CD manufactured in Germany/USA/UK etc. VS India

[subhobh]

Who all of us think that, a Germany/USA/UK/France/Russia/Japan pressed/manufactured CD sounds better than a CD pressed/manufactured in India??

I tried myself comparing an India pressed/manufactured Audio CD with a same title and same brand manufactured in Germany on my Marantz CD6002 CD player, but honestly could not find any audible difference at all ever after multiple trials!!!!

However, overall built quality with I found the Germany made CD to be lot better for sure and I believe it also should lasts longer! But quality comes at a price:indifferent14:.

Please put your thought.

 

[Shivam]

Most of the Indian made CDs that I own are of Indian releases. Old songs have very poor mastering and digital conversion. New songs have good digital conversion but still very poor mastering.
Most of the other CDs that I have are from other countries and have good mastering and digital conversion.
However this is more of a difference in the standards of recording industry.

I do have a few xrcd albums and some Indian pressings of the same album and the xrcd sounds better (even without me knowing which disc is playing). Then again it might be a better mastering.

Unfortunately I don't have two copies of exactly same album from different countries since I consider it a waste. The jewel box, the inlay artwork and booklet, printing on the disc etc is better in the imported albums than in Indian.

(saregama discs look and sound like pirated discs).

For mods - I think that this thread should be moved to the appropriate category (maybe Music or AV Lounge).

 

[square_wave]

I have eagles, dire straits and pink Floyd cds with Indian and European versions. The European releases sounds far better. I am sure there are releases which sound the same too.

 

[deba]

I am not sure whether imported CDs sounds better then Indian pressed CDs but Quality control in Imported CDs are far better then in the Indian version......and this you can see as the CD ages.....

 

[gobble]

I have a german recorded cd of Priya Sisters and the audio quality is not that great, noise floor sounds quiet high. I am surprised, was expecting good stuff but no.

--G

 

[prepress]

Yes, there is huge difference between Imported and Indian CDs. I have many Indian Movie Titles on Melody International, Scirocco, Vanilla etc.
They sounds much much better than the Indian CDs.

 

[vkirti]

The difference in Indian CD's & international is startling. I now try to get all my English cd's from US. I have a few (late 90's) hindi cd's (Golden collection - Jagjit & Chitra; Mirza Ghalib etc) which were made in UK & US, and their sound quality is far superior to what we get here today.

 

[gobble]

Recently I got a German cut of a G.Ravikiran cd. While the noise floor levels are good, the recording engineer has pumped up the percussion volume in the mix to an uncomfortable level that constantly intrudes the senses. It's that Chanda Dhara brand. I am not impressed.

Sent from mobile on a crappy keyboard. Pls excuse typos.

 

[vkirti]

I had recently bought a 3 cd compilation "Pancham unplugged" on universal. When i played it on my audio setup the tweeters went Haywire and produced a Hissing, spinning sort of a sound. I checked the same songs on an LP (Abdullah - Maine poocha chand se) and the sound mix was completely different.
When I played it in my car it plays perfectly with all four speakers getting into action. I had a similar issue earlier with another universal CD " Farida Khanum - Live". These are the only two so far where I have had this issue. Have decided to keep off universal for now. :indifferent14:

Recently I got a German cut of a G.Ravikiran cd. While the noise floor levels are good, the recording engineer has pumped up the percussion volume in the mix to an uncomfortable level that constantly intrudes the senses. It's that Chanda Dhara brand. I am not impressed.

Sent from mobile on a crappy keyboard. Pls excuse typos.

 

[prepress]

When I played it in my car it plays perfectly with all four speakers getting into action.

You played CD in the car, Yes?

 

[vkirti]

Yes, that is the only place i can play it. Has a lot of added noise in my home system.

You played CD in the car, Yes?

 

[greenhorn]

my question to the people who hear a difference is, is the difference because of the mastering or the pressing of the CD ?
More importantly, will two different pressings (assuming there are no major flaws) sound audibly different ?

 

[manoj.p]

There will be difference only if the mastering is different. If the same master is used, there won't be any difference.

Although, I also do understand that "Beauty is in the eyes of beholder." ;-)

 

[ranjeetrain]

It's down to mastering. Manufacturing has nothing to do with the sound quality, unless the material used to manufacture the disk is so poor it's not fit for being used for this purpose.

The crappiest sounding (poorest mastering) CD I ever bought is made in Italy (Label - ecosound). Sounds like the tracks have been recorded with white noise at -30dB.

 

[prem]

It all boils down to mastering. However there are a few manufacturing problems with cd in India. The water required for the manufacturing process needs to be absolutely pure. This is where a few manufacturing problems arise. This is what i was given to understand by a few manufacturers like Koch Rajesh and Moser Baer.

 

[Nikhil]

The best CDs I have are British releases picked up from various music shops in London.
On the whole even consumer electronics out of London are several notches above what I have bought elsewhere.

 

[prepress]

Yes, Koch Rajes, Jet Speed and Moser Baer are the major manufacturer in India but still they fail to product good quality.

It all boils down to mastering. However there are a few manufacturing problems with cd in India. The water required for the manufacturing process needs to be absolutely pure. This is where a few manufacturing problems arise. This is what i was given to understand by a few manufacturers like Koch Rajesh and Moser Baer.

 

[vkirti]

when i faced the spinning noise issue with the Pancham CD i checked online to see whether other people have had this problem. It seems that the new re issues of old recordings are being released at higher volumes i.e. the music sounds louder at a lower volume level on the player, this also seems to affect overall sound quality. This it seems is an international phenomenon and not Indian only.

It all boils down to mastering. However there are a few manufacturing problems with cd in India. The water required for the manufacturing process needs to be absolutely pure. This is where a few manufacturing problems arise. This is what i was given to understand by a few manufacturers like Koch Rajesh and Moser Baer.

 

[Staxxx]

I started collecting CDs in the early 80s in Europe. Believe me after storing them for years, some of these CDs have yellowed and others developed holes (Decca, EMI etc.). I threw out about 50 such CDs. One reason why I switched to digital media. However, so saying modern CDs are certainly manufactured to high tolerances although even in Europe there are many budget labels that are not manufactured well. I also understand that the blanks are made by only a few companies (someone correct me if I am wrong).
As I understand it the pits are then moulded / stamped from the master CD rather than burned, so some manufacturing defects can occur with poor quality control. However, I personally think the poor quality of sound that you hear would be far more to do with the mastering, than the product quality with domestic CDs.