I'm not dreaming - these are great CD copies

Not to mention gold is a worse reflector than silver of the wavelength of interest. Why are things never so simple as they seem?

Now, you two cut that out or I’ll clunk your heads together.

Exactly! There are actually a great many ways to make copies the best they can be. It’s not that difficult to make them better than the original. Everything is relative. Of course if you are not into improving digital or improving CDs this discusssion probably isn’t your cup of coffee. ☕️ It’s the same thing for playing ordinary CDs. There are a great many ways to improve how plain old vanilla CDs sound, it really comes down to whether you’re an advanced audiophile or not. From the glassy look in a lotta folks’ eyes I’d guess they probably aren’t. Carry on. 🕺🏻Smoke if ya got em. As for your humble scribe, I prefer not to rule anything in or anything out. I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if successive copies sounded better and better.

georgehifi
PS: the cd retail stamped vs copy burn pics above comes from Jean-Marc Fontaine just one of digital’s foremost authorities.

>>>Nevertheless, it doesn’t prove anything. This whole is the copy better than the original debate has been around like forever. And undoubtedly it will be around for a whole lot longer.

“IMO, label paint is unscientifically applied and contributes to errors.”

The colors of the label paint can influence the sound. Definitely. The paint might even contain ferrous materials though I’ve certainly never checked. It’s just a hunch. Why else would demagnetizing a CD influence the sound? Now, that I have checked.

In your face and musical are just words. They certainly don’t mean the same thing to everyone. I like things to be in your face if that’s how they’re supposed to sound. I don’t like laid back sound if it’s supposed to be more present and dynamic. It all depends. Furthermore just because you find something to be true, which maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s univerally true.

And yet the sound is better on the copy. 

You’re getting warm. There doesn’t have to be a defect or scratch for errors to occur. Haven’t you been paying attention? 

georgehifi
Multiple generations of read/writing increases the error count of the original by quite a margin.
Once a zero or one (from the previous readable pit) has been substituted for the original unreadable pit, there is no way it can be resurrected to be a readable original.
There is always only a downhill slide the more times it read and written.

>>>>Uh, for starters the pits aren’t readable. The highly reflective “land” is actually what sends a return signal back to the photodetector. When the laser beam hits a pit the signal is canceled by wave interference. You know, due to the depth of the pit and the wavelength of the CD laser. Also, neither the pit nor the land is a 1 or a 0. The information contained on the disc doesn’t become 1s and 0s until downstream of the optical read process. The lengths of the pits and lands are variable. So it’s the combination of the length of the pits and lands in certain predetermined sequences that determines the digital data - 1s and 0s - downstream.

nonoise
There is a review (that I can’t locate) that explained how a laser reads the physical pits and grooves of a CD. It’s being done in an analog fashion ( a mechanical process) which then had to be processed into the digital domain.

>>>Exactly! The pits and lands are non reflective and reflective areas, respectively on the metal layer. The geometry of the pits and lands and laser assembly is such that when the CD laser beam hits a pit the reflection is canceled due to wave interference so the photodetector detects no signal. The photodetector only detects reflected signal from lands. The length of both pits and lands varies and it’s the series of various lengths of pits and lands that determines the digital information in the analog to digital converter.

Diagram 1 - CD Laser Reads Bumps (Pits Inverted) and Lands,
both of which have reflective metal surfaces. The photodetector
receives no signal from bumps, only from lands, due to destructive
interference of light waves. See last paragraph below.

Pits and Lands come in 9 different lengths, from T3 to T11.

T3 = 10001
T4 = 100001
T5 = 1000001
T6 = 10000001
T7 = 100000001
T8 = 1000000001
T9 = 10000000001
T10 = 100000000001
T11 = 1000000000001

since the spiral of pits and lands is Nano scale any vibration or wobble of the CD can force the servo mechanism to go into oscillation, producing read errors. Also the background scattered laser light gets into the photodetector, producing errors. Thus painting the outer edge of the CD Green prior to ripping will produce a better rip.