Can the copy sound better than the original?


Ridiculous question on the surface, I know. Here are the particulars:
I burned a copy of Mike Patton's "Mondo Cane" to listen to at work. I played the cd-r to verify that it was functional and it seems to sound significantly better than the original manufactured disc. More cohesive performance, better detail in inner voices, a sense of being in the space with the performers, and soundstage depth that is unusual for this system. Nonsense, right? I will state upfront that I have no affiliation with Memorex whatsoever. The cd-r I burned was a Memorex
"Black" cd-r. The only explanations I can come up with are that a) there was some compression in the transfer into i-tunes b) there is something about the way a laser might read a cd that would cause a typical silver cd to reflect garbage light onto the laser, whereas a black cd has less spurious reflective emission. Anybody else care to try this and confirm/de-bunk my perception?
ths364

Showing 1 response by kijanki

Ths364 - It can be also, that many ripping programs like EAC or MAX go many times over the same sector until they obtain proper checksum. CDP cannot do that, working in real time, (at least most of them) and interpolates missing samples. That way CDR can become better (repaired) version of poorly printed (or scratched) CD.

Cross Interleave Reed Solomon Code used with CDs can error correct scratches along the disk up to about 4mm and then for scratches between 4-8mm it interpolates. Above 8mm it quits (pops).