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