This was quite the rage about five years ago. Rain-X is cheap, but I found other products are better, notably Walker's Ultra-Vivid. |
Guys, I haven't been following this thread, but I must say it is the most civil discussion on this I have ever read.
I should say that I have spent a career testing methods and statistics as well as doing the best science I could given the difficulties of studying humans. I am a political science professor. Mine is very much a young and developing science and recently many political scientists have embraced the deductive ideas so prevalent in economics. For me to assume human rationality is a bridge too far. Rather I pursue an inductive science based on observations and trying to explain why there are differences. Such a science develops with many studies.
This predisposes me in audio to want to hear components, speakers, wires, etc. And to try to understand why one sounds better. My interest in music is to want the best sound I can get, but I also want to understand why one sounds better. Nevertheless, if something sounds better I will try to afford it.
I had undergraduate education in engineering as well as in the sciences. In my opinion engineering is about applying the findings of science to practical use. Its principles do not define what science is. In application to the question of cleaning cds, the engineer might well stick with the fundamental precepts. Some tweaks violate some of these precepts, but not necessarily natures laws or science. Also, of course, some tweaks may be scams, but violating precepts does necessarily means they are scams. Observations might well lead to better precepts.
I would give an example of quartz disks. I have tried many different quartz products or tweaks. In some places they have a very great benefit. In others no effect, and yet in others may ruin the sound. I hate to have to use these empirically, namely to always have to use trial and error. For someone to tell me that they could have no impact is grossly unscientific to me as it fails to account for the variability of the findings. Do I wish someone could "predict" where there would be benefits would be great.
Long ago, I tried Rain-X. I still have the bottle in my listening room. I did find some benefit, but very little. I found that use on my windshields did allow some avoidance of using my windshield wipers as water sheeted of more. Why this would have an effect on cds, I cannot understand. I can see how eyeglass cleaners would have more effect. Optrix in my opinion has a much greater effect than Rain-X. I do not use either now.
Shadorne, while I fully agree that equipment breakin takes a long time, I don't understand why you would say a piece of equipment never sounds the same twice. I also don't understand why you would say "target" quality gear always sounds the same. There are explanations for why gear breaks in and apart from drivers, most often this is several months or less. If you turn equipment off, it may take some time to get back to where it was, but once there it will change little. |
Shadorne, the belief in the Placebo effect to explain clear observation is unscientific. Selectivity bias works both ways as if you don't want to hear a benefit you will not. If people hear a difference and the precepts of engineering cannot explain such differences, it demands better science.
I find it incredible that your embrace the statement in Stereophile and ignore the statement, "...there are things going on in digital audio that have not been identified, but influence sonic characteristics." Engineering schools, not withstanding, we don't know all natural phenomena.
I don't understand your decision to embrace "target" components, that is your decision, BUT is NOT justified on scientific bases. |
Shadorne, You mock, "What we "clearly observe" is the truth. Our perceptions are reality." How do you think we came up with the laws of engineering?
Eldartford, again, I don't understand your logic. If the ear is the best measurement device and it hears a difference between two digital copies that are identical, are not the copies different?
IMHO, if many hear a difference, good science needs to marshal itself to account for observations of differences where science has said there should be none. Critics are also victim to selective bias when they expect no differences and hear none. |
Eldartford, if you rip the same disc to a harddrive, once without the Millennium cd mat and once with it both using the same software and hardware (with Exact Copy reporting no errors and the same confidence) and then listen in the identical system and everyone "hears" a difference with probably 90% holding your view initially, is it logical to say there can be no difference?
I have had the same experience with discs painted with AVM and not, but various cleaning treatments seem to do nothing. I certainly would not claim to be expert in things digitial, but I do hear compressions degradation of sound even if it is supposedly loseless and I do hear differences in digital cables. I suspect strongly that "bits ain't bits." |
Shadorne, yes, but how to you account for the differences in sound that I described? Please don't say we only think we heard them. The room at the RMAF was full of skeptics who only tolerated John Tucker doing this on his system. All muttered disbelief when they heard the difference and only John said he had to get one of those puppies. Several others, however, asked me in the hall where they might buy one. |
Eldartford, yea, and many believed in alchemy. Please read what I said about treated disc, in my experience not sounding any different. I have withstood some grief about that from others more accustomed to listening first.
Shadorne, at last you are at least seeking alternative hypotheses. All was doing is reporting several observations. |
Everyone's comments on using Rain-X on car motivated me to use the now 2 year old Rain-X that I tried on my car windows.
I still maintain that a commitment to an existing theory of what explains observations that dismisses new observations is fundamentally unscientific. |
In the 1850s, about the same time that the first perpetual motion clock was attempted, the miasma theory of how cholera was widely believed by all scientists. Cholera, they thought, came from bad air and bad air came from human excrement. They "knew" Dr. Snow's notion that it was passed in water was simply "impossible." Foolish them! |
I used Rain-X many years ago on many cds. I have seen no adverse effect on any of them. I have used UltraBit Platinum after discarding George's linty rags. It is not as good, IMHO, as his earlier products. I used his ClearBit as a cleaner until I ran out. For a while I used the Jena Labs cd cleaner, but the Walker Audio Ultra-Vivid is clearly superior. At some point in all of this I also used AudioTop digital, which was quite good but not the equal to Ultra-Vivid.
I have a music server now from Exemplar. I have found that treating cds to rip has no advantage. Sometimes I actually preferred the untreated cd. I fully realize that others might not have my experience.
I have two badly scratched cds that cannot be replaced. One of them I did not have when I was using Rain- |
Somehow this was posted before I finished. I was only going to say that the Walker Ultra-Vivid did allow cd players to play both. |
So, Doug, are you changing your opinion? I continue to be perplexed at sincere beliefs that some hear differences and others do not. I am also fascinated that some love one wine while others hate it. Humans are a varied lot.
I remember several years ago sitting between John Curl and an TAS reviewer listening to a demonstration of the Shun Mook speakers. John and I were struck by the improvement gained by a slight change they made in the speakers. The reviewer heard nothing. My only judgment was that I would pay no attention to his reviews thereafter. He was soon gone. |
Nasaman, as Douglas says, in my opinion this has been most civilized as compared to what appears on Prop Head on AudioAsylum. I am a social scientists and find it quite curious that many who profess to value science, refuse to listen, Eldartford obviously excluded, and that many who listen are dismissive of worrying about explaining what they hear.
Douglas introduces another concern, namely hearing loss, but I think also that people listen for different things. One of these is to enjoy the musical reproduction that they have without the quest for greater realism. My wife characterizes my listening room as a laboratory. I cannot really disagree. I have achieved greater realism with all of my tweaking with my system, such as isolating all cables from the floor with a single ceramic isolator, but this has meant many false steps and has taken time from listening to music. But when I do listen, I enjoy the thrill of more realism. What accounts for individual differences in this regard?
Finally, why do some bother posting here and elsewhere? It is quite difficult to characterize in words what we hear. Why not just enjoy and tell no one? Is it ego? |
Eldartford, if you copy two differently treated discs to a hard drive using WAV and both copies show no errors and the same level of confidence from the WAV database, are the copies bit for bit accurate? |
Eldartford, what does the WAV databass contain and what is the confidence level in this comparison? What does "zero errors" mean? |
Shadorne, I think what you have said evidences your not being a scientist. If you are, you have little experience in the development of early ventures into research in an area. Also, you seem woefully unaware of validity issues in operationalizing concepts and variables. I strongly suggest you read the Ghost Map about the cholera outbreak in London. You will see where a hidebound, unfounded commitment to an explanation or theory can dampen our understanding of nature. |
Eldartford, I read and enjoyed it. I love examples of science getting committed to an idea and resisting change until the data overwhelm it. It is slow but that is the strength of good science.
Ohms law is very useful, but all science is based on tentatively accepted hypotheses and theories that put them together with explanations.
I find myself in an unusual position in this thread as I really found Rain-X to have little benefit. I do know, however, that there are benefits to be had demagnetizing a cd. I guess it is merely removing static electricity, but even that seems a poor explanation for why this happens.
If "zero errors" mean that the copy exactly reflects the original, I have indeed seen two zero error copies one done without the Millennium cd mat and one with sound quite different. I don't find this true relative to cleaned or treated discs. |
