CD's Deterioration

Ben: Specifically, what is deteriorating on your CDs? Does it render them unplayable or just sonically degraded?

I have one in which you can see where the film has flaked off and you can see light through the film layer. It starts to play and then "skips". I've had it for years and I tried to play it about 6 months ago and found the damage.

That would do it. Poor substrate, not unlike poor magnetic tape substrate quality in some brands.

what kind of cd is that. I still have the first cd i ever bought from 1985. It sounds as auful as it did new. but still physically fine.

I'm not sure exactly how old it is. It is the Rainmakers "Tornado" CD which I bought when it first came out. When I found the problem, I set it aside and forgot about it until I saw the USA Today article. There were a couple of other interesting facts in the article. One related to how even sticking with the same major brand of CD-R blanks didn't guarantee you would get the same quality product. The article also explains why some rot and some don't.