[78-L] Disc Rot in Pearl Music from the New York Stage

[Michael Biel]

From: Jeff Sultanof <jeffsultanof at gmail.com>
> I've been on vacation and am only now catching up on e-mail.

OK Guys, back up the truck.
 
> Back in the late 90s as I recall, there was a short article
> in a British publication about Pearl's complete Caruso box
> having certain discs spread with rot (these were pressed by PDO). 

Nope, it was RCA's box set with the reproduction batwing Red Seal.  The
red ink ate thru the protective lacquer.  They repressed it without the
red ink, and this is the version I have.  I've been looking for a red
example for demonstration purposes.  (Some people think that the
unplayable RCA discs sound better than the playable ones!)  (I recently
bought about 30 LaserDiscs --cheap-- and discovered DGG 072 223 1,
Mahler 1 & 4 Bernstein Vienna Phil was playable but had a very noisy
picture and partly cloudy reflective surfaces.  Ironically, the
cloudiest part was near the rim but that is the part at the end of the
sides with the best picture.  The disc was made in England with a 1990 P
copyright.)   

> I don't remember now why this occured (this was not the same
> as laser disc rot, which was caused by the glue binding the
> two sides of the disc together).

The RCA Caruso problem and the Nimbus problem were both related to ink,
and this was similar to the LaserDisc glue problem.  The PDO Blackburn
problem is that instead of using aluminum they used silver (!!!) for the
reflective layer, and the protective lacquer is unfortunately permeable
by sulfur which interacted with the silver but wouldn't have affected
aluminum.  Sulfur is used as one of the bleaching agents in the paper
used in some of the inserts and especially in the sleeves used for CD
Singles.  The first discs to show the problem were the CD singles.

>> The disc rot in Volume 4 is red or dark orange and
>> is present on the outside edge, affecting only the
>> last few tracks of each CD. Sammy Jones

It got the nickname "bronzing" since the coloring of the metal looks a
bit like bronze.

> Pearl isolated the problem to the Caruso, the four Broadway
> boxes and a few other titles, and asked purchasers to send
> these discs to them for replacements.

Actually the PDO Blackburn problem relates to several years worth of
pressings, and I thought that the Pearl Caruso sets were made after the
change.  PDO was responsible for replacing hundreds and hundreds of
different titles on many different labels, but they stopped doing it
about two years ago.  Some of the individual labels might still be doing
exchanges as a good will gesture.  
 
> The ones that were pressed later do not have this problem.

They switched back to aluminum and changed the lacquer formula.  
 
> I should check my volume 4 set as well, but am still in Flordia.
> Jeff Sultanof
 
OK guys, back up the truck!

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  
 

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Sammy Jones <sjones69 at bellsouth.net>
wrote:
 
> Volumes 1 through 3 seem to be okay, but I bought
> those MUCH later than I did Volume 4 (crazy, I know).
> As best as I can tell I got Volume 4 in about 1997,
> and Volumes 1 through 3 around 2003 or 2004. I wonder
> if they are from different press runs. Do Pearls have
> a well known problem with this? Should I clone the ones
> that are still okay.  The disc rot in Volume 4 is red
> or dark orange and is present on the outside edge,
> affecting only the last few tracks of each CD. Sammy Jones


 > > I can't help you because I have had these sets on my wish list for
 > > years
 > > but haven't gotten around to getting them. It's nice to know that
at
 > > least Vol 4 is on the list for self destruction. How are the other
 > > three volumes doing? I've got about a half dozen Pearl's I'm
watching
 > > that still play. I ought to do clones anyway.
 > >
 > > Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com