[Azumandus]

I just brought my spanking new Sony-D25S. It's amazing lil player and overall have no skipping problem. I do have a problem with 2 or 3 cd's at the same place. I tried them in other cd players and noprob but when I use it on the sony it skips. How do I possibly fix these cd's. What are the best way to clean and possibly restore scratched cd's?? BTW just wondering what's the best way to store cds. I personally think that those cd jewel case cause to many scratches. What are my other options. Thanks guys'.

 

[Audio-Me]

cleaning: isopropyl alcohol mixed with warm distilled water and lysol direct all purpose cleaner (6:3:1)
if you want better results, try a few drops of Photo-Flo (Kodak, get it at local photo store), what this does is disperse the water as in it makes it not so sticky.
Use a microfiber lens cleaning cloth to scrub and wipe.
Velvet from one of those car washing brushes will do just fine as well.

storage: black ruberish dvd cases
sleeves in hard case

 

[Russ Arcuri]

Audio & Me's advice will work, but is far more trouble than it's worth, IMO. Here's cleaning advice I posted to another thread, that I didn't feel like retyping -- so I copied & pasted it:

The traditional advice for cleaning CDs is to use a soft, dry cloth and wipe from center to edge. I think this advice is bad, because small particles on the disc, removed this way, will put scratches into the disc surface due to the pressure of your hand.

Rinse the disc under lukewarm water... this will knock loose particles off of it without the pressure of you rubbing them into the disc surface. The reason for the dish soap is to remove accumulated dirt and oils such as fingerprints -- you only need a small dot of it. Rub the disc surface gently with the pads of your fingers, working up the suds, then rinse thoroughly. Use a soft cloth to dry it.

* About discs being "properly made:" A compact disc is put together like this: A thick, clear layer of plastic on the bottom. On top of this is the aluminum data layer. On top of the aluminum data layer is nothing more than a very thin coat of laquer, which makes up the label. This is why a scratch to the label side of a CD is so detrimental: the scratch is probably scraping away actual data.

Scratches to the clear side can cause tracking errors, but the data remains intact. Most small scratches on the clear side have no effect on CD players; they track past the scratch without issue. Those big enough to cause a tracking error can be buffed out with a very mild abrasive.

Back to the washing thing. The edges of the disc are sealed with a watertight polymer. This is to prevent oxygen from contaminating the aluminum data layer. Aluminum is very shiny -- perfect for reflecting laser light. But aluminum oxide is not, and if the aluminum data layer was to oxidize, the disc would quickly become unplayable.

(What most people think of as the characteristic color of aluminum -- a flat gray color -- is actually the color of aluminum oxide. Unlike iron oxide [rust], aluminum oxide does not harm the strength or integrity of the alumimum. A thin layer of oxide forms on the surface of aluminum and protects the layer of alumimum just beneath. Unfortunately even a thin layer of alumimum oxide will ruin a CD, which must remain reflective to work properly.)

This is a fairly common problem with older 12" laserdiscs, which are much harder to seal -- it's known as "laser rot" to laserdisc collectors. It's almost unheard of with CDs. It's worth noting that if the edges of your CDs aren't perfectly sealed, they're going to oxidize anyway due to exposure to the air. But washing an imperfectly sealed disc with water will speed up the process slightly.

In any case, with three small children in the house, I have had to wash many CDs with a wide variety of contaminants on them... finger prints, peanut butter, snot, etc. You asked if sound quality will be affected by washing -- the answer is, "Yes -- for the better."

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by Russ Arcuri The traditional advice for cleaning CDs is to use a soft, dry cloth and wipe from center to edge. I think this advice is bad, because small particles on the disc, removed this way, will put scratches into the disc surface due to the pressure of your hand.

Russ, while I totally agree that the best bet is to avoid "touching" the surface at all... if you *have* to touch it, from the center to edge is definitely better than "around" the CD -- if you accidentally scratch it from center to edge, since the scratch is perpendicular to the data path, chances are error-correction will compensate, while if you scratch it along the data path, you're out of luck

Azumandus:

For questions like these, the "search" function is quite helpful

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showth...ght=scratch+CD

 

[pigmode]

A last ditch effort (short of replacment) is to use the excellent error correction capablities of EAC to burn a CDR copy. Your success would be dependent upon your CD-RW and whether or not you made the effort to fully configure EAC properly.

 

[setmenu]

Wet n dry sandpaper, followed with car polish and a good
power buff,,works for me every time

 

[setmenu]

Oh and Russ, I think you will find the same technique works
on camera lenses,if you omit the wet n dry stage that is!
Don't want to be scratching those delicate lenses you know

 

[Audio-Me]

I only use my suggested method for serious cleaning. Usually, I just wash it in warm water with foamy soap, then hand buff them with velvet.

menu - wha?? Sandpaper!?

As Russ said, protect the top layer! I'd rather scratch up the bottom than chip the top.

 

[Russ Arcuri]

Quote:

Originally posted by MacDEF Russ, while I totally agree that the best bet is to avoid "touching" the surface at all... if you *have* to touch it, from the center to edge is definitely better than "around" the CD

I wasn't suggesting the type of motion to use when cleaning the disc. If there are no hard particles on the disc or the pads of your fingers, you can rub it any way you want -- figure 8s, or whatever, and you won't scratch it. That's why I recommend the wet method -- knocking hard particles off the disc with a stream of warm water goes a long way towards preventing scratches. But if there ARE hard particles on the disc, then wiping from center to edge is best, since any scratches you might make will be perpendicular to the tracks on the disc. Quote:

-- if you accidentally scratch it from center to edge, since the scratch is perpendicular to the data path, chances are error-correction will compensate, while if you scratch it along the data path, you're out of luck

Actually, error correction doesn't really come into it in most cases (with small, perpendicular scratches). The thickness of the polycarb layer makes surface scratches out of focus compared with the data layer, and its refractive index is such that the scratch itself would have to be vertically offset from the surface or particularly deep to have any effect in the first place. The laser simply reads past small perpendicular scratches as if they weren't there; error-correction isn't invoked because no error is present.

Error correction comes into play when scratches aren't perpendicular to the data path, or when the scratch is particularly deep, causing a read error.

Setmenu -- Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here... but I get the impression you think I'm joking about cleaning the CDs? I'm not -- I've done this hundreds of times over the past decade or so. It works fine, and no damage to the CDs with this method. Works for DVDs as well. Of course, cleaning a disc is useless if you want to eliminate a problematic scratch -- for that, you need a mild abrasive such as those found in CD repair kits.

 

[setmenu]

Russ
NO NO I wasn't thinking you were joking!
I was joking[ok poor joke!]

Infact I have rescued a disk with my 'joke' method omiting the
power buffer!
I did use wet n dry!! worn 1200 grade and hand polished after
woods with paint cutting compound.
It worked I get no obvious problems with it.
But I would only recomend this as a last resort.
My disk could not be replaced,so it HAD to be repaired it was
a gamble but as the thing was unplayable anyway.

Cheers
setmenu

 

[Audio Redneck]

I've been using this method for 12 years now, both at home and at work (I'm chief computer geek), and am still using the disk I recovered 12 years ago without further treatment....

(If the disk is visibly scratched so that you can see the scratch on the top, nothing will help, so stop reading now.)

Rinse any dust, etc. off with lukewarm water and dry.

Take a bottle of Rain-X and put two DROPS on the bottom of the disk and with a cotton ball, GENTLY (ie - no pressure) evenly spread the RainX drops around the entire surface of the disk. Lay the treated side up and let dry for 20 minute - it will become a nice dry haze. With your cleanest, softest, wornout, 100% cotton t-shirt buff off the haze, again, no pressure. If you have any lint that won't blow off, you still may need to let it dry another few minutes.

The RainX fills in the cracks and does a decent job of restoring the surface. I use this for all types of music and data CD's and CDRs and have had pretty good success in recovering disc's with it.

Again, rinse first and DRY, and a little rainX goes a long way.

If this won't get it, you are likely to have to use SetMenu's idea of polishing the surface (they make restore kits that do this) but I would try a none abrasive method first.

Good luck

 

[meithkiller]

I have used The Disc Doctor's "Miracle CD Cleaner" from Music Direct for a couple of years now. This is the best cleaning method I've found yet. I buy a lot of used CD's and have used it quite a bit. The Disc Doctor mainly makes record cleaning products, and has been around for awhile.

I haven't had a lot of luck with repairing badly damaged discs, but the "Wipe Out" CD repair kit is about as good as I have seen and used. I often just make a copy of the damaged disc since my CDR drive tends to have great error correction.

-Keith

 

[Raymond Kim]

What about that Skip Doctor gadget? I've heard that works pretty well, too...

 

[Vertigo-1]

I clean my CDs exactly like Russ does, except I actually saw and learned this technique for the first time in China, and at the time I thought the guy just psycho and thought "this is China, whaddya expect..."

Just flush em under water with some dishwashing detergent rubbed in. Sometimes CDs I don't play for a long time will have a whole layer of dust just caked on 'em. This method does wonders on those CDs.

 

[mbriant]

Don't scratch them in the first place. And if you put them back in their cases when not in use, they'll never get a layer of dust and grime on them.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Sheesh. Good thing you guys aren't into vinyl.