The excellent audiophile website High Fidelity Review have been following a breaking news story that has appeared in the newsgroups about the new SACD of Dark Side Of The Moon. It seems that a small number of US copies have displayed cracks, starting from the centre of the disc and radiating outward. This fault also affects a handful of other SACD titles, all of which have been pressed up at the Crest National plant in Hollywood, California.

You can identify these pressings by studying the master numbers on the inner rings of the disc (S26713-C on the outer ring, and S26713-H on the inner ring). HFR have discussed this at length with Crest National and they have done accelerated aging testing, showing that these cracks seem to be purely cosmetic and do not affect playing. If you have a Crest National version of the disc (and it seems only a small batch made there are affected) we suggest you swing over to HFR for more details.