Hello Will!
Sunday May 12 1996 15:08, Will Thompson wrote to All:
 WT> On what side of a CD is the music -actually- on?
Well, A CD is made like this: 'molten' plastic is poured onto the so called 
'stamper', one side remains flat, one gets tiny holes in it like this:
 __   _    _    _    __   _      __   _   _
|__|_|_|__|_|__|_|__|__|_|_|____|__|_|_|_|_| the top is gonna be the label 
side
|                                          |
|__________________________________________| the bottom is the erhm, well,    
  bottom side, realy
then aluminum is poured on the top side, filling up the holes and leaving a 
film on top of the whole thing, this ofcourse is done so that it will 
efelct.
over that there comes a protective layer and then the print.
so the CD is read from the bottom side only, there's nothing on the top side 
that a simple CD player can read. but to the question about what side it's 
on: you can see in the drawing that the actual holes which are the data ar 
closer to the top than the bottom (in fact, they're only a few micron away 
from the top layer of paint, while they are .9 milimeter from the bottom 
side), but like I said it's read from what we like to call the bottom. if you 
make a scratch on the bottom side, you can often pollish it and the cd will 
work perfectly again, a serious scratch on the label side will destroy the 
aluminum layer, so it doesn't reflect the laser light anymore) and make the 
cd worthless.
 WT> my main CD player needs them label -down- to play,
A pioneer with 'Stable Platter' system, right?
 WT> the CD-Boombox is label -up-!
Most CD players are...
Bas
--- GoldED 2.50.Beta5+
---------------