When one of my friends returned from Kosovo he came back with some Al Di Meola CD's for me. One look at them indicated they were probably dodgy - printing was almost completely transparent, and even the reflective layer looked uneven.

So the first thing I did was ripped the lot to wav for safekeeping. And they sit happily on my empeg now. I have played one of the CD's 4 times in my home stereo and it seems knackered already. Very disappointing, however my friend tells me it only cost about 40 pence, so you do definitely get what you pay for.