A word of caution about Testament CD's at BRO

[wkasimer]

I ordered a bunch of Testaments from Berkshire - they're selling quite a few for a fairly reasonable $8.99 per CD.

However, one of the items - Mischa Elman's Complete Decca Recordings, volume 1 (the concerti) - appears to consist of burned CDR's, rather than RBCD's. All of the others in the order are RBCD's.

[Frank Berger]

Odd. Though I do not hesitate to order music on CDR if
it's not otherwise available. I've never had a problem yet.
I expect all my CDR's to outlast me.

[wkasimer]

On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 12:27:55 PM UTC-5, Frank Berger wrote:

> Odd. Though I do not hesitate to order music on CDR if
> it's not otherwise available. I've never had a problem yet.
> I expect all my CDR's to outlast me.

Probably true, but I know that there are some people who disagree...

[linde...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 12:10:08 PM UTC-5, wkasimer wrote:
> I ordered a bunch of Testaments from Berkshire - they're selling quite a few for a fairly reasonable $8.99 per CD.
>
> However, one of the items - Mischa Elman's Complete Decca Recordings, volume 1 (the concerti) - appears to consist of burned CDR's, rather than RBCD's. All of the others in the order are RBCD's.

I use T-Y(distr. by Japan Victor) CD-Rs made in Japan, with a cyan coating. Their dye does not readily fade, and supposedly lasts for 100 years. In addition, the burned surface takes on a different hue, and thus is visible to the naked eye. When bought in 100 pack spindles, they cost only about $0.50 each.

Good listening,

Mort Linder

[wkasimer]

On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 2:48:46 PM UTC-5, linde...@gmail.com wrote:

> I use T-Y(distr. by Japan Victor) CD-Rs made in Japan, with a cyan coating.

I use those, too. I certainly trust my own CDR's, but I never know what brand are being used by the companies that issue CDR's commercially.

[Al Eisner]

On Wed, 1 Mar 2017, wkasimer wrote:

> I ordered a bunch of Testaments from Berkshire - they're selling quite a few for a fairly reasonable $8.99 per CD.
>
> However, one of the items - Mischa Elman's Complete Decca Recordings, volume 1 (the concerti) - appears to consist of burned CDR's, rather than RBCD's. All of the others in the order are RBCD's.

"one of the items" out of how many? In other words, what are the odds?

A lot of interesting stuff on offer there. I have a question about one of
them: the Ferras recording (Testament 1337) of the Brahms Double Concerto
(w. Tortelier/Kletzki) and the Tchaikovsky Concerto (w. Silvestri). I've
read good things here about the Brahms; how does the Tchaikovsky rate?
(I've generally liked Silvestri.) Thanks.
--
Al Eisner

[wkasimer]

On Wednesday, March 1, I wrote:

> I ordered a bunch of Testaments from Berkshire - they're selling quite a few for a fairly reasonable $8.99 per CD.
>
> However, one of the items - Mischa Elman's Complete Decca Recordings, volume 1 (the concerti) - appears to consist of burned CDR's, rather than RBCD's. All of the others in the order are RBCD's.

This morning, I received the following response from Stewart Brown, owner of Testament Records:

Dear Mr. Kasimer,

I am the owner of Testament Records and Joe from Berkshire Record Outlet suggested that I write to you over your concerns about CDR’s.
I have repressed certain titles (back catalogue) at Nimbus which allows me to repress 100 units rather than 500. These are pressed on SONY DADC Grade “A” Diamond Silver Discs
Please see link below:-
http://www.wyastone.co.uk/nimbus-disc-print
Although it is much more expensive producing smaller quantities at Nimbus, for certain back catalogue titles it does not make sense for me to repress 500 units. This allows me to keep the Testament back catalogue available.
Of the 500+ titles that I have in my catalogue we have currently re-pressed 23 titles at Nimbus.
Nimbus have kindly sent me the blurb below which explains the quality of their product.
Quite a few UK labels (Lyrita. Hallé Orchestra etc..) only press at Nimbus due to the smaller demand for their products.
I hope I have been able to help and clarify any concerns that you may have.
Kind regards,
Stewart Brown




From: Sales [mailto:*****@wyastone.co.uk]
Sent: 07 March 2017 17:36
To: ****@testament.co.uk
Cc: Sara Moore
Subject: Duplication and CD-R in Asia



Dear Stewart

Sara has brought me up to date with your production requirements and the concerns from your Asian distributors.

Nimbus took a production license with Sony and Phillips in 1982 and became the first company to produce CD in a commercial factory, outside laboratory conditions. We designed and built our own Laser Mastering Systems which were purchased by more than 100 companies in Europe, Asia, Australia and America including EMI, CMC, Technicolor and Polygram. They were used by Eastman Kodak for the development of CD-R and by Toshiba and Time Warner for the mass production of DVD. In 2001 we also installed an ultra high density particle beam recorder at the Panasonic facility in Osaka which was capable of delivering 50Gb of data on a 12 cm disc.

We approached the short run production solution with this same attention to detail. Having been at the forefront of high quality music production since 1977 when we launched our custom pressing LP facility we know that our customers demanded the best technical performance and the best quality packaging. The blank media we use was initially manufactured by Sony DADC in Austria and now comes from Falcon Media. Our monthly capacity comes from a single stamper and is batch tested at the point of production and on arrival at our facility. These discs are regarded to be the equal of Taiyo Yuden in respect of its reliability and electrical signals.

At the start of each production order we test the input media using Image Suite from Eclipse Data Technologies. This is the same system used by all major replication facilities yet we are the only duplication house that that has one. It confirms that the supplied master conforms to all Red, Yellow or Orange Book industry standards. This master is then copied to our secure mirrored and raided servers before performing bit verification to ensure that all music or data has transferred correctly. During the duplication process we select a random sample and re-perform the bit to bit verification to confirm that the production triangle is complete and that the duplicate and the server clone matches the original supplied master. This sample is also checked using Plextools, a modified player and oscilloscope to check for C1, C2 and Block Error Rates.

We do not ever use stick on labels with our production environment as this can destabilise the rotational spin of the CD or DVD and the adhesives can corrode the surfaces. For single colour and full colour onbody labels we use a thermal process which is excellent quality, highly durable and non corrosive.

Our short run production service is widely used by major and independent labels as a method of maintaining the availability of slower moving back catalogue titles. If this method of production was not adopted many titles would simply disappear. We now manufacture for more than 600 record companies and software houses and produce an average of 8000 discs per week using this method. Nimbus was the first company to manufacture CD in the UK so we have more experience than most in how to make a good CD. We built our reputation on quality and reliability and these cornerstones remain the same in this new manufacturing era.

Last year my colleague and Music Director Adrian Farmer was in Japan performing a series of concerts with the soprano Charlotte de Rothschild. During that time he was interviewed by the leading music magazine Record Geijutsu who discussed our policy to use CR-R for production. I have attached this article and the English translation as it may be of interest. Also attached is the email sent to me by our Japanese Distributor after this article was published.

Dear Antony,

Adrian’s comments on short run production is positive for us. It is the recent situation that even HMV who was in the forefront against CD-R format come to accept your productions, withdrawing the comments that they have insisted in the past. This is because of strong demands from their customers who do not care about that but take more interest in your recordings. However, there are still some shops who keep conventional ideas and I hope the article on the Record Geijutsu will be helpful in putting them right.

Best regards,
Tsutomu Miyazawa
Tokyo M-Plus, Japan

As a part of our daily production we test many discs and maintain a great deal of data about the quality of our own discs and the quality of mass replicated discs. I am more than confident that discs manufactured in our facility for Nimbus and our third party clients exceed all technical parameters and in many cases are superior to discs produced in some of the larger replication facilities. We are more than happy to provide you with specific test results as required.

Yours sincerely


Antony Smith
Business Director
Wyastone Estate Limited

[Jerry]

Well, I, for one, have encountered failures with Amazon burn-on-
demand titles as well as with self-burned CD-Rs (usually Sony or
Memorex blanks).

The issues that annoy me with regard to the subject at hand are:

1) Lack of Disclosure. I believe that supplying a CD-R without
disclosing same is deceptive. (An "oversight" encountered with
one Amazon seller, though Amazon does disclose its burn-on-demand
titles.)

2) Terminolgy. Use of the word "pressed" is deceptive. Standard
CDs are pressed with a metallic reflective coating applied by vacuum deposition to an embossed surface (pits). CD-Rs acquire reflectivity
by laser modification of an organic dye. Big difference.

Jerry


of a metal.

[Mike]

I've bought lots (and LOTS) of CDRs since Archiv started producing them, and after that from other sources. Never has one of them caused any problems. On the other hand, I have several highly-vaunted "Red Book" CDs that have failed, e.g. "bronzed" Pearl CDs. I simply don't care about the medium if it contains music I want.

[linde...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 12:10:08 PM UTC-5, wkasimer wrote:

> I ordered a bunch of Testaments from Berkshire - they're selling quite a few for a fairly reasonable $8.99 per CD.
>
> However, one of the items - Mischa Elman's Complete Decca Recordings, volume 1 (the concerti) - appears to consist of burned CDR's, rather than RBCD's. All of the others in the order are RBCD's.

Why don't you just burn a CD-R backup copy of the suspect disc onto a good brand of blank disc?

Mort Linder

[wkasimer]

On Friday, March 10, 2017 at 6:38:56 PM UTC-5, linde...@gmail.com wrote:

> Why don't you just burn a CD-R backup copy of the suspect disc onto a good brand of blank disc?

Because...

1) I don't think that any of the discs are suspect. These are very well produced CDR's, and based on the communication that I received, and posted here, I have no reason to think that anything I burn is going to be an improvement.

2) I don't mind CDR's, as long as they're well made. My original posting was made for the benefit of those compulsives who object to CDR's.

3) To be honest, the performances, while worth hearing once, don't seem to be quite good enough for me to keep permanently in my collection.

[wkasimer]

On Monday, March 6, 2017 at 6:55:43 PM UTC-5, Al Eisner wrote:

> "one of the items" out of how many? In other words, what are the odds?

Over the last several months, I've bought twenty or so Testament titles from BRO. This Elman set was the only one that wasn't RBCD.

> A lot of interesting stuff on offer there. I have a question about one of
> them: the Ferras recording (Testament 1337) of the Brahms Double Concerto
> (w. Tortelier/Kletzki) and the Tchaikovsky Concerto (w. Silvestri). I've
> read good things here about the Brahms; how does the Tchaikovsky rate?
> (I've generally liked Silvestri.) Thanks.

Don't ask - just buy it. Terrific performances.

[richard...@gmail.com]

On Monday, March 6, 2017 at 6:55:43 PM UTC-5, Al Eisner wrote:

> A lot of interesting stuff on offer there. I have a question about one of
> them: the Ferras recording (Testament 1337) of the Brahms Double Concerto
> (w. Tortelier/Kletzki) and the Tchaikovsky Concerto (w. Silvestri). I've
> read good things here about the Brahms; how does the Tchaikovsky rate?
> (I've generally liked Silvestri.) Thanks.
> --
> Al Eisner

I have both on LP. They are excellent recordings of very good performances. (Tastes in violinists differ- these are not Heifetz, for good or ill.) I have yet to buy a Testament that sounds worse than its LP predecessor, so go ahead.

[Al Eisner]

On Sat, 11 Mar 2017, richard...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Monday, March 6, 2017 at 6:55:43 PM UTC-5, Al Eisner wrote:
>
>> A lot of interesting stuff on offer there. I have a question about one of
>> them: the Ferras recording (Testament 1337) of the Brahms Double Concerto
>> (w. Tortelier/Kletzki) and the Tchaikovsky Concerto (w. Silvestri). I've
>> read good things here about the Brahms; how does the Tchaikovsky rate?
>> (I've generally liked Silvestri.) Thanks.
>

> I have both on LP. They are excellent recordings of very good performances. (Tastes in violinists differ- these are not Heifetz, for good or ill.) I have yet to buy a Testament that sounds worse than its LP predecessor, so go ahead.

Thanks (and also to wkasimer). It's on my BRO shopping list, which has
gotten long enough to stimulate an order.
--
Al Eisner

[Al Eisner]

I see that there is a dirt-cheap Documents set of Ferras, due March 31:
http://www.mdt.co.uk/ferras-christian-milestones-of-a-legend-documents-10cds.html

It may well contain the same performances on Testament, but in who-knows-what
sound. For myself, I'm not interested now in so much stuff, so I'll stick
to the safe Testament option, but others might be interested.

Guilty of gradual thread drift....
--
Al Eisner