Why are CD's decling in quality?


When CD came out in the 80's , they were marketed as 'indestructible'. They were built in such a way that they were almost impervious to any scratches and other damage.
As time went on, they declined in quality to the point that you could buy a cd and find it skipped on the first playing. Now many CD's I buy in the 21st Century seem to be incredibly vulnerable to damage. This is very frustrating.
.Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts on this topic?
Or knowledge of why this has come about
acidfolk

Showing 1 response by kacz

At some point all CD's, DVD's, LD's, etc will deteriorate.
The reality is, like anything else, they just don't last
forever. But should last a very very long time.

Some environmental factors will speed up their demise
however. And this may be what you are encountering.
Especially anything in sunny rooms and hot/cold temperature
changes. Also just handling them, bending them slightly
(over and over and over through the years) can eventually
damage them or cause the layers to start to come apart
inside I'd imagine (small enough to not be visible to the
eye).

Laser Discs have been deteriorating faster it seems. They
had a real bad rot problem years ago where they went bad
much faster. It might have been a quality control thing I
don't remember but it did just speed up what was going to
happen eventually anyway.

Remember this stuff is just aluminum sandwiched between
plastic. Which is very durable but can and will deteriorate.
That can also depend on how good the quality of
manufacturing and materials were when it was made. These
days everything is so dang cheap. Made in china to save
every cent they can. Nothing is made to last. The skimp and
take shortcuts on everything. I wouldn't doubt you get bad
CD's from time to time right out of the box.