Do CD treatments improve rips?


Has anyone done any comparison testing between untreated CDs ripped to hard drive, that are subsequently treated (examples: polishing, demagnetizing, ionizing, Nespa-ing, edge-marking or beveling, copying to CD-R, using disc mats) and then re-ripped (using the same ripping software to the same hard drive)? I'm interested in knowing if the two rips are identical bit-wise (verification software), and also if they sound exactly alike. If you've done this comparison, could you also let us know the hardware and software involved? Thanks!
jharrell

Showing 1 response by hoff48

Treating a CD is only beneficial (and that's questionable) for when the CD is being read in real time by the CD player. Ripping is more a function of the software. Most software has error correction so it will reread the CD until it gets it right. In fact a more expensive CD drive will not give you better rips than the plain old CD drive that came with your computer, but it may rip faster.

A few years ago I tried a few rips before and after treatment. I timed the rips. In some cases (not all) the treated rips were faster, but both ways checksummed the same. So it's basically a waste of the extra time (spent treating the CD) and the money for the treatment to gain 30 seconds in rip time. Just use some water and clean the damn CD's.
Also, it has been proven that iTunes on Macs (error correction has to be activated) rips bit-perfect.
And if two rips checksum the same and you hear a difference, well.........