Hmm... I always thought the gold was merely a marketing ploy, and that what you were really buying was a better recording. I've replaced certain "standard" CDs in my collection with Gold CDs (e.g., Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, REM's Murmur and Reckoning, esp. Miles' Kind of Blue) and found, in all cases, that the gold version sounded better--not as much compression, better dynamics, less noise.
