Pretty sure it's a PWB thing. A copy always sounds better, even if the CD-R is not a black CD-R.
Pop quiz - Does a copy of the copy sound even better? The second CD-R doesn't know the bits are from a copy. Answer at 11.
Al, what's your readily explainable explanation? Just curious. |
Al, also wanted to confirm you were using the same player for the comparison, since you just mentioned that the design of the player was a variable. I thought it would be nice if we could eliminate that particular variable.
Geoff |
Al, thanks for providing the explanations. However, I think it's worth considering that even for very low jitter players and CDs that are brand new without scratches this phenomenon of the copy being better than the original seems to apply. Obviously read until correct players are in a separate category. I suspect the explanations provided - e.g., black CD-Rs, jitter, noise, wobbly CD, Etc. - are simply Strawman arguments and that noone has actually investigated this phenomenon beyond mere speculation. |
An interesting experiment would be to make a copy of a commercial audio cassette. If the copy sounds better than the original cassette would that automatically eliminate fuzzy pits, jitter, wobbly discs, black CD-Rs, crappy CD players and scratched polycarbonate from the list of candidate explanations why copies of CDs sound better than the originals? No, not really, but it might be an indication, some evidence, that there's something else going on, something much more mysterious, more, uh, disturbing. Anyone STILL not see where I'm going with this? |
Gbmcleod wrote,
"As it turned out (on CD at least), the CD-R/RW pits are wider than the commercial CD pits, and so the copy is cleaner, and sounds better than the original'"
That's weird. The pits are narrower on Blu Ray discs and Blu Rays sound better than either CD or CD-R. Wassup with that? |
I'm saying that the CD copy sounds better than the original simply because it is a copy. noit because of any technical problem with the original CD or the original player. I'm saying that you can throw out all the explanations regarding pits, bits, nicks and blips. A copy of a cassette will also sound better than the original. By "better" I mean nmore open, more relaxed yet more dynamic, less distorted, more musical and more natural. By no coincidence the reason why copies sound better than the originals is actually closely related to, dare I say it, the photos in the freezer tweak. An interesting experiment would be to see if this phenomenon carried across various media, say LP to cassette or CD to cassette. Would the cassette copy sound better than the CD original? That would be pretty disturbing, right? Hahahah |
Al wrote,
"The differences were extremely small, and were perceivable just on certain notes, from time to time. In all cases, however, the original was clearly better than the copy, notwithstanding the subjective nature of "better" Mr. T referred to earlier."
I suppose one might ask, how can you say the differences were "extremely small," just barely perceptible on certain notes, yet in the same breath say the original was "clearly better than the copy." The results do not appear to support such a conclusion at all.
Al also wrote,
"And per the quotes and links I provided earlier, the existence of those differences is technically plausible, and explainable based on concepts that are well recognized in electronic design."
I'm not sure I would say Science has come to the rescue, as you apparently wish to do, based on the results you described. I suspect inconclusive results might be a more appropriate conclusion. |
Al, i hate judge before all the facts are in but it looks to me like "the copy sounds better than the original" will be joining the illustrious ranks of the Mpingo disc, Shakti Stone, Intelligent Chip, Schumann frequency generator, CD demagnetization, PWB Silver Rainbow Foil, Cream Electret, WA Quantum Chips, wire/fuse directionality, tube dampers, crystals, Green pen, destat guns and ionizers for CDs and cables, contact enhancers, ERS paper, you know, insofar as it's apparently impossible to get unanimous agreement not only for how they work but whether the damn things even work at all! |
Al wrote,
"While for several reasons I had high confidence that the copies I created were bit-perfect replicas of the digital data on the original CD's, to be completely certain of that I put one of the tracks I used in the experiment through some software which computed what are known as MD5 checksums of that data.
As expected, the MD5 checksums of the original and the copy matched perfectly, which confirms that all of the approximately 300,000,000 bits of that track were identical on the original and the copy."
Al, I kind of hate to bring this up, and certainly appreciate your due diligence, but doesn't the perfect bit to bit matching of the original and the copy bring into question why you heard differences between the original and the copy? Perhaps you can think of a scientific reason(s) why you heard differences when there were no differences between the data..... |
Al, but I thought you used one of those fancy CD-Rs for the copy, one with superior jitter characteristics. See, that's what's so puzzling - why you say the copy sounded worse than the original even though a superior low jitter CD-R was used for the copy and the data streams were bit for bit identical. Do you see I mean? Am I missing something? |
As long as we're reviewing the variables involved with the sound of CDs and with maximizing the laser reading operation, it might be the right time to mention the importance of obtaining absolute level of the CD transport.
Now, I know what you're thinking, all I have to do is place a bubble level on top of the CD player or CD transport, right? The problem is that the level of the transport section - thus the level of the CD as it's spinning - is frequently out of level with the top of the chassis, if simply because the tolerances of the unit are not tight enough, but also because some players tilt the CD up a few degrees when it is loaded into the player - for those players the level of the transport is a few degrees different from the level of the top of the chassis.
The best way to obtain absolute level of the transport area - thus the CD while it's spinning - is to remove the top of the chassis and use a small bubble level directly on the transport area or directly on the CD as it sits on the transport. Trying to obtain absolute level of the CD tray when it is in the OUT position is not reliable because the weight of the bubble level can easily change the level of the tray. |
OK, Nespa light treatment, Intelligent Chip, Audio Deske edge beveler, Cream Electret, Red X Pen, if ya wanna get all esoteric Like. I'm also a big fan of scattered laser light absorbers, cryogenics, CD fluids like Liquid Resolution, demagnetizers, ionizers, black pen for inner edge...you know, anything to give me an edge. |
Gbmcleod, it would be a fairly easy experiment to find out if there was something peculiar to CD-Rs that was responsible for copies sounding better than the original.
The experiment is: copy a CD-R to another CD-R and see if that copy is better than the initial CD-R. If the copy is better then there is a good chance something else is going on, something more mysterious. Did either McGrath or Harley try that, one wonders. |
Dougmc wrote,
"Comparing CD to Blue Ray may be an apples to oranges comparison. Although I can't list any, Blue Rays may sound better for other reasons than pit size."
The primary reason is bit size, since that determines density of data as well as resolution (for both audio and video). That is why the video quality of Blu Ray is so much better than DVD. That's the whole point of the Blu Ray technology.
"Also consider that the reason the Blue Ray pit size is smaller than CD pit size is that the Blue Ray laser wavelength is also smaller than its CD counterpart. Maybe a CD copy sounds better than the original because the CD laser wavelength remains the same size while the pit size increases (less chance of light wave diffraction?)."
As I already mentioned, copy a CD-R from a CD-R and you'll have your answer. |
Gbmcleod, as I said, take a commercial CD, make a CD-R copy. Then listen to the CD-R copy to see if it sounds better, the same as, or even perhaps worse than the original commercial CD. If the CD-R copy does sound better than the original, we don't know why, it could be anything.
But to eliminate the possibility that the reason is due to some advantage CD-Rs might have over a standard CD, whether it's differences in the pits or the clear layer or the metal layer, whatever, make a copy of the CD-R using the same brand of CD-R. Listen to the copy of the CD-R. If that sounds better than the first CD-R then there must be something else going on besides differences in pits (or anything else) between the commercial CD and the CD-R. Wouldn't you agree? |
Dougmc, off the top of my head, Red Book CD specifies 16 bit words and 44.1 kHz sample rate. Not sure I can answer where the 20 and 24 bit words enter the picture for CD. If we compare Red Book to Blu Ray for audio, Blu Ray will provide higher resolution than Red Book CD since resolution is determined by bits per word. But I also think that a debate over CD vs Blu Ray or even CD vs CD-R is moot for purposes of the "does the copy sound better than the original?" argument since a CD-R and its CD-R copy can be compared sonically, thus eliminating variables related to physical differences that might exist between CD and CD-R such as pit size, metal layer, etc. or how the laser reads the pits |
Gbmcleod wrote,
"I'm simply REPORTING what Peter McGrath and Robert Harley posited. It was THEY who posited that the larger pits allowed more information to be recovered more cleanly, much in the way that Classic Records put entire symphonies on 45 rpms, instead of 33, because, they said, they grooves in a 45 were larger and thefore, it improved the sonics."
If that is what they reported it doesn't make too much sense. The 45 sounds better than a 33 because of greater excursion of the stylus in the groove (dynamic range) and higher rotation speed of the disc. In the case of the CD, the photodetector is simply detecting an ON and OFF conditions that are a function of the pits. The CD laser spot diameter needs to be larger than the width of the pits because the laser reflection off the metal layer cancels the laser reflection off the pit, producing the OFF condition as seen by the photodetector. The ON condition is simply the pure laser spot reflection from the metal layer (land) between the pits. Of course, all of the geometry, the length and width of pits and lands, the diameter of the laser spot, the depth of the pits, etc. has been worked out in advance. |
