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DO YOU TWEAK YOUR CD'S? - Page 5

post #61 of 75
2/25/07 at 7:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundEdit View Post
...I highly doubt the "cd demagnetizer" will "reduce the noise floor".
Maybe too fast a conclusion. I also was (and still am) skeptic about this device, which I've never tried, but actually it's the only tweak of the ones mentioned so far that has some theoretical merit*. Well, in my practical experience I also came to appreciate other, rather unexplainable tweaks such as washing and painting the edges black, although I haven't tried much more than this.

* see this.
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post #62 of 75
2/26/07 at 3:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JaZZ View Post
Maybe too fast a conclusion. I also was (and still am) skeptic about this device, which I've never tried, but actually it's the only tweak of the ones mentioned so far that has some theoretical merit*. Well, in my practical experience I also came to appreciate other, rather unexplainable tweaks such as washing and painting the edges black, although I haven't tried much more than this.

* see this.
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I don't know if I would call "I highly doubt" a conclusion. But that being said, all CD tweaks are a waste of time and money if I can just rip to native AIFF on my computer and avoid all need of them. No jitter, etc. If CD players are so lame they can't buffer enough to compensate for read speed then one shouldn't use CD players.

Washing a disc is not an "un-explainable" tweak considering that CDs are an optical medium, and the black marker trick actually does serve a known purpose on some CDs that have a type of copy protection against ripping that can be defeated by covering the bogus data on the periphery of the disc with an opaque marker.

I gotta say I didn't realize how New Age high end audio is. I thought it would be a little more evidence based and less anti-evidence based. I expect sound to be a subjective preference but I also expect that preference to be based on audible differences. I suppose the good news is that I'm going to save a cr*pload of money :-)
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post #63 of 75
2/26/07 at 7:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundEdit View Post
I don't know if I would call "I highly doubt" a conclusion. But that being said, all CD tweaks are a waste of time and money if I can just rip to native AIFF on my computer and avoid all need of them. No jitter, etc. If CD players are so lame they can't buffer enough to compensate for read speed then one shouldn't use CD players.
Computers are also known to cause interferences -- electrically and acoustically --, so I wouldn't call them the ideal source. Moreover what you call waste of time may be fun to others.


Quote:
I gotta say I didn't realize how New Age high end audio is. I thought it would be a little more evidence based and less anti-evidence based. I expect sound to be a subjective preference but I also expect that preference to be based on audible differences.
It's all about the preception of audible differences when it comes to such tweaks. The same as with cables and electronics (amps!) generally where it's hard to explain sonic differences with measuring differences, but they seem real nonetheless. But then again, not all sonic subtleties gained are worth the effort (to me).
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post #64 of 75
2/27/07 at 2:11am
The only tweak I've ever used was Brasso to clean off a pretty deep scratch that messed up 2 tracks on the CD. It worked surprisingly well and it doesn't even skip now.
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post #65 of 75
2/27/07 at 2:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundEdit View Post
I gotta say I didn't realize how New Age high end audio is.
I blame it on the schools and the Beatles.

See ya
Steve
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post #66 of 75
2/27/07 at 2:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post
I blame it on the schools and the Beatles.
Already Elvis has suspected that the Beatles might be subversive.
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post #67 of 75
2/27/07 at 4:13pm
Perhaps Der Bingle is to blame.

See ya
Steve
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post #68 of 75
2/28/07 at 3:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dept_of_Alchemy View Post
Um, since locolization of sound (perception of soundstage) depends heavily on the shape of one's head (look up HRTF on wiki), it is obvious that at least in theory taking off your glasses while listening to speakers is going to improve soundstaging. Empirically speaking, I find that I hear better treble extension when I take off my glasses. So, it works for me.
Some frequencies, probably mid and higher will bounce off the glasses before they get to your ear and create another echo (or a wrinkle in the HRTF if you like) which could subtly degrade the signals.
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post #69 of 75
2/28/07 at 3:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundEdit View Post
the black marker trick actually does serve a known purpose on some CDs that have a type of copy protection against ripping that can be defeated by covering the bogus data on the periphery of the disc with an opaque marker.

)
Very interesting. Can you explain this in more detail?


Quote:
I gotta say I didn't realize how New Age high end audio is. I thought it would be a little more evidence based and less anti-evidence based. I expect sound to be a subjective preference but I also expect that preference to be based on audible differences. I suppose the good news is that I'm going to save a cr*pload of money
I would say it is more based on having heard really good systems and wondering how to achieve these results. I didn't care much about sound quality issues except maybe bass response until I heard a good hybrid electrostatic speaker system on display. I didn't know anything about them or how they worked, but they beat everything else on display and I just sat and listened for most of an hour.

So if you want to save some money just don't go into any audio displays, salons and the like and keep listening to your portable cd player and Ipod.

Some science can be used to improve performance, for example equalizing speakers to a more or less flat response, with a slight treble roll-off will, almost certainly give good sound.

Equalizing headphones is more difficult because of the need to use special measuring techniques such as dummy head analysis and because you will be more aware of the crummy things equalizers do to the sound with good phones than you would be listening to most loudspeakers
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post #70 of 75
2/28/07 at 11:36am

Snopes

Bewaring of the Green
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post #71 of 75
2/28/07 at 12:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mlhm5 View Post
That's why I have used black marker.
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post #72 of 75
2/28/07 at 1:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tiggers View Post
Not to stir thinks up in a new direction, but I wonder if a lot of this discussion about jitter (no one has mentioned WOW yet) might have come from the transition from turn-table to CD.

They are both round and spin, right ? So the same issues that exist for records must exist for playing back on CD? (from the perspective of someone who might not have any technical background to understand why they are different). I just wonder how much of the talk about jitter and such has it's 'tradition' in problems inherent with turntable technology.
Round and spinning is just about where the similarities end. CD speed variations are several degrees of magnitude lower than even high end belt driven turntables, DD, dont know. Digital data is buffered and clocked so that minor timing variations just do not matter, jitter is empirically undetectable at below 20ns by the loosest tests available and realistically probably not detectable until over 150ns, certainly in no controlled test in peer reviewed journals. No commercial CD player produces jitter at anywhere near 20ns, no serious test has shown jitter of the levels produced by CD players (even bad ones) to be audible under any circumstances. The most famously jitter-prone CD players the Marantz cd63/67 have measured jitter at < 700ps - this has been tested to show jiitter noise at ~ -105db and thanks to masking this just isnt an audible problem.
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post #73 of 75
2/28/07 at 1:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Todd R View Post
**silent except for the crikets chirping**

The record still stands, no takers
Ill take you up on that offer...
but.. do you really think my humble setup scd-ce595->203.2dac is even remotely capable(the resolution) of any improvement from the treatment in you opinion? If not then I won't bother, but i'm interested..
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post #74 of 75
2/28/07 at 3:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JaZZ View Post
That's why I have used black marker.
Finger paints work good too!

I once was dragged over to an aging hippie's house with a friend of mine. When we arrived, the guy was working on engraving his name with a hobby drill into the back of his CDs. He was just finishing the last one when we arrived. I asked if they still played with his name etched across them. He got a look of horror on his face and turned the CD over and saw that the etching had ripped right through the reflective layer.

See ya
Steve
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post #75 of 75
2/28/07 at 4:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post
I once was dragged over to an aging hippie's house with a friend of mine. When we arrived, the guy was working on engraving his name with a hobby drill into the back of his CDs. He was just finishing the last one when we arrived. I asked if they still played with his name etched across them. He got a look of horror on his face and turned the CD over and saw that the etching had ripped right through the reflective layer.

See ya
Steve
Sure doesn't sound like a good tweak to me.

BTW did the cd's still play?
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