Re: [ARSCLIST] Medical grade CD-Rs and gold DVD-Rs

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You all know that MAM-A is the company that is now selling Mitsui 
discs. I don't know all of the corporate maneuvering that went on 
behind the scenes, but it is still the Mitsui technology, and I think 
the Colorado plant is the same one where Mitsui made their discs.

I asked Joe Weisenbach of MAM-A a very pointed question:

What is the difference (other than marketing) between the Medical and 
the Archival Gold CD-Rs

His answer: NONE

Here is some info that might be of interest:
http://www.mam-a.com/technology/quality/longevity.htm
http://www.mam-a.com/technology/quality/durability.htm
http://www.mam-a.com/technology/technical_papers/index.html

Here is their description of the difference between regular gold and 
archive gold:

> What's the difference between Standard MAM Gold and Archive Gold?
>
> They are both produced on the same production lines, but the Archive 
> gold is the "cream of the crop." We always sample from production to 
> test quality, and sometimes the quality is exceptionally high (of 
> course it's always within our specifications). At these times we 
> pull the gold product, sampling it at a high frequency to ensure 
> it's consistent high quality. This is what becomes Archive gold..
from: http://store.mam-a-store.com/standard---archive-gold.html

In the store site, medical points to the same page as above.

In the non-store site, here is the link to the medical page:
http://www.mam-a.com/products/medical/index.html

Note that this direct-sales store Web site (better prices are 
available through dealers) shows $1.35 each for bulk regular gold and 
$1.60 each for bulk archive gold.

I would also like to point out that MAM-A has finally come out with a 
gold archival DVD and some of the information at their Web site looks 
promising as to longevity: These are shown at $2.99 each.

<http://www.mam-a.com/products/dvd/Archive_gold.html>http://www.mam-a.com/products/dvd/Archive_gold.html

I am in the process of switching to the Archive Gold CDs (as I use up 
my regular gold CD stock) and am already using the Archive Gold DVDs.

While any product can fail to meet its predicted life expectancy, 
let's hope that these are better than most. So far, I have been 
pleased with the products from Mitsui and then MAM-A.

Note: I do have a financial connection with MAM-A. I pay them money, 
through their Canadian distributor, for their discs (who sells them 
to me for less Canadian Dollars than the MAM-A Web site).  In Canada, 
talk to Bruce at Precision Sound in Toronto, and I enjoyed buying 
from www.am-dig.com when I was in the U.S.--just links for better 
pricing. For example, the archive gold at am-dig is $1.10 per disc in bulk.

Cheers,

Richard

Tape Restoration Seminar:    MAY 9-12, 2006; details at Web site.
Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm