Gold : the answer to dying CDRs ?

I've noticed only one report of gold CDR dead in the sticky thread (a Mitsui Gold), no wonder, gold CDRs are uncommon in the first place...
But I still decided to compare gold/silver CDRs of the same brand, that I burned in 2000. The results are very, very interesting !

Here are the CDRs, their playing time, if possible the month they were burned, and the place at which they are unreadable (they all turn unreadable from the end).

Fnac silver74, 70 min, dead @ 63 min
Fnac Silver74, burned 12/2000, 65 min, 2 errors, then dead @ 57 min
Fnac silver74, 64 min, dead @ 63 min.

Fnac gold74, burned 12/2000, 72 min, OK
Fnac gold74, 73 min, OK
Fnac Gold74, burned 12/2000, 51 min, 1 error.

Older CDRs (burned somewhere in 1999-2000)

HiSpace Silver80, 76 min, errors since 40 min, dead at 68 min.
HiSpace gold80, 80 min, 1 error at 70 (@50x speed !), then OK.

One or two errors are nothing compared to the millions of errors on a dead CDR.

The silver CDRs sometimes seem to have turned a bit yellowish, seen through the white top, but brand new ones would be needed to compare their color. Nothing special can be seen from the bottom, the dye (even pthalocyanine) hides a possible coloration of the silver.

According to these results, gold CDRs don't die like silver CDRs. These ones are in perfect state after more than two years, while silver ones from the same manufacturer, and burned at the same time are dead.

I can't read the ATIP of Fnac CDRs anymore (they are all burned). There have been at least three different ATIPs for Fnac, those are not the first ones (that were in cyanine), nor the current ones (now MPO Pthalocyanine, same color than HiSpace MPO, thus rebranded HiSpace). They are in Pthalocyanine.

The ATIP manufacturer of these old HiSpace ones is "Grand Advance Technology", though they were already "Made in France by MPO" according to the sleeve. They were in dark cyanine.

The rated speed of the CDR is 12x, exept the HiSpace Gold, rated 6x only.

Fnac and HiSpace have always been available in silver and gold.



Tests run with Nero CDSpeed, Memorex DVDmaxx 1648 drive (that's a picky one).
All CDRs were burned on a Yamaha 6416S_X_X_X_X_X_[small]Pio2001[/small]