Gold compact disc

This article is about CDs which use gold for the reflective layer. For the audiovisual format featuring gold-coloured CD-sized discs, see CD Video.

A gold CD in a lift-lock case

A gold compact disc is one in which gold is utilized in place of the high-purity aluminium or silver commonly used as the reflective coating on ordinary CDs and CD-Rs respectively. Gold disks are available as both CDs and CD-Rs as well, and are compatable with standard players and recorders.

The advantage of the gold reflection layer lies in its significant resistance to corrosion compared to the aluminium layer found on ordinary compact discs. As such, gold CDs were seen as a potential solution to the incidence of CD rot on early CDs (mainly manufactured by PDO UK).

In 2014, Audio Fidelity, an American publisher of audiophile CDs, announced that it was abandoning the gold format and moving to the hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) format for future releases.

Since 2016, the Australian division of Sony Music have been reissuing back catalogue CDs as budget-priced (under $10) issues with gold CDs under the "Gold Series" branding.

Examples

• Al Stewart - Last Days of the Century
• Blondie - Parallel Lines
• Blood, Sweat & Tears - Child Is Father to the Man
• Bryan Adams - Reckless
• Counting Crows - August and Everything After
• David Bowie
  • The Man Who Sold the World
  • The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
  • Young Americans
  • Station to Station
  • Low
  • "Heroes"
  • Let's Dance
  • Changesbowie
• Jimmy Buffett
  • Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
  • Son of a Son of a Sailor
  • Songs You Know by Heart
• Bob Dylan
  • Highway 61 Revisited
  • Blonde on Blonde
• The Doors - Strange Days
• The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over
• Joe Jackson
  • Night and Day
  • Will Power
• Michael Jackson
  • Off the Wall
  • Thriller
  • Bad
  • HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I
  • Michael Jackson's Ghosts - Limited Edition Minimax CD
• Elton John - Elton John's Greatest Hits
• Enya - The Memory of Trees (Japanese limited edition)
• Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow
• Jethro Tull - Aqualung
• Jean-Michel Jarre
  • Oxygène
  • Équinoxe
• John Coltrane - Blue Train
• John Coltrane and Paul Quinichette - Cattin' with Coltrane and Quinichette
• John Lennon - Imagine
• Metallica - Master of Puppets
• Nirvana
  • Nevermind
  • In Utero
• Pat Benatar - In the Heat of the Night
• Paul & Linda McCartney - Ram
• Pink Floyd
  • Atom Heart Mother
  • Meddle
  • The Dark Side of the Moon
  • Wish You Were Here
  • The Wall
• Sonny Rollins - Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders
• The Police
  • Ghost in the Machine
  • Synchronicity
• R.E.M.
  • Murmur
  • Reckoning
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother's Milk
• Sagarika -
  • Maa
  • Mere Liye
• The Who
  • Who's Next
  • Quadrophenia
• Yuridia - Entre Mariposas
• Zubeen Garg - Sparsh

See also

• Compact disc
• Enhanced CD
• Remastering
• CD rot
• Gold album
• Audiophile
• Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL)
• Super Audio CD
• Extended Resolution Compact Disc

External links

• "24K+ Gold CD Series". Discogs. Retrieved 2019-05-19.