Idolores wrote:Ramza wrote:Buy one, unwrap the plastic in your hands, and tell me it doesn't leave a distinct impression. 
The red laser test was the most important thing, to determine it was pressed and not burnt. The odds of a PRESSED bootleg, of THIS album, is so close to zero ... yeah. It's legit. 
How would you perform a test like that? And are there any other ways you'd recommend to determine authenticity?
So technically all the laser test does, ever, is help you determine if a CD is a burnt CD or a pressed CD. There's a difference in the scale and intensity of the red reflection. Here's what you'd want:
1) one CD you know is pressed (just any old CD you bought, maybe a Best of Duran Duran or something)
2) one CD you know is burnt (and it doesn't even matter whether or not it's been written to yet ... a blank CD-R would work too!)
3) the CD you want to test for authenticity (in this case, SoE)
4) a red laser pointer
5) a very, very dark room (no sunlight, dark as you can get).
Then all you do is shine the laser one at a time on each of the three CDs. You'll obviously notice with your own eye, the distinction between the known-pressed CD and the known-burnt CD. Then you shine on your questioned CD, and whichever one it appears more like with the nature of the reflection, there's your answer (and again ... I don't know how to describe it, but it's totally observable to the naked eye ... it's like, the width around the reflection point, and how strong the reflection of the laser is).
Now, what this does NOT do is confirm that this wasn't some secret second pressing done recently in an attempt to mimic the original press. After all, the SM/EA bootlegs were pressed CDs as well, from Taiwan. The question then would be, why the heck would anyone bother to re-press it? At the quantity sold, and the quantity cost to run a CD pressing of 1000 or less, the person would've lost big bucks.
No ... everything about these albums, from my perspective, suggests these were just an old stock salvaged from a warehouse and being sold off. And, as the other commenters said, he's probably just about saturated the (American) market. He should try to get some on Y!J, honestly. It'd probably do okay for awhile.
Ramza