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Has anyone had the same problem as I explain below?
I mail-ordered a copy of a new SACD release from the US label/distributor (there is no distributor in Australia) and found that it would not play and my machine kept trying to switch between CD and SACD layers. Once only it started to play but only as a CD. I have found that my car CD player will pay it, but driving is hardly the Visual examination of the disc showed that the two outer surface layers were delaminating (from each other, if that's the right word) at the centre spindle hole.
After months of e-mails to the label I received a very polite and apologetic reply and a replacement disc was sent to me. I noticed that it was a sealed copy and did not appear to have been opened for an inspection before being sent to me. When I tried to play the new disc, I found that on the first go it played as a SACD after some hesitation from my machine and then, when I tried to replay it a day or so later, it would only play the CD layer. It now only plays as a CD.
Visual examination shows the same problem as before but much less obvious: there are signs of the bond between the two outer surface layers failing around the centre spindle hole.
This is a pity as the performances on the recording are pretty good.
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Post by siniy123 January 7, 2008 (2 of 18)
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can you post the problematic recording title here?
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Post by Allen January 7, 2008 (3 of 18)
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Osbert Parsley said:
Visual examination of the disc showed that the two outer surface layers were delaminating (from each other, if that's the right word) at the centre spindle hole.
Is it possible to post a picture of this "delaminating"?
Just for our education, curiocity.
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Degradation problems have likely always existed with optical discs and probably more so with bonded types: LaserDisc, DVD and consequently also with SACD. I believe only with LaserDisc they lead to serious playability issues and there just after many years.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_rot
In the case described above I'd distrust the player's reliability more than that of the discs.
Have you tried playing the same discs on other SACD players?
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Osbert Parsley said:
snip
my machine kept trying to switch between CD and SACD layers. Once only it started to play but only as a CD.
snip
I very recently encountered the same problem, for the first time. Both discs were manufactured by Sony DADC, Austria. Good music, though, so I'll have to play them as CDs. All my previous and later discs play perfectly. Unfortunately, we can't have many single layer SACDs, for market reasons. With hybrids, we just seem to be unlucky, once in a while.
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siniy123 said:
can you post the problematic recording title here?
I suppose it would be helpful to do so, because my concern is that the whole batch has been manufactured with a bonding flaw. That was why I was perturbed that the replacement disc did not appear to have been unsealed and inspected before being sent to me.
It was the Pierre de Manchicourt Vol. 2 disc published by Arsis (Pierre de Manchicourt, Volume II).
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The Seventh Taylor said:
Have you tried playing the same discs on other SACD players?
No. It might be informative to do so, but I don't have a second SACD player and don't have access to anyone else with a SACD player. I could try a Hi-Fi shop, I suppose.
However, it would do me little good, as I have only the one player, which has proved very reliable - this is the only SACD with this problem and it is also the only SACD I own on which I can see where the two outer layers are de-bonding - I went through the tedious exercise of inspecting all my SACDs to see if the same signs were visible over the last week-end!
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Allen said:
Is it possible to post a picture of this "delaminating"?
I don't think it would show up very well, at least with the photographing facilities I have. Still, I'll try to take a photo that shows it.
What I can see is a discolouration at the centre spindle hole with some "rainbow" effects if you move the disc around. The discolouration on the original disc is more widespread than on the replacement disc. It is around the whole of the centre spindle hole and extends from it outwards into the playing area for an irregular area which is about 1.5 cm at its greatest extent.
Last night, I tried pushing a pin gently between the layers at the centre hole of the original disc (the unplayable one) and found that the two outer layers separated.
I think it is a manufacturing flaw where the layers have not been properly bonded. Given that the replacement had the same problem as the original disc I received (albeit not as badly), I think the whole production run of this disc could have the same problem. Hence my raising it in this forum.
I haven't checked which factory made the disc.
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Post by Allen January 8, 2008 (9 of 18)
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Osbert Parsley said:
I don't think it would show up very well, at least with the photographing facilities I have. Still, I'll try to take a photo that shows it.
What I can see is a discolouration at the centre spindle hole with some "rainbow" effects if you move the disc around. The discolouration on the original disc is more widespread than on the replacement disc. It is around the whole of the centre spindle hole and extends from it outwards into the playing area for an irregular area which is about 1.5 cm at its greatest extent.
Last night, I tried pushing a pin gently between the layers at the centre hole of the original disc (the unplayable one) and found that the two outer layers separated.
I think it is a manufacturing flaw where the layers have not been properly bonded. Given that the replacement had the same problem as the original disc I received (albeit not as badly), I think the whole production run of this disc could have the same problem. Hence my raising it in this forum.
I haven't checked which factory made the disc.
The description fits an optical phenomena called Newton ring.
In short, the tiny gap between layers (or coating) is not not even, and the light interference due to reflection from different surfaces of these layers shows up as rainbow.
If you can separate the optical layers, that further confirms it; though more than often, Newton ring is not necessarily associate with layer separation. The existence of Newton ring just means that there are some sub-wavelength gap in the substract layers or the medium (glue, plastics, etc) between optical layers becomes uneven due to some other reason.
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The gluing together of layers has always been an issue with dvd discs and similar two-layer discs (never with cds). A small Swedish company innovated a new manufacturing process where the joining of layers was improved; Newton areas were reduced to, if I remember correctly, four per cent.
This innovation, as far as I know, was dismissed by major pressing plants for economic and infrastructural reasons. Therefore the discards of malfactured discs are at roughly the same level today as it has been since the birth of the double layer disc and more malfactured discs (that fall within today's manufacturing tolerances) reach customers. At best we can return individual discs for replacement but the structural problem is probably out of our hands.
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