[78-L] Pearl CD bronzing on "Music From The New York Stage" vol. one: 1890-1908

[victrola78s at aol.com]

An update on this "bronzing syndrome". In playing through all three of the bronzed CDs I have found only two tracks that are problematic. They are track # 32 on disc one, "Whe You Ain't Got No Money You Needn't Come Around" by May Irwin & track #24 on disc three, "That Wasn't All" by Ralph C. Hirsch. Both of those tracks exhibit static that increases as the song plays through, though track #24 of the third disc has a lower volume of it than the first disc example does. The second disc plays through without any problems at all. Weird.

"Many hits if you google "CD Bronzing" or "CD Bronzing PDO". 
Unfortunately the PDO helpline was closed in 2006 according to one 
source. There may be other avenues to try...

joe salerno"

Having taken Joe's tip I've now done the research. This seems to have been quite prolific at PDO during that 1988-1993 period, & I can only imagine how chagrined several labels were to have to deal with this. Odd, since CDs were introduced in 1983 in the USA one would think pressing techniques were pretty standardized five years into it.  I have a 1986 CD of Ketelby with the Ambrosia Singers a friend gave to me that is fine(though one can hear the hum in the transfer from analog!). 

"I think it largely depends on what speed you burn at. 

Commercially burned CDs are not to be trusted. I always burn a backup
copy (at 10x).

Pressed CDs with bronzing are, I think, all from the early days of CD
manufacture, when the process was not quite perfected in some factories.
I have had only 3 or 4 faulty recently pressed CDs, out of thousands.

Used CDs may of course have scratches or scrapes that spoil playback.
Thumb prints are bad too.

Don Cox"

Thinking about what Don has said, I primarily use one of three CD audio recorders for my own basic transfers & any CD dubbing. The machines are a Pioneer PDR-W739 from 2000, a Sony RCD-W1 from 2002, & a Sony RCD-W500C from 2005. The dubbing speed choices are 1X/2X with the Pioneer & 1X/4X with the Sonys. I mentioned TDK & Memorex CD-Rs I burned ten years ago still play fine. So the burned CD-Rs I mentioned from "78s2CD", "Tinfoil.com", & "First Generation Radio Archives" may have readability issues related to a much higher burning speed as done on a PC. Also, the "Radio Archives" sets used cheap CD-Rs to begin with, so much for my "Escape" & "The Big Show" sets! 

"Interesting that your bronzed discs were part of the Music from the New York 
Stage set.  The same thing happened to some of the discs in Volume 4 of that 
set to me.  Interestingly, Vols. 1 - 3 haven't so far exhibited this 
problem, but I bought them several years after I bought Volume 4.  It's 
highly annoying because those sets were very expensive even when new, and 
now can be hard to find, with Volume 4 apparently being the rarest.

As far as remedies go, sometimes ripping  in Windows Media Player (at full 
44.1 .wav resolution) will get a good copy where other methods have failed. 
That being said, my discs were ultimately not recoverable, and a kind 78-L 
listmember sent me CDR copies of Volume 4.

Let us know if you're able to get a decent copy made!

Sammy Jones"

Sammy had a problem with his Volume Four set, I don't(yet) as the discs are still shiny & silver colored. I haven't yet received Volumes Two & Three, so can't comment on those til later. I ordered all of these in the last two weeks from various Amazon vendors, so there's no way to tell when any of these were pressed. I don't anticipate any dubbing problems using the CD recorders at the 1X or 2X burning speed, so the remedies suggested on the 78-List may not be necessary. 

"Same thing with a John McCormack set from Pearl.  I got hold of a representative who said he'd try to get a replacement.  I sent him my copy at his request. ........ You know the rest.

Martin" 

I bought several McCormack Pearl sets from Dragonfly in Toronto in about 2004 or so. These were the later recordings Mac did in the early 1940s. Hopefully those pressings were done long after the "bronzing" issues were cleared up. And now I'll turn my attention to Gielgud's 1948 BBC "Hamlet", Naxos NA341712, which arrived in the mail yesterday. I'll compare this production to Gielgud's 1952 NBC "Hamlet" which I received about a week ago. It is on a Pearl CD set.....

Dennis "burn, baby, burn!" Forkel