If the pressed CDs play without uncorrectable errors, then the audio content will be identical to that on the master. However, it's rare to find CD pressings that play error-free on cheap CD drives. You need to try the pressed CDs on a professional player that has error counting and display built-in. We had a thread about this recently.

Boswell, you´re my hero.
Thats so useful.

However, we´re on a low budget here. Is there a way to tests this in the DAW or Mastering software? Im using Cubase 8.5 for mixing and Wavelab 9 for mastering.

jarjarbinks, post: 437890, member: 40927 wrote: What do you answer to a client that was happy with the final master but unhappy with the replicated CDs?

Unhappy in what way? Are the discs playing with errors? If they are playing with errors, are they the same errors every time in the exact same place in the songs from disc to disc, or are they random?
Or is your client saying that it's sonically different? If it's the latter, do you hear a difference sonically?

Also, what is your client listening to the discs through? Is it a top spec CD player through decent monitors? Or a laptop with built in speakers?

Doing a checksum/null should be relatively easy - if your DAW supports the format, you could import the DDP file, then import the same track from the CD, make sure they are perfectly aligned in time, flip the phase on one of the tracks - and if they null, then your client needs to stop taking the yellow acid. If not, and you hear artifacts, then you need to contact the replicator. Have them do a null check on their end.

DonnyThompson, post: 437895, member: 46114 wrote: Unhappy in what way? Are the discs playing with errors? If they are playing with errors, are they the same errors every time in the exact same place in the songs from disc to disc, or are they random?
Or is your client saying that it's sonically different? If it's the latter, do you hear a difference sonically?

Also, what is your client listening to the discs through? Is it a top spec CD player through decent monitors? Or a laptop with built in speakers?

Doing a checksum/null should be relatively easy - if your DAW supports the format, you could import the DDP file, then import the same track from the CD, make sure they are perfectly aligned in time, flip the phase on one of the tracks - and if they null, then your client needs to stop taking the yellow acid. If not, and you hear artifacts, then you need to contact the replicator. Have them do a null check on their end.

Almost verbatim what I was going to say.

I think the client is just having issues that are unrelated to the actual cd pressing. From anxiety, to obsession, to post pardem depression, to afraid of what people will say, to being just generally insasaible. It's difficult to narrow down from afar, but that to me is the issue. This may not be the case w them, but I've worked with artists who have a difficult time "letting go" of the mix/cd, and I have a stack of 'final mixes' in the basement to prove it.

Otherwise, it seems to me, the client would have a specific complaint i.e., my cd skips, or there is a glitch at 1:55 of track 3, or my vocal so how sounds loud. Yada Yada.

I'd sit with them in the studio and play the song session, then the replicated cd song, back to back, and listen. You could try a null test, I guess, but I've never done one like that.

It's quite possible there is in fact an error, but I remain the skeptic on this, and think it's just a case of the artists imagination getting the better of them.