2. digital
  3. 1322553479

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
unsound
7,329 posts
 
Meiwan, I do believe your conclusion might be somewhat presumptuous. Please read the posts above. While the transport might indeed make a difference, I would guess (presumptuously? :-)) that the extra stages of error correction might have at least the same, and probably more of an effect on the superior sound of some copies.
ptmconsulting
1,000 posts
 
You would think it would be a quantum light thing, but since the program ripping/burning it is a measuring device it it probably really a particle thing :-)

I've always had a similar question on using black vs regular silver Cd's when burning music. Is ther really a difference or not? Same question for the relative quality (cost) of said blank CD disks?
seehearinc
1 posts
 
Years ago when this debate first surfaced, the conclusion that seemed most plausible, IMHO, was that the burned copy benefited from the computer's error correction, more uniform deposition of the pits and lands, and CD-Rs dont have all the holes and other manufacturing flaws typical of commercial aluminum CDs.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
This is not nonsense at all. Years ago I had a CDROM rewriting service to improve on commercial CD quality. If you use Mitsui Gold Audio Master, it will sound even better.

For all of you that dont think jitter is an issue, this is the primary issue with digital audio, and that is the difference you are hearing. The pits in the CDROM are more defined and accurately placed, so it sounds better. Less jitter, better sound quality. No matter how good the transport is, it is still affected by the pit jitter. This is not about errors or error correction. This is a thing of the past. With a clean disk, there are no read errors.

Take it up another notch and use an external CD writer, clean the blank CDROM with a good treatment before writing and mod the external writer to have a Superclock or Ultraclock to reduce jitter even more. Now this is music.

The ultimate is without a doubt computer audio done right. This can achieve levels of jitter not achievable with CD players. This is why I junked my CD transport years ago. Not for the convenience, for the sound quality.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
ths364 OP
181 posts
 
Thanks everyone,for the comments and information! This may be my favorite new cheap "tweak". I've heard digital done well (SACD and in the recording studio) so I don't mind shelling out for cd's- especially if they can be bettered "in-house". This will get me by until I'm ready to leap into music server territory.
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