hi, i was wondering if anyone on this board could shed some light on Mitsui Gold CD-Rs that are made in Taiwan. from what i understand, all Mitsui Gold CD-Rs are manufactured either in USA, Europe or Japan since these are where Mitsui's manufacturing facilities are located. i am unaware of any Mitsui manufacturing plant in Taiwan. so you can understand my concern with these "made in taiwan" CDRs which i have acquired. i would like to know if these are indeed "certified" Mitsui Gold CDRs or some blackmarket copies. since when did Mitsui start manufacturing CDRs in Taiwan? and if so, can i still expect the SAME high quality and durability from the Taiwan made Mitsui Gold CDRs as the ones made in US and Japan? thanks for hearing me out guys, i hope to hear your comments. oh by the way, here's the ATIP information on my "made in Taiwan" Mitsui Gold 24X CD-Rs. ATIP: 97m 27s 56f Disc Manufacturer: Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals, Inc. Reflective layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine) Media type: CD-Recordable Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)
the distributor tells me that he contacted Mitsui about this and their response was that the "made in Taiwan" Mitsui Gold CDRs are only PACKAGED in Taiwan (eventhough the box reads "MADE in Taiwan"), and that the CDRs themselves are still manufactured by the Mitsui plants in Japan, USA or Europe. ie. 100000's of CDs are shipped to Taiwan after being manufactured and it is in Taiwan that they're packaged into jewel cases, boxes of 10s, spindles of 50s, etc. and delivered for worldwide distribution. Mitsui's reason for doing so is that the costs are cheaper if packaged in Taiwan. apparently, we're still getting the same CDRs as the ones labeled "Made in Japan" or "USA". does this make sense to anyone? is this information trustable?
Either it's true, either the distributor is lying, because I don't see WHY Mitsui would say that pirated CDRs are true ones while they know they are not. It would be completely illogical.
this was bothering me so much i e-mailed Mitsui USA and here's the reply i got from one of their reps. i'm sure you'll find this interesting too. "We have some media manufactured for us in Taiwan for distribution in Australia and Asia. These discs are made with our dye, masters & to our specifications. They are bonified Mitsui CD-Rs and the quality is good, but not as consistent as product made at our plants. There are also some products that are made in Taiwan (even by this same manufacturer) that look like ours, but are not the same. They use a knock-off dye & are not made to our high specs. This software will identify the manufacturer. Also we have a code in the center clear area in the form: xxxx xxxx xxxx" the program he attached was CDR-Identifier. i'm not sure of the exact ATIP to look out for but i'll post him a reply to find out. i think the ATIP i got on mine should be consistent. still this information is quite troubling. any comments?
All I see is that they say they are manufactured in USA, Japan or Europe, then they say they are manufactured in Taiwan with lesser quality ! Who do they think we are ? Give this answer to your first distributor, and tell him to ask Mitsui why they did give him a false information !
Nice to know this... EVERY single Mitsui CD-R here in Brazil is made in taiwan, be they the gold ones or the standard ones! Odd, very odd, but... They seem to work fine, never had a problem up to now, but I'm not really sure what to expect from Mitsuis because I've never seen the non-taiwan ones. Anyway, _d_, ask them who this Taiwan manufacturer is, I'm curious as to what the results will be.
ok, excellent news. here's the official word from Mitsui Japan. i got this response from the manager himself. so hopefully this will help set everyone's mind at ease and end all paranoia about the quality of Taiwan made Mitsui CDRs. "...We would like to confirm we have a production site in Taiwan. Of course, these quality is as same as that of US products. In Asian area including Japan, we are selling products made in Taiwan. Thank you." if the consumers in Japan themselves are using these Taiwan made Mitsui CDRs, then i wouldn't expect any less than high quality. i'm no longer worried, and you guys shouldn't be either. fallen, i didn't get to ask about the name of the manufacturer, but it looks like it's Mitsui themselves. they must've started up a production plant over there. rejoice.
Okay. I hope that's true. Otherwise it will be like Mitsubishi Chemicals (Verbatim) that used to manufacture their disks in Singapore and Ireland, but later moved their production to Taiwan. Initially it seemed like they were made by their own production plant, but the Asia Pacific office informed me that they leased facilities from CMC to manufacture all their discs. Personally, I think Verbatim discs have never been the same quality since.
Wow, now I know why Mitsubishi Chemicals is made in Taiwan... It just seems odd for a Japanese company to not have any Japan made discs.
yeah, i know. ultimately, it's much cheaper to manufacture in Taiwan so everyone's looking there now. it worried me, but given how particular Japanese companies and consumers are about high quality control, i doubt they'll let that standard slip even for the discs being made in Taiwan.
It is really the quality control that matters since it has nothing to really do with where a product is made. Just like some high-end audio components are made in China but engineered in the US and sell for far below the prices of Japanese brands and are still way better. Japanese doesn't always mean good. Take NMBS memory for example, I remember their RAM when it was rated 80ns was really 100ns.
Hi _d_, yes, but I live in S.E. Asia and there are Verbatim discs that come from the CMC leased factory but are of lower quality. These are Metal Azo dyes but they only carry a one year warranty, compared with their Lifetime warranty discs. Anyway, I've lost faith in Verbatim discs, and I prefer to buy Prodisc (SmartBuy) which seem to manufacture better discs.
_d_, I heard from two different people one in US and another one in Australia, that Mitsui CD-R manufactured in Taiwan are made at ProDisc facilities. They were both people selling ProDisc CD-R, but the way the information had come up did not sound as it was misinformation.
