Copy of Skipping CD Does Not Skip

[Bernard]

What is at play here ?

My copy of Marta Gomez's wonderful "Cantos de Agua Dulce" (on Chesky) skips in my CD player. I took it back to my ML dealer, where I bought it, and he tried it in one of his players; no problem. Two replacement CDs I tried also skipped in my player. I kept the last one and made a copy of it, which plays perfectly in my CD player. I have a bunch of other Cheskys, none of which skips.

Any explanations ?

 

[Audioseduction]

Try using a green magicmarker to mark all the way around the edge of the CD. It may help.

http://www.snopes.com/music/media/marker.htm

 

[amey01]

What is at play here ?

My copy of Marta Gomez's wonderful "Cantos de Agua Dulce" (on Chesky) skips in my CD player. I took it back to my ML dealer, where I bought it, and he tried it in one of his players; no problem. Two replacement CDs I tried also skipped in my player. I kept the last one and made a copy of it, which plays perfectly in my CD player. I have a bunch of other Cheskys, none of which skips.

Any explanations ?

So it's clearly a fault with the pressing rather than any individual CD (since all three skipped). Never heard of that before so that is interesting in itself.

Not sure why burning it works though. I do know that I have had a couple of skipping CDs which I thought were damaged (my own fault, I know) but since ripping them to my SB3 they play perfectly. So now I've got a few albums I can ONLY play on my SB3/iPod - I assume because of the error correction in EAC or iTunes. That may or may not answer your question.

 

[SteveInNC]

It's possible that a portion of the CD is physically recorded at a level that your unit can't correctly read (the pits are too small, misaligned, or at a marginal focus depth). Your computer reader used to rip the disc doesn't have this problem (better tolerance for marginal discs, etc.). When you burn a new copy, that one gets written in such a fashion that it is readable by your player. One of the first things that happens when you burn a CD is that the unit writes some test data in a non-music area of the disc to calibrate the burning laser for the media that you are using, insuring correct read-back.

Note, nothing is technically "burned" in this process; a dye embedded in the empty disc changes phase when exposed to a higher-intensity laser. There are a couple of different phase-change chemicals in use by different manufacturers, so different blanks can be more or less successful with different players.

CD-Rs are physically different from CDDAs. A mass-produced CDDA is made by injection molding or stamping instead. The resulting discs then have a thin layer of aluminum sputtered onto the formed plastic. A marginal or flawed stamping master could be used to generate a large series of discs. If it has been awhile since you bought a copy, buying a new one, or buying one from a remote source (across country or overseas) may result in you getting a disc from a different stamping master. They generally create multiple stamping masters.

I wrote CD mastering software back when the CD-R burners cost about $12k and recorded at 2X, and the blanks were $25/each. Debugging was an expensive proposition.

 

[Bernard]

Thanks for the response, Steve. That certainly seems like what happened.

 

[Audioseduction]

I wrote CD mastering software back when the CD-R burners cost about $12k and recorded at 2X, and the blanks were $25/each. Debugging was an expensive proposition.

Would be nice if new hi-fi equipment came down in price like that. Can you just imagine a SS amp was 20K new in 1980 and now the latest model just $499 new? Never will happen.