Short history of CDs, format war with vinyl and loudness war

 

Originally developed by Philips and Sony independently, the first commersial CD was made in Japan by Sony and released in 1982. Since that CDs slowly begun to gain popularity until in the late 80s a digitalization wave struck the US. By 1991 vinyl was no longer a popular media in the US, many people had updated their huge vinyl collection to small CDs. In Europe, however, vinyl remained a popular media for a few years longer. 

 

Since the mid 80s many albums were originally released on CD, MC and LP. Nowadays many audiophiles prefer the early CDs over reissues due to their mixing/mastering quality. Especially Japanese CDs are sought after since Japanese still seem to have their own way of mastering CDs. But when it comes to comparing early CDs to their vinyl counterparts the choice is most often obvious: vinyl sounded a lot better than their CD counterparts in the early to mid 80s. However, in the late 80s CDs started to sound equal and even better than their vinyl counterparts. Nowadays the most wanted CDs because of their sound quality are those from the late 80s to early 90s and especially Japanese CDs from that time. Since the late 90s the mastering quality of CDs has dropped down quite a bit and nearly all remastered CDs sound worse than their earlier counterparts. This is because they are mastered at so high volume the music gets distorted and looses its dynamics, to put it simply you have loud music that doesn't sound pleasing anymore. Some people call the music brickwalled; listening to it feels just the same as hitting your head to a brickwall. Many people have noticed this phenomenon also in newly released music and it has been given a name: loudness war. Metallica's Death Magnetic album is one well known example of a victim of loudness war. Lately, it seems, the popularity of CDs has dropped dramatically as already 89% of music in Finland is streaming. 

 

 

 

Manufacturing CDs

 

CD manufacturing begins with burning the data with Laser Beam Recorder (LBR) to a photoresist or dye-polymer resting on glass substrate, this process is called glass mastering. Moulds are made of the glass master with multi-step process and these moulds are used to injection mould commercial CDs from polycarbonate plastic. These polycarbonate discs are clear plastic discs with all the data stored on them as small hills and valleys on the other side of the disc but they can not be played because they are missing a reflective surface. The reflective surface is produced by adding a layer of metal on the backside of the disc, that's the side where the hills and valleys are. In addition a thin layer of lacquer is added on the metal surface to protect it from corrosion, CD label (artwork) is made on this thin coat of lacquer. All this requires an exceptionally clean environment to succeed properly so it's done in an ISO-5 class (or better) cleanroom. 

 

IFPI or SID codes (source identifying codes) were introduced in 1994 and since then they have become a standard in CD manufacturing though few examples of IFPI codes being used before 1994 are known to exist and very small part of legal CD manufacturers in the world still do not use them. The main purpose of these codes is to fight against piracy by identifying the mastering equipment (LBR) and the pressing plant of the CD. If a CD does NOT have neither mastering or mould IFPI code it's highly likely made before 1994 or it's a pirate. 

 

 

The mastering SID code

 

Nowadays the LBR used to burn the data onto a glass substrate is identified by the mastering SID code found on the metallic part of the disc. The code ALWAYS beginns with IFPI L, for instance one mastering SID code of Sony DADC Austria AG is IFPI L554. The mastering SID code is strictly a LBR identifying code, it's common that one LBR has been operated by many different companies in different countries during the years so a mastering SID code alone can not be used to identify the place of glass mastering.

 

 

The mould SID code

 

Another code beginning with IFPI is called the mould SID code. This code is usually found somewhere on the transparent center area of the CD and it indicates the mould used to press the CD. Mould codes can sometimes be in very small print and therefore very hard to read. Mould SID codes are plant operator specific codes meaning they can be used to identify the pressing plant and its owner. Mould codes are being assigned to the operator of the plant in two or three digits (IFPI xx or IFPI xxx), the plant itself allocates the last two digits of its codes (IFPI xxyy or IFPI xxxyy) freely. For instance, mould codes beginning with IFPI 94 were assigned to Sony DADC Austria AG and it has assigned one of its moulds the code IFPI 94F8.

 

NOTE 1: Sony DADC Austria AG has two plants in Austria, one in Anif and the other in Thalgau. It's not commonly known what mould SID codes were allocated by Sony DADC Austria AG to which plant. 

 

NOTE 2: In some rare cases the mould SID code can begin with IFPI L like the mastering SID code but these are very rare cases and in these cases the two codes can be identidified by their location on the CD matrix and their appearance. The mastering SID code is laser burned and usually further away from the center hole on the metallic area while the mould SID code is etched and usually on the transparent center area of the CD. It's also known that CDs made in one UK plant usually contain two mould codes but the reason for this remains unknown.    

 

 

 

Identifyng a pirate CD

 

Identifyng a pirate CD from a factory pressed CD is usually very easy due to their poor printing quality,  poor sound quality or numerous suspicious mistakes. Official CDs rarely contain any mistakes and, if they do, they are usually either small label releases or withdrawn from the stores. In the latter case a new corrected edition is made. Also, pirate CDs extremely rarely contain any IFPI codes, currently only one example of pirate CD containing an IFPI code is known to exist for sure though they are likely to become more and more common in the future. 

 

 

 

CDr

 

CDr is not the same as CD. CD has the LBR burned info stored in the hills and valleys on the other side of the polyarbonate plastic against the metallic part while CDr has info stored in changes of the dye inside the polykarbonate plastic. CDrs can only be burned once and they are identified by coloured or colourful data side, CDs always have metallic-looking data side, usually silvery, rarely golden and even more rarely laser-etched. CDrs never contain any IFPI codes but CDrs meant for home usage do contain long manufacturer specific code on the center area. A derivative of CDr meant for home usage is CDrw, a CDr that can be burned many times. There are also two different kinds of CDr's and CDrw's, + and -. The difference in these two kind of discs is the method how the data is organized on the disc. 

 

Historically speaking, low quality home-burned CDrs were common pirates in the 90s. Some promo releases are still being released on CDr because they are cheaper to make in small amounts than LBR burned and factory pressed CDs. 

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