Can CD's deteriorate by LASER ROT?


A fellow audiophile told me that the CD pits are damaged over multiple playings, because the laser that reads them damages the pits. His explanation was that lasers 'burn' CDs, so they also destroy them from repeated readings of the CDs.

Is this fact or nonsense?
kevziek

Showing 2 responses by sugarbrie

Laser Rot was common is early CDs and Laserdiscs. I do not know what caused it, but it does not seem to occur much if at all anymore. I would not be surprised (speculation) if there is a possibility of Laser Rot eventually with CDRs, considering how they are made (on your PC).


I still have a couple old CDs and Laserdiscs with Laser Rot. They laserdiscs have snow like a bad TV picture and sometimes dirty sound. The CDs have background noise like a dirty LP or that background noise heard on old 78 RPM records.

The old CDs I mention not only got noisy with age, the tracks would sometimes be unreadable, ie, when the disc is inserted, the transport spins, but cannot find the tracks, so the CD will not play. If play is pressed anyway, the CD will spin but never start playing.