Gold makes for pretty jewelry for the ladies, not quality DVD blanks.

Watershield is for inkjet.
Unbranded "shiny" discs are not as good as branded/inkjet media, due to the surface quality.

That Henryx site looks legit, yes. I know that Nielre is.

OK.
Time to stock up.

I chall check how does gold pressed CDs do at tests.

I've read tests where the so-called "audiophiles" claim that some glass CDs sound the best, or gold, or SHM...

Like material had anything to do with digital signal processed by hardware.

I've always considered the term "audiophiles" to be really stupid, and it usually applies to people who make up unscientific nonsense. Claiming that the color or material of a disc effects the 1's and 0's present on a disc is a perfectly example of their stupidity. People like that need to be ignored, possibly even ridiculed.

Mitsui and Maxell gold CD-R was generally made better, but it had nothing to do with the gold content. Those discs were just made better, the end. But Taiyo Yuden non-gold discs were excellent, perhaps even moreso due to the dye. It's the dye that matters for longevity and readability, and nothing else (when it comes to CD-R, DVD was different).

I've read TY uses cyanine dye with stabilisation, that performs better than best metal-azo dyes, while cyanine without stabilisation is not as good.

That's most accurate, though often overstated. The TY stabilized cyanine is good, though I'd disagree with the "better" aspect compared to azo. It's just different, and different hardware reacts differently. If anything, azo has better reflectivity, meaning more devices see it. Cyanine media has shorter shelf life, but once burned isn't awful. As with DVD, the initial burn is the main issue, not the longevity in terms of materials degradation. Glues and upper foil (CD only) is a bigger issue than the dye.

If you compared inkjet or branded CD-R, with no foil exposed, MCC's azo and TY would last longer, while both would read just fine in most cases. Only the cyanine would have reduced life.

Phthalocyanine is pretty much lousy in all regards, regardless of better-than-cyanine longevity. That's the cheap junk used by most off-brand manufacturers, what few are left.

Well, henryx has only one type of TY:
http://henryx.com.pl/jvc-cd-r-x48-70...sy-c-50-w.html

He had two, a 100x cake, but they might be out of stock now...

TY is out of production, so any restock would be from the TY warehouses. After it's gone, no more TY.

That is not good.

I found the second version:
http://henryx.com.pl/jvc-cd-r-x52-70...-ff-s-100.html

I wonder if they are the same, or different.
Because there is a large differance in price per disc.

Just FYI, sometimes TY media would be 200% the cost between spindles for no reason. TY pricing often made no sense.

Well, I guess they are the same.
Though, one claims that 100 years of data integrity is guaranteed.

Well, the 100 is better priced.

So unless I can manage to convince pressing plants to press me custom and small amounts of CDs, TY CD-Rs seem my only choice.

My earliest choice for CD-Rs were the Apogee media (gold) which I think was manufactured by Mitsui. Only 74 min CD-Rs were available. I don't find any difference when listening to a gold MAM-A, or Taiyo Yuden CD-R (silver or top gold) recorded in my old but great Marantz CDR-620 recorder. All my Apogee and Taiyo Yuden with around 20 years play correctly.

lordsmurf So, let consider only the Taiyo Yuden media. They have silver (cheaper) CD-R and CD-R with gold top. Do you have tested both? Do you still suggest the silver Taiyo Yuden CD-R? I've a backup of CD-R to use later with my Marantz CDR-620 record. Most are Apogee (=Mitsui,gold CD-R), MAM-A (gold CD-R), and Taiyo Yuden silver CD-R.

The discs were never "silver", though silvery in color only. It was other metals in use.

The cheaper aspect is only due to marketing, and the higher price of the gold materials. It has nothing to do with quality.

The biggest issue with silver vs. gold was reflectivity. Gold just is not as reflective as silver at the light wavelengths used by discs, regardless of any marketing. Gold makes for pretty jewelry, components in IC boards, and some scientific needs, but that's about it.

The major issue with CD is the utter lack of a top layer. All it has is some drizzled on goop to seal it, not an actual polycarb layer. Those will expose the disc far quicker than other issues. That or bonding. This assumes the dyewas good to begin with.

I've tested all of those discs in spades. I'm not sure about Apogee brand specifically, but Maxell TY for sure. And straight TY inkjet media. In fact, I still have a few TY CD-R left.