A gold compact disc is one in which gold is used in place of the super pure aluminium commonly used as the reflective coating on ordinary CDs or silver on ordinary CD-Rs.
Gold CDs can be played in any CD player. Blank gold CD-Rs are also available. They can be recorded in any CD recorder and played in any CD player.
The advantage of the gold reflection layer is its increased resistance to corrosion, in contrast to the ordinary aluminium layer found on normal compact discs. Due to concerns over the incidence of CD rot on early CDs (mainly manufactured by PDO UK), gold CDs were thus seen as a potential solution.
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