After seeing some YouTube videos several months ago testing the Virgin transparent CD by Lorde I had been meaning to buy it, at least partially to test a few of my CD players would actually play it. Apparently the album has been quite controversial due to the fact that it does not play on many players, amongst other things. When held up to the light, the disk looks only slightly tinted. In the case you can see the slight silvery layer. I was able to rip it with no issues. My main CD player read it with no issues. I have an Oppo as well that I use mainly for streaming, and it played it fine too. My portable will play it, but it does some hunting to try and get focus when initially started, and becomes very sensitive to any movement whilst it is playing! However, my Technics system in the spare room acts like there is absolutely nothing there! I also need to get the Mr Sheen onto that equaliser. I do have a few more CD players I want to test it in, particularly a couple of older ones I'll need to dig out. In case you were wondering, I thing the album itself is pretty good, although my favourite Lorde song is still Bravado from The Love Club EP.
That’s interesting. I wonder if you either painted or used marker to cover the top side of disc it would play in more players? Also wonder if it can be ripped in a computer dvd drive. I still only have Pure Heroine on CD, but I didn’t become a big fan. I know she released a discless album with a download code instead of a CD with her last album, which I thought was an OK idea, for the environment, except she also released the album on vinyl which is not an environmental format at all (can’t even be recycled), besides selling other standard artist promotional merchandise, so not releasing a CD seemed kind silly. Honestly, selling album art or a book with a download code is a not a bad idea, but might have problems with codes expiring or the music not being available years down the line.
Yes, it ripped fine on my Pioneer BDR-206 drive. I guess the painting thing might work, not really for reading, but maybe for detecting the disc is there in the first place. My Technics player doesn't even spin up or make any sound, so it definitely isn't detecting a disc by whatever means it is trying to. I don't think I will test that though, it would kind of defeat the purpose of buying a transparent disc! I much prefer to have physical media, and am not really concerned with environmental issues as I will be keeping my collection till the day I die. I still have the first disc I ever bought in 1986! Man, I still remember that day, it was so much like the future. I did discover that my portable player displays a different time for the disc than the home player. I though it might have been adding the (standard) 2 seconds that is unplayed at the start of all CDs, but when I checked another disc it was only 1 second different!
