[78-L] ^Philips CD-Rs from 2002 still usable?

[victrola78s at aol.com]

I recently did a sort & reorganize of my fairly full AV storage cabinets, which I bought at Staples in 1995. There are two of them. One contains 16mm/8mm/Super 8 home movies, trays full of Kodachrome slides, splicers & Presstapes, movie cameras & projectors, anything photographic related. The other contains VHS, Hi8 tapes, camcorders, RCA & Panasonic video cameras from 1983-1984, reel to reels & cassettes of the family audio archive, etc., all electronic related. Seems that in the back of the "photo" cabinet I had stashed three boxes of Philips CD-Rs, the 74 minute audio type. These are 8-pack boxes, which seems an odd count now. Don't know why I happen to place them there, mental glitch some years ago I guess. I had opened one of the boxes & put the receipts in it. I bought these in 2002 & never opened any of the actual CD-Rs(still shrink wrapped). I opened one & used it in my 2000 Pioneer CD recorder, doing a test transfer of an Lp & a 1981 cassette I had made of Don Chichester's "Spirit of 78" program. Finalized the disc & it plays fine on various types of equipment(DVD, CD players, computer drives). So the question is are they still viable for long term playback after having been burned & finalized? I am well aware that CD-Rs are not considered an archival medium, though I believed they would be when I first got the PDR-W739 Pioneer recorder. I've bought CD-Rs of vintage music by a pair of vendors who specialized in early Gilbert & Sullivan 78s & early Edison cylinders, respectively. The Alma Gluck CD-R set from the first vendor wouldn't play past track 11 after a few years, & the Comic Novelty CD-R from the second vendor also has developed playback issues. I attribute this to computer burning at high speeds, as the Pioneer recorder burns at 2X max & TDK, Memorex, Maxell CD-Rs made on it from 2000 still play without incident. For that matter I have a pair of gold colored CD-Rs made in 1995 by a well-heeled aquaintence with a Pioneer recorder($2,000 then), & they also play fine. And just today I received an order of Mitsui audio CD-Rs which are supposed to be more reliable than what I would buy in local stores. One could make a case that I'm just a glutton for punishment. Any thoughts on the Philips CD-Rs?

Dennis "Phthalocyanine" Forkel