Stop My CD's from scratching

[Hard Bop Cutter]

yea.....how do you prevent the scratching of CD's? I'm pretty careful with mine, and I keep them in one fo thoose CD booklet things (like the kind the holds a bunch of CD's, like a picture frame.) But give the CD a couple month and the surface will be scared with little scratches (not to the point of skipping.....but still.)

How do you guys keep your CD's from scratching?

-NAte

[Dennis Gonzalez]

I've noticed that if you use a CD players whose "little turntable" wobbles, you could have them scratched by the machine. Also, do you play them in your car's system? If you consider them precious, you won't do that...they scratch up when they go through the little slot. There are all sorts of imperfect sharp edges around the CD eater slit.

[crawjo]

I'm very careful about handling my cds, but I do use them in my car stereo. I've never had any problems, and I've been doing it for a couple years. Usually, one particular disc won't stay in my car stereo for very long, it rotates a lot.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Remember also that built-in car CD players are actually inside the engine well, so your CD's could eventually melt, or some of the foil (?) come off, and you have one destroyed CD.

The wobble is caused by the fact that the disc itself isn't perfectly cut. If you have a disc that wobbles, take a close look at the outer rim of it. You will easily note that the body of the disc(be it aluminum, gold, whatever) won't be perfectly centered within the plastic encasing it. Or in other words, the clear edge around the outside of the disc will not be even all the way around.

With all due respect to Mr. Gonzales, having lived in Florida for many years driving high strung, and hotter running four bangers, I have never once encountered the kind of problems he speaks of. Nor has anybody else I know. Common sense tells you not to leave a cd sitting somewhere where it could be exposed to direct sunlight. Other than that, leaving one in your car cd player should not result in any damage at all.

Avoiding scratches altogether is absolutely impossible if you actually plan on playing a cd. They spin incredibly fast, create a shitload of static electricity while they are playing which collects unsavory particles to them; they can still be spinning slightly when disengaged from the spindle and docked back onto the tray; front loading players are monsters; I like having the labels straight so that I can read them when I open the case, and to do that I sometimes spin it around while it's in the case, so on and so forth...........

Scratches are simply a way of life for our mighty little discs. On some of the older single laser players, these scratches could sometimes cause problems. But unless your player is about 20 years old, you don't have anything to worry about.

[stonemonkts]

Originally posted by Scott Dolan

With all due respect to Mr. Gonzales, having lived in Florida for many years driving high strung, and hotter running four bangers, I have never once encountered the kind of problems he speaks of. Nor has anybody else I know.

What the hell is a four banger? I once dated a four banger, but I think I was the high strung one.

[BFrank]

Remember when CDs first came out and one of the BIG selling points was that they were indestructable? I recall talk about how you could "frisbee" them and they would still play fine.

Well...........?????????????

My collection is about 700 or so strong. I only have ONE disc that got a scratch bad enough on it that it will skip. And that was caused when I dropped it and it crashed against a piece of metal.

Indestructable? Nah, but pretty fucking close.

Stone, four banger=four cylinder engine

[stonemonkts]

I try to handle my CDs gingerly. I've never had a scratched CD, but that may be due to not having a CD player in the VEhicle (cassette deck only).

The problem I have is with my office stereo. It is one of those compact Denon jobs, supposedly well made and all that. The problem is it cannot play CDs which extend past 70 minutes or so. Once the CD reaches that point, the machine starts to skip like crazy.

Scott - thanks for the explanation. My first few rides were very high strung four bangers ('72 Audi which I beat the shit out of within six months, and then a '73 Corolla wagon).

[moneyp]

I have over 6,000 CDs, only ten or so were scratched to the point of needing replacement. That's indestructible enough for me.

Most audio shops sell CD and DVD cleaning kits that do a pretty good job on scratches. You can also run water over the CD (away from the center) and wipe with a soft, lint-free cloth.

[Phil_Meloy]

Originally posted by stonemonkts
The problem I have is with my office stereo. It is one of those compact Denon jobs, supposedly well made and all that. The problem is it cannot play CDs which extend past 70 minutes or so. Once the CD reaches that point, the machine starts to skip like crazy.

Compact systems and car CD players are sometimes not able to cope with CDs that are over about 74 minutes long. They're simply not built to do it.

[Phil_Meloy]

Originally posted by Hard Bop Cutter
I'm pretty careful with mine, and I keep them in one fo thoose CD booklet things (like the kind the holds a bunch of CD's, like a picture frame.)

I'm not exactly sure what kind of device you mean here HBC but it might be worth mentioning that it is not a good idea to keep CDs in any kind of sleeve. No matter how careful you are, invariably over time the sleeve will collect minute particles of abrasive material inside it and each time the CD is removed or replaced these will grind into the surface of the CD.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Two things will protect your cds. First, store them in their original container, not in one of those "cd booklet things". You probably scratch them every time you remove and replace them.

Secondly, don't lend out your cds..................

[BFrank]

Thirdly, don't play your CDs.

[gnhrtg]

If you do buy Hats, however, then I would strongly recommend using cd wallets and not the original container in this one instance. I'm in the process of transferring some of my discs to mp3's and have found out, very much to my dismay, that as a rule (with no current exceptions) all of my Hats had been formidably scratched whereas the discs in jewel cases, digipacks and W&W packaging seem to have suffered very few (and comparatively almost zilch) scratches. Yeah, I know this has been a topic of discussion here before but let me just warn you based on my experience.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally posted by BFrank
Thirdly, don't play your CDs.

Fourthly, don't scratch your cds

[stonemonkts]

Originally posted by gnhrtg
If you do buy Hats, however, then I would strongly recommend using cd wallets and not the original container in this one instance. I'm in the process of transferring some of my discs to mp3's and have found out, very much to my dismay, that as a rule (with no current exceptions) all of my Hats had been formidably scratched whereas the discs in jewel cases, digipacks and W&W packaging seem to have suffered very few (and comparatively almost zilch) scratches. Yeah, I know this has been a topic of discussion here before but let me just warn you based on my experience.

Gee, I'm sorry to learn this, since I prefer the Hat containers over traditional ones. It's surprising to me that CD surfaces scratch so easily, simply by rubbing against cardboard?

That's a shame.

[gnhrtg]

My post reflects my experience and I do not really want to try to see whether CDs can be scratched by rubbing them against cardboards. Perhaps it's just me.