CD Treatment

You color the edges with a sharpie.   Green I think.      Total internet legend and snake oil..........but why do I have the feeling someone will tell me I'm wrong?

Grab a beer and some peanuts. 3..2..1

Tom, I’m cursed with an allergy to beer. But not wine or scotch. I may just try that treatment tonight! Grab my babe and swing around the dance floor ( our living room).😀

Green I think.

Translation: Never tried it. Don't have a clue. 

fundsgon, Allergy to a beer? I'm so sorry man.

You have only been playing lps though, right?

The cds are in boxes, in the basement, and the
pandemic is bringing out your adventurous side.

SERIOUSLY?

Seriously. Mostly I spin cd’s, sometimes lp’s. Both sound good, just different. Just wondering what tweaks may be available for cd’s.

I dutifully bought a green CD pen when the Paint the Edge Green idea got going.  I have many green-edged CDs.  Perhaps the green edge makes a slight improvement to the sound, but not enough to really matter.  What really improved the fidelity of my CDs was replacing my first generation Marantz CD/SACD player with a Sony XA 5400ES.  What improved the fidelity a heck of a lot more was routing my Sony through a Mytek Brooklyn Bridge.  Of course, the Mytek cannot decode my SACDs but CDs now often sound excellent.  BTW, whenever an audio-fool spots one of my green-edged CDs they chuckle.

Of course, the green pen can provide modest improvements. But improvements nevertheless. However, the problem is too great for only a green pen, gentle readers. Green absorbs the visible color red, it’s red’s complement. And red appears in the scattered CD laser light, so some of the scattered light is absorbed. Thus, the amount of scattered light getting into the photodetector is reduced. That’s the reason the green pen is audible. But, wait, there’s more. The red portion of the CD laser is only the lower 1/4 of the bandwidth. Since the CD laser has a wavelength of 780 NM that means most of the scattered light the other 75% is not visible red but near infrared light which is invisible. Infrared light is immune to absorption by green or any other color. That’s where New Dark Matter comes in, it absorbs all light, visible and invisible. Thr

Back when, I tried them all, and I never noticed any difference. Save your money for more music or better gear.

@fundsgon.  - I am a bourbon and wine guy as well. A triple threat 😂
i think it is very important to make sure the disc is balanced and your CD spinner is as level as possible. Also, be sure to put some weight on the top plate to lessen any vibration while listening. Many CD players are made from thin materials and “ring like a bell” when you tap on them. SimAudio makes a great product.                                     ** Good luck and happy Listening 👂🎶

Didn't there used to  be rubber bands that went around the disc?

Another tweak was to load a second CD on top of the first one. More mass - claimed to improve stability of the spinning disc. I never tried this, fearing getting both CDs stuck!

Regarding scattered light, didn't 47Labs have a CD player sans (without) case? 

Clark Johnsen, audio provocateur extraordinaire, published Lotions Eleven, Fluid Dynamics of the CD - a review of eleven CD treatments of the time - in Positive Feedback. Among the sonically intrepid other methods of CD treatment include demagnetizing the CD, freezing the CD in the home freezer 🥶, de-ionizing the CD, stiffening the CD, beveling the outer edge of the CD, sanding the outer and inner edges of the CD, leveling the CD tray, using Silver Rainbow 🌈 Foil on the CD, Cream Electret, painting the outer edge purple, painting the inner edge black.

https://positive-feedback.com/Issue26/cjdiaries.htm

ways to treat CDs so that they sound better?
Before Corona Virus lockdown, I used to take my favorites out for a nice candlelight dinner at my favorite bistro, bring them home on the couch and whisper to them “When you shake your little polycarbonate butt, it really gets my laser hot.”

roberjerman
Another tweak was to load a second CD on top of the first one. More mass - claimed to improve stability of the spinning disc. I never tried this, fearing getting both CDs stuck!

>>>>Brilliant.

Thanks guys, I’ll check that’s it’s level and try a green sharpie. If I were to treat myself before every listening session my liver would soon disappear, so I guess it’s just sit back and enjoy.

Novus Plastic Polish 2 applied gently in a vertical motion and gently removed when dry.

+1 for New Dark Matter PLUS Machina Dynamica isolation springs

I too have over 1000 CDs


I always wash them to remove any mold release residue


Over the decades I have tried many different treatments (including edge cutting, which works but the devices are expensive, time consuming to use and messy as the poly carbonate is shaved off the edge.


Overtime, in my experience all the treatments (including Novus) oxidize making the disc harder for the laser to read. When I play a disc I haven’t played in years I often find it dull sounding. I immediately rewash and BAM the sparkle returns

hth

My experience with CD treatments (I've tried several) is not that they improve the sound of a fresh disc - they are better at removing the "digital hash" on CD's that over time have become magnetized, dirty, or whatever. You can hear the hash. Also useful when you get the dreaded "can't read or no disc" error messages. Take out your treatment, apply to cd and no more error message. Happens every once in a while. I am still using George Lewis's product from years ago. I'm sure others have their favorites. 

I recall that the Mapleshade Micro-Smooth made a big difference.  You buff the disk with some mildly abrasive polish, about the consistency of toothpaste.  I remember being very pleased with the results, but I don't have the patience or inclination to do it anymore.  Although, given the circumstances, things may change. 

I was under the impression scratches were not good on CDs. 

when I was tweak crazy, I would de-mag each CD before insertion into the player. I also "green" inked the CD edges until I figured out I did not hear any difference. And I would also copy CD's onto blank "black" CDs. I tried a lot of things without much sonic improvement. And now I don’t even play CD’s anymore as I stream everything.

You know you went too far down the rabbit hole when you start writing ‘x = PRESENT TIME and ‘x 26 ‘x in red pen on all your CDs. Coloring cassettes also.

I have clearly demonstrated the sonic effects of this to others in my listening room.

1) User a cleaner to remove the film. AudioTop is expensive but works really well. Clean the disk twice.
2) Use a black permanent marker on the edge. Black blocks all light. People started using green because it cancels the stray red laser. Black is better.

Then Marigo makes mats to place on the disc. I used 6 different mats over the years. The latest Marigo clear mat is by far the best. the other mats just removed glare and improved focus. This Marigo clear mat seems more like a player upgrade.

There is more. But start here.

Ack chew ally, black around the edge hurts the sound. Sorry to burst your bubble. Pop! Musta been placebo effect. No offense.

Nope. I have the same disc with and without. It's obvious.

I occasionally use Shinola. It makes no claims other than being an effective cleaner.
I believe it is now a Mofi product.

The problem with CDs (and Vinyl for that matter) is balance. Depending on the CD reader, a CD can be rotating at 500rpm. If the CD is not on perfect balance, the vibration not only effects the hardware holding it, but the quality of the data read ie bits can be and are usually misread, requiring high speed corrections on the fly. Only high quality CD readers (and thereby supporting electronics) are successful in this and the reason that they DO sound better.
Vinyl is much the same in that the centre hole is not actually IN the centre of the LP. Having a rare Nakamichi Dragon CT, I can see it correcting the centre with 99.9% of my old and very latest albums.

I have used Walker Audio Ultra Vivid CD cleaner and it works well.  The soundstage is more open, deeper, vivid, and harmonics are more realistic. I assume that it polishes the CD so that the laser can more easily read the CD and there is less jitter.  It seems to last as long as you keep your pinkies off the disc.

I also used a device that demagnetized CDs as was first noted by Arnie Nudell.  It had some of the same sound improvement characteristics as the Walker Product. Unfortunately it had to be done every time I played the CD and the damag process took about two minutes. 

Had anyone tried spit...and then wipe it off with your shirt's sleeve?

Kozka, thanks for the morning chuckle.

Begone, troll!

Under the "Fun with CDs" category:  Get a yellow sticky note and scissors. Cut a very sharp angle from the note where the glue is, say
1/4" down to a point.  Attach to the (duh!) none label side with the point near the center just after where the pits begin. Use a disc you know well.
You'll find out how much error correction can do.  Amazing. Please post results.  BTW, dealers hate this stuff.

That’s not really very surprising. Reed Solomon error correction codes are very effective for predictable errors such as the ones the sliver of paper would produce. What Reed Solomon is not (rpt not) very effective at are random errors like external vibration, the fluttering of the disc and scattered background laser light. Reed Solomon will shut down the system when it encounters scratches that are circular. But it does very well for scratches that are radial. 

AFAIK Reed Solomon corrects errors caused by circular scratches up to about 4mm long.  For scratches 4-8mm it interpolates data.  For >8mm it misses the data with possible pop/click.  Computer (and some CDPs) can read the same sector multiple times to obtain bit-perfect data.  Perhaps multiple lasers can also help in reading the same sector more than once?