Shine-Ola and Novus CD treatment


Thanks to Albert Porter generously sending a sample of Shine-Ola and ROR, I am writing my findings.
BACKGROUND:
I found an identical CD at the library sounded worse than the new one I had bought. The new CD sounded louder, had more detail and dynamics. There was also a little more digital hash which was not good. There weren’t a lot of scratches on the library CD and have decided it is at least partially a reflective issue.
A laser reads a CD based on the reflectivity. This is different between CDR’s and CDRW’s for example. CD treatments which can improve reflectivity could help readability.
PLASTIC POLISHES:
I have tried various auto and plastic polishes and ,ost recently Mapleshade’s “Mikro-smooth CD polishing kit”. The theory is to improve the surface finish of the “cheap piece of plastic” CD. However all of them put microfine scratches into the CD. I did not find any of them to improve sound quality. But they are good for polishing out scratches which would make the CD skip.
REFLECTIVE ENHANCEMENTS:
(My guess as to what these treatments are suppsoed to do).
Products like Rain-X which have petroluem in them may not be safe for plastics CD’s so I don’t use them.
Auric Illuminator, Shine-Ola and Novus. Auric Illuminator looks like some kind of waxy material. Shine-Ola is a clear watery liquid. Novus contains vegetable cleaners and silicone and is said to reduce static, stop fogging, and puts on a “lustrous shine”. Albert has preferred the Shine-Ola over the Novus and I did a lot of listening over 5 days because I liked the Novus better.
The Shine-Ola gives more clarity and maybe less smoothing out than the Auric Illuminator. But the differences are vanishingly small and very hard for me to detect. The best way I found to test was to limit critical listening to 5-10 minutes. After that ear fatigue and fatigue between the ear/brain connection sets in and I was not as sure about what the differences were. Shine-Ola must be doing something even if not audible because it fixed a minor skipping problem on one CD.
I used track 3 of Jamiroquai’s “A Funk Odyssey”. I first put Novus on the new CD and Shine-Ola on the library CD. The Novus was crisper on vocal atacks and sibilants were more drawn out and a little less harsh. I have a dual deck Marantz CDR-500 and can switch between discs pretty quick. It did not matter which tray the CD was in.
Used Albert’s ROR CD cleaner to remove the treatments, I put the Sahine-Ola on the new CD and the Novus on the library CD. They now sounded about the same and maybe it was my bias but I still thought the Novus was crisper. Obviously the library CD was not in perfect condition but was almost new.
CONCLUSION:
The differences were vey small and I would not fault anyone if their results were different. This could be equipment dependent as well. But my conclusion is that any coating on a CD reduces dynamics and possibly clarity. I used my finger once in putting the Shine-Ola on the CD and had sort of a plasticy feeling on my finger.
Since Novus is a liquid I would not expect it to last as long as Shine-Ola or Aquric Illuminator. Reducing static and “hot spots” may also be a benefit of it being more a liquid than a coating or wax.
cdc
Novus contains petroleum products, which are harmful to polycarbonates, which CD's are made of. The petroleum also adds error rate, which is audible.

Shine-Ola contains nothing that would leave a film on the CD, so error rate isn't an issue. Along with being film free, Shine-Ola also doesn't contain any polymer products; so the plasticy feeling that you felt was perhaps the residue from another cleaner that either contained a polymer, or petroleum. Or, it could be the feeling of the mold release compound being held within the fluid, prior to it being wiped off.

The fact that Shine-Ola fixed the skip in an otherwise unplayable CD supports that it does what it was designed to; clean CD's, DVD's and SACD's without leaving any residue, nor film which adds to the error rate of the CD. This said, I will add that it has been used by several audiophile labels on their CD and SACD masters. Fidelis Records is one of these labels, which you will be hearing much about in the future, if you already haven't heard of them and their exceptional recordings. Elusive Disc is their distributor, they have info at their web-site if interested.

I hope that this clears up some of the mentioned issues.

Kind regards,
Brian Weitzel
Record Research Labs