Denon Digital Industries

Denon's U.S. optical-media mastering, pressing and manufacturing plant, owned by Denon Digital LLC and located in Madison, Georgia, USA. The plant officially opened for production on April 15th 1987 with 12 presses capable of producing one million CDs per month. By the summer of 1992, Denon was producing nearly 4.5 million discs per month and later that year purchased new equipment increasing capacity to 5 million discs per month. The plant produced titles under the Denon label and custom-pressed CDs for RCA, A&M and other major labels. They also had a licensing branch which may be credited as Denon Digital Industries, Denon Digital Industries, Inc. or Denon Digital Inc. on releases. In 1994, Denon Digital Industries (the optical-media production arm), and Denon America (the hardware production arm), merged into the new Denon Corporation, but each unit continued to operate under the same company name. In October 2006, Americ Disc acquired the plant and Denon Digital LLC. The plant ceased production in the summer of 2007 and the contents were sold at auction on July 19th 2007. CDs glass mastered (and possibly pressed) at this plant from April 1987 up to, and for a brief time after, the introduction of SID codes in 1994 can be identified by the following matrix patterns etched or printed into the mirror band around the disc's central hub. The catalog number typically appears on one side of the mirror band with a mm/yy date code followed by a four to six digit alpha-numeric code on the opposite side in the this pattern: - [release cat#] mm/yy #xx##x (e.g. [cite]160332 4/91 1DA1X[/cite] — or see '[r807492]'). The month/year codes changed with each manufacturing cycle of a given title, while the #D likely represents the generation of glass master (e.g. 1D being the first generation), followed by a code that's possibly related to the mould / stamper mother, or press used (e.g. A1, A2, B1, B2, etc.). The releases identified by this matrix pattern should receive a "Glass Mastered At" company credit. The catalog number was supplied by the label and should not be entered as a catalog number for Denon. The month/year codes are believed to be production dates, but are not reliably transferrable as a released date. (Discussion is ongoing whether matrices with different dates/years should be grouped as 'variants' [[g5.2.c]], versus separating different pressing years into their own Unique Releases). CDs pressed at this plant after the introduction of SID codes in 1994 will have: - Mastering SID Codes: IFPI L431, IFPI L432, IFPI L433, IFPI L434, IFPI L435, IFPI L436, IFPI L437, IFPI L438, IFPI L439, IFPI L440 - Mould SID Code: IFPI 74** Releases with the above SID codes should receive a "Pressed By" and/or "Glass Mastered At" company credit. Again, the catalog number was supplied by the label and should not be entered as a catalog number for Denon. The matrix pattern of these releases may have all or a combination of the following distinguishing characteristics: - A lone symbol/number/letter/symbol (i.e. *1D*, *1R*, *2D*, ◆5D◆, etc.) - A lone etched letter/number (i.e. A1, A2, A3, A4, etc.) - Matrix pattern: (UDxxxxx) [release cat#] #X [the UDxxxxx number was introduced sometime in the mid-2000s] In 1997, Denon submitted a patent for a CD identified as the “Denon Cool Disc”. The Mastering and Mould SID codes will be the same as those listed above and CDs produced on the patented Cool Disc technology will have matrix patterns similar to: - [cite]Cool Disc™ by DENON Pat. No. D453.521 5 (UD59390) IMPREC055 1D 8[/cite]