Sterling and other CD-Rs

[hyperdanny]

Another case: some time ago I had bought, through a British professional seller on ebay, two volumes of the Danacord series "the Danish piano concerto" (absolutely magnificent music, BTW).
I got two of those blue cd's..and I raised hell with the seller, because it was clearly advertised as "this is a cd release"
I was expecting some litigation, something along the lines of "you maniac, what are you talking about?"
Instead the must be aware of the proble,. because they promptly acknowledged it was not a cd release, and they refunded with no further ado (which goes to their credit).
Then the funny part: on the Danacord website, I discovered that their Italian distributor is a store that's actually in the next street from the bulding where I work.
Yes, in Milan we still have an all-classical "record store", probably one of the last of its kind worldwide.
It's very expensive but hey, at this point i was fixated.
Lo and behold, they had them both!
Got them, paid 19,50 each...and there's no comparison: where the CD-R's were thin and with a slightly tinny quality especially to the piano, the sound on the real CD's is rich and deep.
AND they play on any device.

[adriano]

You surely mean la Bottega Discantica.
Next time you visit them let Mr. Prefumo (if he is still there) pl. pass him on my best regards - and tell him that I am friend of Potito Pedarra :-)

[hyperdanny]

oh yes it's always the same people there, thank God there's something that has not changed beyond recognition, or altogether gone forever.

[Alan Howe]

Adriano: The Raff double CD set doesn't play on one of my players, so I'm assuming they're CD-Rs.

[Mark Thomas]

To the best of my knowledge any Sterling CD manufactured since around 2013 will have been made by Wyastone, and they'll be that company's version of CD-R. That's not just newly released CDs, but also newly-manufactured examples of albums released before Sterling made the swap from their previous manufacturer. I'm not here to defend Sterling, or any other label which releases on CD-R, but streaming and digital downloads are killing off the music CD, although the classical market is collapsing at a slower rate, which means that the number of CD manufacturers is rapidly reducing as the cost of making CDs is going up. With such small production runs the economics is remorseless - see my earlier post in this thread.

[adriano]

Thanks, Mark.
Yes, this is the present situation. In an earlier posting I've said that sometimes in the future we may not even be able to get CDRs anymore - so we will have to manufacture our own CDRs and our own covers/booklets from downloads - if we still stick on physical sound carriers.

[Alan Howe]

No wonder the older major labels are boxing up multi-CD editions of every conceivable well-known composer and performer. They must know their time is short...

[adriano]

We call it, translated from the German, a "last effervence (or flaring up?) before the fall" :-(

[hyperdanny]

I am (slowly) conducting an assessment of my Sterling cd's to ascertain how many CDR's i have and I found out something interesting:  I assumed that the Noskowski 3 was going to be one of them, being a recent release, but I am pretty sure it is a real CD...put side to side with the Beliczay (which came out as a CDR from the outset) , they do not look alike at all. No opaqueness, no blue tinge.
Instead the Noskowski 1 I have is a CDR, damn.

[Alan Howe]

It probably depends when you bought them. There must have been a point from which all CDs produced were actually CD-Rs.

[adriano]

@hyperdanny
As already mentioned in an earlier posting: Sterling does a rather small quantity of "original CD" pressings and switch over later to CDRs for reprints.

[hyperdanny]

I just thought that the case of the Noskowski 3 was interesting because framed differently what Mark had written:

"To the best of my knowledge any Sterling CD manufactured since around 2013".

I'm sure Mark has good info, but evidently Sterling is not consistent in this: the Nosk 3 is from 2015 and I am pretty sure the one I have is a real CD.
Converserly, Nosk 1 is from 2009, but I have a CD-R because I bought it late, and thit relaese had already passed into the CD-R production.

[Mark Thomas]

I can't explain it, but just count yourself lucky, I guess.

[hyperdanny]

oh yes I am!
..and yes i guess some things are unexplainable....

[adriano]

I even have a DGG CD with works by Arthur Lourié (with Gidon Kremer as a soloist), which is a "blue CDR" reprint - and not an "Arkiv Music"-licensed item.