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I'm sorry to say it but gold CDs look pretty, and that's about it. What's "gold" is the foil used as the reflective layer. The rest of the disc is the same. They're sold in the recordable market, branded as "archival" because people believe they will last longer, but in reality they're actually worse because gold is less reflective than silver alloy. And they're often not really gold anyway, rather coloring.
So if you have the option, I'd go with a regular disc for performance and longevity.
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Posted: |
Oct 16, 2016 - 12:52 AM
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By: |
jenkwombat
(Member)
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Sorry to hear they don't really last any longer than regular CDs, as I have several non-soundtrack CDs on MFSL (or other) Gold Discs (Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, John Lennon, Badfinger, The Byrds, The Velvet Underground, Nirvana, Cream, etc.).
As to whether they *sound* better, that was alway hit and miss. And for the ones that did, I never really thought they did because of the Gold Disc feature, but because of the new mastering.
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Let's be clear.
A gold disc will only sound better if the recording has also been remastered exclusively for the gold disc.
If it's the same digital master it will sound the same whether it's on a gold surface or a silver surface.
Cheers
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I remember that awful gold Apollo 13 cd. When it came out I was hopeful that it didn't have the same crappy mix of dialogue and music as on the standard edition, but no such luck.
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The gold in these CDs might be slightly more than symbolic. The upcoming James Webb space telescope has a gold-coated 6.5-meter diameter mirror, where the Hubble's mirror is silver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
From an FAQ for why Webb's primary mirror is gold:
https://jwst.nasa.gov/faq.html#gold
"Gold just happens to reflect blue light very poorly but red and infrared light extremely well."
And CDs use a red laser. So maybe gold is technically a better CD color, just not a great deal better. Thus the cheaper aluminum type was chosen for mass-manufacture.
Below: the full-sized "master platter" for The Omega Man 2.0 Unlimited, from which all our little CDs were duplicated.
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