expensive. So, although I'm glad to have paid extra to get the "best" release one of my fave album, I would not spend it for albums of less importance to me -- and for sure not for one being bought on "spec" (i.e., not heard before).

Burke

[JonMarsh]

The value to these issues stems not from the use of a gold plate on the disk (though it looks nice but because in all cases they've gone back to tapes closer to the original master, if not the actual multi-tracks. Just look at the hoops gone through for the new Stones hybrid SACD releases, or the multi-track DSOTM.

This is something that's been going on for a long time; while some of the major labels have done their own "gold" releases (such as the Sony SBM (super bit map) disks of the 80's, there's been an awful lot of stuff remastered and re-released in the last 3-5 years. And without the gold, though sometimes not without price increases. .. :roll:

On the one hand, I'm very irritated that they did such a "shoddy" job on a lot of the early and middle CD releases- how can you have "perfect sound forever" if what you're puttig on the disk is a compromised 3rd or 4th generation copy? OTOH, I'm glad at least that you can get so many releases which are improved in quality- at the source- since "GIGO" is still an operative principle, it's good to have whatever improvement you can get (or the market will bear).

~Jon




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