Near-perfect glass CD hits stores in Akihabara, Shibuya for $831

You know how your audiophile friends insist on only the finest media on which to store their music -- forsaking MP3s and the iTunes Store in favor of vinyl or CDs? Well, if those audiophiles have deep pockets (as many of seem to), they'll probably be very interested in this new glass CD that's just come out of Japan. Suenori Fukui has recently invented a transparent glass CD that he says is guaranteed to not distort or warp. As Mainichi Interactive reports: "As glass CDs are completely transparent, information on them can be read perfectly, improving sound quality. They are not affected by heat or humidity and remain in perfect condition forever." The first glass CD recording of J.S. Bach's "Air on G String" (not to be confused with Sebastian Bach's "Show me your g-string," which we really wish existed) will be on sale at Ishimaru Denki in Akihabara and Tower Records in Shibuya for ¥98,700 ($831).

[Via The Raw Feed]

[Me @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:27AM]

"They are not affected by heat or humidity and remain in perfect condition forever"

Until you drop it.

[Blake @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:38AM]

What do you mean? Because a true audiophile would NEVER listen to a cd like that, because the stress of spinning in the drive could damage it!

[Konstantino @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:28AM]

That's awesome. (I'm checking my wallet...)

[DragonJade @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:41AM]

Glass is actually a liquid, so the CD WILL distort and warp over time.

[DarkFader @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:46AM]

that's why you need to store it horizontally and in a special case

[green @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:57AM]

that is a myth:
"the notion that glass flows to an appreciable extent over extended periods of time is not supported by empirical evidence or theoretical analysis."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#Glass_as_a_liquid

[Jamar @ Oct 22nd 2006 12:24PM]

Right- the fact that my windows (mirror, cups, and plates too) haven't dripped all over the floor proves otherwise, I think.

[LukeA @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:34AM]

Then explain to me wavy windows.

[motomoon @ Oct 22nd 2006 9:57AM]

DragonJade, actually glass is an amorphous solid not a extremely viscous liquid.

[DragonJade @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:51AM]

"In terms of molecular dynamics and thermodynamics it is possible to justify various different views that it is a highly viscous liquid, an amorphous solid, or simply that glass is another state of matter which is neither liquid nor solid." Straight from Wikipedia

Amorphous solid, extremely viscous liquid; potatoes, potatoes. :)

[Walter @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:12AM]

I want to see the person who would buy something like that, I've got pair of glass tires, I'm sure they would like. : )

[PodMonkeys @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:17AM]

OK, I could see this argument that glass is better because of less distortion for say an analog recording, but how does this affect 1's and 0's on a CD? Are the 1's and 0's on my plastic CDs not getting read accurately and are returning as -0.1, 0.1, 0.9, and 1.1, thus giving me less accurate sound generation?

This reminds me of a friend who once tried telling us that copying audio CDs was more complicated than copying data CDs because the 1's and 0's of audio data is more complex than the bits for non-audio data.

[Joe @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:11AM]

Exactly. These A-Hole audio companies have been trying everything they can to get the money of audio-philes since the world has gone digital. From premium digital cables (I mean really, its 1's and 0's) to these stupid CD's. When are they gonna make diamond plated hard drives for DAP's?

[OPTICAL OUT PLEASE @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:23AM]

How do they get the audio on the CD? Its it some 10k burner thats made out of glass? Surely, they're not going to settle for the OEM burner that came with their Dell.

And, the quality is only as good as the source. So, unless studios start stamping glass media; then simply copying the plastic original will introduce errors and such.

[Stephen Parke @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:27AM]

I am pretty sure that glass flows. My family has a house that has been passed down 5 generations, and the glass is most definitely noticably thicker at the bottom. It hasn't always been that way, or so I have been told by those that have lived there.
I love wikipedia, but I think I will trust my entire education over it.

I think that audiophiles should use their endless funds and just hold private concerts. Yeah, bring composers back from death. :D

[Rick @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:44AM]

Yup, glass is subject to flow. Ever see those stained glass cathedrals? Some 500+ yrs old, damn glass all lumped up at the bottom...

[brandon @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:39AM]

Don't forget, the experience isn't perfect until you apply Creative's new X-Fi Xmod attachment! Only $80 for better than studio quality audio!

[green @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:41AM]

The likely source of this belief is that when panes of glass were commonly made by glassblowers, the technique used was to spin molten glass so as to create a round, mostly flat and even plate (the Crown glass process, described above). This plate was then cut to fit a window. The pieces were not, however, absolutely flat; the edges of the disk would be thicker because of centrifugal forces. When actually installed in a window frame, the glass would be placed thicker side down for the sake of stability and visual sparkle. Occasionally such glass has been found thinner side down, as would be caused by carelessness at the time of installation.

[Jason @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:47AM]

When they made panes of glass by hand one side would end up being thicker than the other. They would install the glass with that side down for stability.

Glass is not a liquid in any way. I'm a mechanical engineer with a materials science background.

[Jeramy @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:47AM]

show me your g-string

now there's a beat i can groove to.

[michael @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:48AM]

no self-described audiophile who prefers vinyl over CDs would find this invention worthwhile, no matter how flat or perfect this glass cd is. Vinyl is preferred due to the fact that the audio is an analog representation of the original source without the artifacts of digital converstion; CDs of any variety rely on the digital encoding that purists dislike so much, thus making even "perfectly stored music" nothing more than "perfectly stored shit."

(aside: I am nothing resembling an audiophile.)

[anonymouse @ Oct 22nd 2006 6:24PM]

LOL. I remember being so disappointed when first hearing CDs. So tinny. At least they're better now, somewhat.

I can't be the --only-- person who has gone back to listening to cassettes in my car.... No more scratched CDs in my changer. No more narrowly missing squirrels while I try to scroll on my iPod...

[Jeff @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:08AM]

"Are the 1's and 0's on my plastic CDs not getting read accurately and are returning as -0.1, 0.1, 0.9, and 1.1, thus giving me less accurate sound generation?"

About half right, actually...

The issue is that some of those 1's and 0's just aren't getting read at all. So your CD player uses its error-correction algorithms to attempt to fill in the gaps. Over time, this leads sound quality to degrade.

Presumably this is what this glass CD solves, though it sounds like a bunch of marketing hooey to me.

[pb @ Oct 22nd 2006 12:31PM]

It's snake-oil. The bits are the same and on a new CD it is very, very uncommon to have any misread that requires error concealment. All other mireads are taken care of by error correction - i.e the error is corrected from extra info on the disk with no guessing involved. In fact I would expect the extra weight of the glass to give some drives problems with maintaining correct spindle speed as the laser traverses the disk and the speed is constantly adjust to maintain a constant stream of data. The glass also has a different refractive index to polycarbonate, so that won't help reading data either. If you looked at the digital output from a CD player reading both disks there is no reason why they'd not be identical unless there were serious manufacturing defects in one or other.

Hard-drive storage on music servers is the way to go, bit perfect every time and then all you have to worry about is jitter.

[Dolomite @ Oct 22nd 2006 8:10PM]

nah

[David Glover @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:09AM]

Wavy windows are caused NOT by the flow of glass (which is a myth), but because older windows were manufactured before it was possible to create a perfectly flat pane. (Which is actually a fairly recent invention.)

They would install the glass with the thickest part at the bottom because that made it slightly more stable.

This has almost certainly contributed to the "glass is a liquid" myth.

[Steven Butten @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:30AM]

Well, this whole glass/liquid thing is fascinating, but has there ever been a gap appearing at the top of a pane of glass; there will lie the proof of the pudding methinks.
I've never seen $831 let alone cough it up for a CD and the breakage thing is highly relevant. I sat on my 78 rpm, Cliff Richard's "It'll Be Me," (1962) and I'm still not over it.

[Rick @ Oct 22nd 2006 2:05PM]

Jason, I was trying to be a smartass. Course any reasonable, GED equivalent and +, educated person can independantly verify that glass (at less than melting point) is very stabile. Funny, there are still people who also believe that the lunar landing was staged! Oh no.... hope this thread dies an honorable death.

[Jam @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:53AM]

Everthing can become a liquid a solid or a gas under the right conditions. ;)

[g3n3tix @ Oct 22nd 2006 12:09PM]

This "flowing glass" theroy could come straight from Terry Pratchett books !! Typically discworldish.

[macman_84 @ Oct 22nd 2006 12:18PM]

The fact that glass does not flow is false. I have personally removed glass from an old house that flowed down and created a bulge at the bottom. I couldn't even tell it was thicker at the bottom until I removed the window from the frame and the part of the glass that was held by the frame was its original narrower thickness creating a noticible groove where the frame held back the glass.

[pb @ Oct 22nd 2006 12:37PM]

It's sometimes claimed that medieval glass was made up of inferior quality raw materials and so was "softer", but if this was true then all those other glass artifacts like goblets and bottles would have flattened out too, but they haven't. It's not actually clearcut a myth, because glass can be described as thick gel, but evidence suggests that the thicker edges on stained glass windows were a result of manufacturing.

[Benson Leung @ Oct 22nd 2006 12:47PM]

pb is right... People seem to associate error correction as something non deterministic and analog like a vinyl record because they don't understand it. Error correction is exactly like you said, reading the same stream bits from the disk even if some sectors are damaged because of redundancy on the disc.

You have to remember that this is digital, not analog. You won't experience the sound from a CD get less vibrant, more faded with time... When the physical layer breaks down because of damage, you're likely to get large gaps in the stream, and it will stop, cause a read error, but up until that point, the stream of bits will be the same.

I remember an audiophile friend of mine who told me that copying a CD causes generation loss just like in analog. That's a bunch of bullcrap.

if you truly want good sound, there are many better places to focus your efforts than the CD. Get a decent codec, get decent sound equipment... would result in much better audio quality than glass CDs.

[doug1467 @ Oct 22nd 2006 1:01PM]

nutty, first what about recorded as a DVDaudio??? if sound quality is a concern, 2nd...copy data to a hdd?? and write back to any cd (or any media format) any time. 3rd data is data no loss period (for a relatively clean cd), yes a scratched up cd will still play with data loss, but that cd would have to beat up bad. and 100 years from now, cd would be like a 5 1/4 floppy, good luck finding something to play it.

[KianTech @ Oct 22nd 2006 1:33PM]

Can I use windex to clean it?

[Josh @ Oct 22nd 2006 1:41PM]

Glass is a liquid...with solid properties, but the bulding windows thing has nothing to do with it.

Jason, you may have some really cool titles and stuff in front of your name, but I tend to think that Cornell professors have it up on you.

http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/index.html?quid=159

In truth, anyone making an unequivical statement about the phase of glass is a fool (much like a fundamentalist acctually, and we all know how dangerous those people are). People are still researching it, and the data is hazy at best, and inconclusive at worst. Certain entities have made a statement directly at one answer or another, but those are less of a scientific answer rather than a decision made so that policies and actions can go forward (ie, we need to define this as solid or liquid so that we can write up our protocols for using this material).

[Jason @ Oct 22nd 2006 2:13PM]

Those Cornell professors say that glass is amorphous, which makes it "like a liquid". It's not like a liquid in that it doesn't flow. It just has a random arrangement of molecules instead of the regular repeating structure of most solids.

An amorphous solid is not a liquid. That Cornell page is dumbing down "amorphous solids" into Layman's terms.

[Peanut @ Oct 22nd 2006 1:50PM]

You probably could use windex to clean it but then you wouldn't be able to find your CD afterwards.

Is it just me, because I am anxious to hear about a DIY window CD (not to mistaken for windows cd) from graining your own sand crystals into glass to forging data with err.... How do you do that? See, like I said... They need a tutorial!

[LittleJoe @ Oct 23rd 2006 7:19AM]

"You probably could use windex to clean it but then you wouldn't be able to find your CD afterwards."

You would still be able to see it... the glass is clear but the aluminum coating is still there and is not clear. The point of glass is so that the laser can pass cleanly through it, off the aluminum, and back to the reader.

[-ardcore Canadian @ Oct 22nd 2006 2:01PM]

Wow, I'm amazed that people would put down that kind of money on CD technology - Audiophile or not. I would consider myself an audiophile, albeit one that doesn't have too much money. To me though, DVD-Audio SACD are my formats of choice. Surround or stereo, the higher bit-rate (24 versus 16) and higher sampling (up to 192k versus 44.1 I believe) Honestly, I have some remastered discs for comparison and the difference is night and day. People who describe themselves as ignorant to my equipment still say there is a drastic difference. Almost $900 for a cd? No thanks. I'll stick with what I have and buy a new disc every once in a while lol

[Matt @ Oct 22nd 2006 2:13PM]

arent hard drives made out of glass? in that case this is nothing new

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk2.htm

[Dorian Jepsen @ Oct 22nd 2006 2:21PM]

Let's see... One CD or 831 downloads from the iTunes store. That's a tuffy. I'll get back to you on that.

[Dr. X @ Oct 22nd 2006 2:24PM]

glass is a liquid. thats why on really old doors it bulges out at the bottom where the glass hits the wood. So if you were to store this cd in a vertical cd rack for an extended period of time, or even play it a lot i would argue, (the glass would flow to the outside or to the bottom if you store it vertically), proving that this person has no patience it stating "My product is perfect".

[OTHELLO @ Oct 22nd 2006 3:04PM]

I WOULD BUY ONE FOR THE SAKE OF OWNING ONE, BUT I WOULDNT USE IT.

[Keaton @ Oct 22nd 2006 3:59PM]

Don't be dissing on bach... He is da Bomb-Diggidy!!! Da master!!! Okay I'm done....

[Mark @ Oct 22nd 2006 5:09PM]

cool.. i'd buy that CD!... well i would put it into my mac, rip it as a 96 kbit MP3 with iTunes, transfer the song to a crap 512mb iPod Shuffle to have a backup just in case i drop that disc by accident, heheeh.

[Fruition @ Oct 22nd 2006 8:59PM]

I've always been told that glass could flow. It's surprising to find out it can't, or it supposedly can't anyway.

[Ian @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:13PM]

I have a green marker that will alos improve sound quality. I'll part with it for only $789.95.

[Josh @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:35PM]

woohoo glass Cds! because we already dont have enough flippin glass getting broken everywhere... i swear if you have kids, pets, or live in california (earthquakes), mid-us (tornados), eastern-us (hurricanes), europe (floods)or asia (typhoons/tsunamis) this probably isn't for you. But if you live in the artic circle and you think ur "cool" then maybe U can drop the big 831 for "show me your g string" on a stupid piece of glass.

[Ralph @ Oct 23rd 2006 12:02AM]

"Fukui, 60, noticed that glass was a great receptor of sound and decided to try and create a CD from the material."

I thought CDs stored digital data. How is it relevent if whether or not the material is a "great receptor of sound?"