I remember this issue very well. Usually, the PDO discs that rotted in my colletion were the ones made in France for Philips, but they were later improved and Decca and Philips started using a company called PMDC. When you saw that carved into the mid section of the disc you breathed a sigh of relief. DG and ASV were the worst culprits for using PDO as a manufacturer, I remember my DG Mahler 6 by Bernstine with the VPO, which cost nearly a weeks wages back in 1991, turned almost orange by 1998. It's so unique to have someone on youtube talking about this from the old days of CD. Thanks, I really enjoyed your video.
Great video.....I have a pretty large CD collection of classical music and have just checked the ASV recordings I have.....the two from the lindseys string quartett are fine....one from the London mozart players is now bronze in colour!...many thanks for pointing this problem out!
Nice video: thank you. CD rot has been a bugbear of mine for many years. Many of my Island label CDs from the 1990s are now unplayable, ditto pretty much all the Pearl classical discs I bought around the same time, and the Strange Fruit Peel Sessions series (the Soft Machine set being a particular heartache). All are PDO originated, as you describe. A long way from the Philips CD hype of the 1980s regarding "Perfect sound that will last forever"!
and many people still say that CDs are more reliable than vinyl... I have vinyls from 1958 that play perfectly and CDs from the 90s completely unreadable even in PC drives.
I must be very lucky, as I have hundreds of CDs, some dating back to the mid-1980s in the early days of CD, but as far as I'm aware, none have rotted like this. Having watched this video, I'm now tempted to go and check some of them!
@ Just done a rough count, and I reckon I have just over 1000 CDs. No known disc rot. Oldest one I can find was mastered in 1986 by Nimbus. Looks perfect and plays perfectly.
Was thinking the same thing!! Plus some now 15 year old CDR which were only burned once then treated and stored as if music discs. Some of mine are 30 year old
Good video! I remember from my decades working in the record collection of The Danish Radio Corporation how these ASV etc. discs started to go hazy/bronzy - and unplayable. CDs from other labels, however, did not "rot" and they were stored in the same location. Interesting.
I have loads of discs manufactured by PDO UK that have disc rot. I have been buying CDs since 1984. I remember bringing this to the attention of Music Week the industry music paper back in 1990 I even got invited up to the office armed with some CDs that were being destroyed by this problem. At the time the industry was trying to bury the problem. Because of Music Week I had some of the record labels of the infected CDs contact me as did PDO. PDO UK asked me to send them some of the CDS that had developed the problem so they could investigate what was going on. PDO replaced the discs sent but even some of those now have disc rot and are now unplayable. Fortunately I managed to rip those discs as FLAC lossless music files some years ago. Any other discs in my collection of some 5000+ CDS and cd singles that were manufactured by other pressing plants and even PDO in Germany are to this day fine.
The classical company 'Hyperion' suffered from this with cds manufactured between about 1995-2003. They used to provide a service where you could send the infected disc to them for replacement. Not sure if that is still the case now that Hyperion has been sold. They called it 'Bronzing'! Thanks for the video
You’re mostly correct. The years were 1988-1993. I’ve purchased around 5000 classical CDs in the last 35 years and fortunately have only encountered this issue 8 or 10 times. Most of them on Hyperion, but there are a couple other labels that I have that were affected.
Just checked my collection two by the lindsey string quartet on ASV are fine...but from the london mozart players ...also on ASV has...as you say turned bronze in colour! Thanks for pointing this problem out!
I just checked the only two CDs I have in my collection on the ASV label, a couple of Jimmie Rodgers compilations (the 1930's country singer) released in 1989. Haven't tried playing them yet as of writing this, but both discs are SEVERELY bronzed now and say on the inner circle on the discs they were made by PDO in the UK. If they don't play, won't be a total loss for me, since I also have the singers complete catalogue on eight CDs released later by Rounder Records, and those all still look fine.
I’m in the process of documenting my CD collection via Discogs so I’m checking each CD as I go along. After 1,100 CDs so far I’ve only come across one CD that has turned a rusty colour of gold. I have since played it and the result was not good.
You realise that some CDs are gold in colour - that they're supposed to be? Many of EMI's CDF Bollywood series from the 90s were gold and they all sound fine.
I have thousands of CDs... only one - Bruckner's 7th Symphony, Karajan/VPO, on the Deutsch Grammophon label - is "bronzed". And it is a PDO pressed disc! However, I have hundreds of PDO discs, but they seem OK... for now! The disc is over thirty years old!
As far as I know it was only the PDO factory in Blackburn that had this issue. I have many DG, Philips and Decca discs made in other, non-UK PDO factories that are fine. For a time, PDO offered to replace bronzed discs and I took them up on this. If I remember rightly, most of mine were on the Hyperion label with maybe the odd ASV; they had started to discolour but were still playable at the time. The whole thing was done on trust - I just sent a list of discs with catalogue numbers and wasn't asked to return the originals until they'd been replaced. This would have been the late 90s or very early 2000s as I remember there being a web page explaining what to do.
I guesstimate 99% will suffer a similar fate that's why I'm seeing a big push of sales and hype of vintage CD's the last few months. They were supposed to be disposable but marketed to rich people because they were shiny.
Might be apocryphal, but I heard the discolouration was a result of out-gassed chemicals from the paper or ink in the inlays and booklets, which ironically would mean that rarely played or unopened/sealed ones would be most affected. That said, I've owned a few discs with another form of 'disc-rot' with no discoloration at all (which would presumably in the printed protective layer) but the reflective (aluminium) one has simply started to disintegrate.
That's exactly what is happening with the PDO discs. They have paper booklets inside that contain sulphur and the PDO lacquer was faulty back then, unable to prevent the sulphur from corroding the silver reflective layer. Soon afterwards the inner booklets were made with sulphur free papers.
I know I got some PDO discs, but I don't remember any of them not playing. But now I wonder. Because I'm a sucker for old discs. Especially the German versions of anything Deutsche Grammophon.
Google "compact disc bronzing" Maybe you've never seen any CDs made by PDO in late 80s, early 90s? I've got one PDO CD that's badly bronzed, and won't play at all.
I have a few suffering with this, but by far the worst is ‘Yello The Race’, much of the disc is now totally clear as the reflective layer has been fully eaten away by the rot in places.
I have about 3000 CDs and started collecting in the early 1990s. Like another commentator, I went through the process of cataloguing my collection using Discogs, and I found 2 or 3 of my earliest purchases had the bronzing issue. They were all manufactured by PDO. I've come across many examples when scouring charity shops, etc. This made me a bit paranoid and so I now regularly check discs against a strong light. The pin hole issue is less straightforward with some sources claiming it was just the by product of manufacture, and others claiming it is a form of 'rot'. It does seem quite random, and affects the most prestigious companies such as DG as much as the mass market. I suppose the answer is to rip them all at some point, but since I mostly stream now, is it worth it? They'll probably all end up in landfill once I've gone!
I have a Status Quo Rocking all over the years Cd which is rusting so bought another and it is the same I've just checked on Discogs and most of them are PDO made
Yup .... PDO (Made in UK, Swindon) between 1988 to 1992 were subject to disc rot ... also affected many CD singles ... they, PDO, did do a disc replacement service for a few years (got a Pat Travers School of Hard Knocks disc, maybe a couple of others, Tam White, replaced) ... also had the Van Morrison Hymns to Silence CD that I took back to HMV years after release and argued the case that CDs should not rot ... they asked for a receipt ... I said don't be daft, it was bought years ago ... they then gave me a new copy! ... result.... I have since dumped any CDs I find with disk rot ... they are useless .... check some Deutche Grammophone, any BBC In Concert releases (John Miles), Elkie Brooks, Polydor CD singles, Polydor CDs ... it's a pain .... CMcG Aberdeen Scotland
Interesting. I have Ozric Tentacles' Live Underslunky (Dovetail Records 1992) and it was manufactured by PDO. It's showing CD bronzing and won't fully play in my Marantz CD. Strange thing though. I've ripped it to WAV on the laptop and burned a new CD. Yes, the new CD plays fine. Try it.
no way, when they turned unreadable there's no way to repair them not even rip them to files. And this will happen with all CDs sooner or later, I don't know why people deny it.
Despite a CD collection approaching 5000 and selling many thousands online, I've only ever seen CD "rot" twice - and both were ASV titles. They weren't bronzed, both had small holes in the data layer. Not sure that's rot as it goes, just a manufacturing fault? It has to be said there's been a lot of nonsense talked about CDs in the last decade or so - most is BS and all part of the "vinyl revival" hype.
Yeah that's disc rot, you can easily tell just by holding the CD up to the light.You will normally see lots of little pinholes in the data which get worse over time.
Agreed. I have been buying CDs since 1984 and have never had a problem. I read a lot of comments from people who state that the majority of their collection is suffering from disc rot. Whilst i accept there are issues with certain disc manufacturers (as in this video) and i'm lucky enough not to have any of these discs, there are a lot of wholly exaggerated comments from the vinyl cult to justify the vinyl resurgence hype and extortionate vinyl prices.
@ I only ever had one CD with disc rot and i bought it in the late 80's when it was first released on CD here in the UK, the rot started in about the early 90's near the outer edge of the disc but lucky for me the album is pretty short at 30 odd minutes so did not effect the playback but looking at it in 2025 it now looks like the paint on the walls of an abandoned hospital! ....No it doesnt play anymore.
I remember this issue very well. Usually, the PDO discs that rotted in my colletion were the ones made in France for Philips, but they were later improved and Decca and Philips started using a company called PMDC. When you saw that carved into the mid section of the disc you breathed a sigh of relief. DG and ASV were the worst culprits for using PDO as a manufacturer, I remember my DG Mahler 6 by Bernstine with the VPO, which cost nearly a weeks wages back in 1991, turned almost orange by 1998. It's so unique to have someone on youtube talking about this from the old days of CD. Thanks, I really enjoyed your video.
Great video.....I have a pretty large CD collection of classical music and have just checked the ASV recordings I have.....the two from the lindseys string quartett are fine....one from the London mozart players is now bronze in colour!...many thanks for pointing this problem out!
Nice video: thank you. CD rot has been a bugbear of mine for many years. Many of my Island label CDs from the 1990s are now unplayable, ditto pretty much all the Pearl classical discs I bought around the same time, and the Strange Fruit Peel Sessions series (the Soft Machine set being a particular heartache). All are PDO originated, as you describe. A long way from the Philips CD hype of the 1980s regarding "Perfect sound that will last forever"!
same here with many CDs from the 80s and 90s.
I had CDs that developed tiny pinholes in the aluminum layer. I ripped them to files, but there were several that would not play.
and many people still say that CDs are more reliable than vinyl... I have vinyls from 1958 that play perfectly and CDs from the 90s completely unreadable even in PC drives.
I must be very lucky, as I have hundreds of CDs, some dating back to the mid-1980s in the early days of CD, but as far as I'm aware, none have rotted like this. Having watched this video, I'm now tempted to go and check some of them!
Same . I have 1500 cds over 40 years, only 1 disc rot in that time.
@ Just done a rough count, and I reckon I have just over 1000 CDs. No known disc rot. Oldest one I can find was mastered in 1986 by Nimbus. Looks perfect and plays perfectly.
@@BurmaEK Similar numbers here with just the one that's died due to disc rot that I'm aware of. I guess we've been luckier than some.
Was thinking the same thing!! Plus some now 15 year old CDR which were only burned once then treated and stored as if music discs. Some of mine are 30 year old
not yet, but it will occur in time .
Good video! I remember from my decades working in the record collection of The Danish Radio Corporation how these ASV etc. discs started to go hazy/bronzy - and unplayable. CDs from other labels, however, did not "rot" and they were stored in the same location. Interesting.
I have loads of discs manufactured by PDO UK that have disc rot. I have been buying CDs since 1984. I remember bringing this to the attention of Music Week the industry music paper back in 1990 I even got invited up to the office armed with some CDs that were being destroyed by this problem. At the time the industry was trying to bury the problem. Because of Music Week I had some of the record labels of the infected CDs contact me as did PDO. PDO UK asked me to send them some of the CDS that had developed the problem so they could investigate what was going on. PDO replaced the discs sent but even some of those now have disc rot and are now unplayable. Fortunately I managed to rip those discs as FLAC lossless music files some years ago. Any other discs in my collection of some 5000+ CDS and cd singles that were manufactured by other pressing plants and even PDO in Germany are to this day fine.
I havent looked over my cd collection in a few years, I hope they are OK.
The classical company 'Hyperion' suffered from this with cds manufactured between about 1995-2003. They used to provide a service where you could send the infected disc to them for replacement. Not sure if that is still the case now that Hyperion has been sold. They called it 'Bronzing'! Thanks for the video
Unfortunately they will no longer replace them. I had one that was one of my particular favourites, but they would not change it. Shame.
@@nigelmasters8552 I thought as much. Since the buyout however, many of the Hyperion releases are now on UA-cam.
You’re mostly correct. The years were 1988-1993. I’ve purchased around 5000 classical CDs in the last 35 years and fortunately have only encountered this issue 8 or 10 times. Most of them on Hyperion, but there are a couple other labels that I have that were affected.
Just checked my collection two by the lindsey string quartet on ASV are fine...but from the london mozart players ...also on ASV has...as you say turned bronze in colour! Thanks for pointing this problem out!
I just checked the only two CDs I have in my collection on the ASV label, a couple of Jimmie Rodgers compilations (the 1930's country singer) released in 1989. Haven't tried playing them yet as of writing this, but both discs are SEVERELY bronzed now and say on the inner circle on the discs they were made by PDO in the UK. If they don't play, won't be a total loss for me, since I also have the singers complete catalogue on eight CDs released later by Rounder Records, and those all still look fine.
I’m in the process of documenting my CD collection via Discogs so I’m checking each CD as I go along. After 1,100 CDs so far I’ve only come across one CD that has turned a rusty colour of gold. I have since played it and the result was not good.
You realise that some CDs are gold in colour - that they're supposed to be?
Many of EMI's CDF Bollywood series from the 90s were gold and they all sound fine.
Very interesting, will check into, have close to 400 of these.
All of my ASV label disks haver the same problem!
I have thousands of CDs... only one - Bruckner's 7th Symphony, Karajan/VPO, on the Deutsch Grammophon label - is "bronzed". And it is a PDO pressed disc! However, I have hundreds of PDO discs, but they seem OK... for now! The disc is over thirty years old!
I’ve never heard of disc rot. I’ve got lots of cds and they are all fine
As far as I know it was only the PDO factory in Blackburn that had this issue. I have many DG, Philips and Decca discs made in other, non-UK PDO factories that are fine.
For a time, PDO offered to replace bronzed discs and I took them up on this. If I remember rightly, most of mine were on the Hyperion label with maybe the odd ASV; they had started to discolour but were still playable at the time.
The whole thing was done on trust - I just sent a list of discs with catalogue numbers and wasn't asked to return the originals until they'd been replaced.
This would have been the late 90s or very early 2000s as I remember there being a web page explaining what to do.
Yup ... got a few replaced ... was a pain but did get done .... then they stopped providing the replacement service ... CMcG Aberdeen Scotland
I guesstimate 99% will suffer a similar fate that's why I'm seeing a big push of sales and hype of vintage CD's the last few months. They were supposed to be disposable but marketed to rich people because they were shiny.
Might be apocryphal, but I heard the discolouration was a result of out-gassed chemicals from the paper or ink in the inlays and booklets, which ironically would mean that rarely played or unopened/sealed ones would be most affected. That said, I've owned a few discs with another form of 'disc-rot' with no discoloration at all (which would presumably in the printed protective layer) but the reflective (aluminium) one has simply started to disintegrate.
Yes, in fact that's the only kind of CD rot I've ever seen.
That's exactly what is happening with the PDO discs. They have paper booklets inside that contain sulphur and the PDO lacquer was faulty back then, unable to prevent the sulphur from corroding the silver reflective layer.
Soon afterwards the inner booklets were made with sulphur free papers.
I know I got some PDO discs, but I don't remember any of them not playing. But now I wonder. Because I'm a sucker for old discs. Especially the German versions of anything Deutsche Grammophon.
Never Ever seen a disc rot!
Copyright protection causes not being able to Rip
it's a growing problem, you'll see it eventually as they will all become corrupt it could take decades for some.. the sandwich layer is the problem.
Google "compact disc bronzing"
Maybe you've never seen any CDs made by PDO in late 80s, early 90s? I've got one PDO CD that's badly bronzed, and won't play at all.
FWIW, the only CD I've had destroyed by disc rot (and I have quite a few PDO discs) was an ASV release.
Im sure Ive seen this bronze colour on a few of my discs!! OMG wondered what the hell was going on.
I have only had this issue with one commercial cd but quite a lot of cdr,s have developed this .
I have a few suffering with this, but by far the worst is ‘Yello The Race’, much of the disc is now totally clear as the reflective layer has been fully eaten away by the rot in places.
I have about 3000 CDs and started collecting in the early 1990s. Like another commentator, I went through the process of cataloguing my collection using Discogs, and I found 2 or 3 of my earliest purchases had the bronzing issue. They were all manufactured by PDO. I've come across many examples when scouring charity shops, etc. This made me a bit paranoid and so I now regularly check discs against a strong light. The pin hole issue is less straightforward with some sources claiming it was just the by product of manufacture, and others claiming it is a form of 'rot'. It does seem quite random, and affects the most prestigious companies such as DG as much as the mass market.
I suppose the answer is to rip them all at some point, but since I mostly stream now, is it worth it? They'll probably all end up in landfill once I've gone!
I have a Status Quo Rocking all over the years Cd which is rusting so bought another and it is the same I've just checked on Discogs and most of them are PDO made
Trust me, they can get much worse.
Yup .... PDO (Made in UK, Swindon) between 1988 to 1992 were subject to disc rot ... also affected many CD singles ... they, PDO, did do a disc replacement service for a few years (got a Pat Travers School of Hard Knocks disc, maybe a couple of others, Tam White, replaced) ... also had the Van Morrison Hymns to Silence CD that I took back to HMV years after release and argued the case that CDs should not rot ... they asked for a receipt ... I said don't be daft, it was bought years ago ... they then gave me a new copy! ... result.... I have since dumped any CDs I find with disk rot ... they are useless .... check some Deutche Grammophone, any BBC In Concert releases (John Miles), Elkie Brooks, Polydor CD singles, Polydor CDs ... it's a pain .... CMcG Aberdeen Scotland
Swindon made discs for EMI not PDO.
Interesting. I have Ozric Tentacles' Live Underslunky (Dovetail Records 1992) and it was manufactured by PDO. It's showing CD bronzing and won't fully play in my Marantz CD. Strange thing though. I've ripped it to WAV on the laptop and burned a new CD. Yes, the new CD plays fine. Try it.
@@Anybloke That's what I did with my Van Morrison CDs. I managed to copy them onto CD-Rs.
I thought I heard you say there is a way to salvage or repair them?
no way, when they turned unreadable there's no way to repair them not even rip them to files. And this will happen with all CDs sooner or later, I don't know why people deny it.
I have never had a probleem with my cds.😊.mybe lucky
Oiiii with your quick vid ...You should of made it a lot longer!! 😂😂
"Should have."
Despite a CD collection approaching 5000 and selling many thousands online, I've only ever seen CD "rot" twice - and both were ASV titles. They weren't bronzed, both had small holes in the data layer. Not sure that's rot as it goes, just a manufacturing fault?
It has to be said there's been a lot of nonsense talked about CDs in the last decade or so - most is BS and all part of the "vinyl revival" hype.
Yeah that's disc rot, you can easily tell just by holding the CD up to the light.You will normally see lots of little pinholes in the data which get worse over time.
Agreed. I have been buying CDs since 1984 and have never had a problem. I read a lot of comments from people who state that the majority of their collection is suffering from disc rot. Whilst i accept there are issues with certain disc manufacturers (as in this video) and i'm lucky enough not to have any of these discs, there are a lot of wholly exaggerated comments from the vinyl cult to justify the vinyl resurgence hype and extortionate vinyl prices.
@ I only ever had one CD with disc rot and i bought it in the late 80's when it was first released on CD here in the UK, the rot started in about the early 90's near the outer edge of the disc but lucky for me the album is pretty short at 30 odd minutes so did not effect the playback but looking at it in 2025 it now looks like the paint on the walls of an abandoned hospital! ....No it doesnt play anymore.