Hi all, Please give me some guidance here. Before I go and purchase a German cutter that shaves the sides of the cd polymer off to better the sound. Or all these green markers that you outline the CD with- Would they decrease or increase the value if ever they were to be sold later on in life. i am talking about CD's that are quoted on todays market at US$50 and above. would you buy these or shun away and get a non treated one if you had the option?
I have used sound rings on a lot my CD's from Simms to Monster and the manufacture says do not use them on a In dash cd player cause the rings can come off. The rings can be removed and with some elbow grease you can get the adhesive off. It just depends if you hear a difference thats all. I use them on older CD's basicaly 1st generation stuff when alot of the music I listened to in jr high and high school was first being remastered. I can't hear a difference with the newer ADD or DDD discs though. So someone who was going to purchase something your selling might not want the sound ring on there.
The lathe that cuts the edge of the CD polymer has been about 3-4 years old as a tweak. It is yet to early to decifer if it will start pitting the aluminum or not. A few of my old CD's drom early 80's had the aluminum right to the centre of the Cd and have showed major signs of pitting. hence the concern. I suppose as Viridian explained- there is no going back! That is fine, but will it drop my re-sale value. Take for example Blues in Orbit- Duke Ellington MFSL's 1st SACD ever, is out of print (OOP) and a 2nd hand copy goes for around $70-$100. What would the market pay if I did my cuts on it, Nespa'd it and used a CD cleaner(the latter two being not physically noticeable). What would you pay for it? 50% of the value? Thanks guys for your feedback.
I can assure you that shaving the sides of the cd polymer does not make it sound any better. Nor does coloring the edges with a special marker, but if you want to destroy your CDs because you think it does then knock yourself out.
Actually circumcision can be reversed...kinda. You guys never seen that episode of Penn & Teller's BS I take it? There's apparently an entire movement of people angry with their parents for making such a decision without their consent so they've figured out a way to get their turtleneck back. It looked rather painful with weights and what-not. I think it was an episode from their second or third season.
As silly as it may sound, I use a spray on-wipe off product called Shine-Ola on my CD's (and DVD's) and it really works. I had used RRL fluids for vinyl records for some time and a member advised that I try their Shine-Ola. It seems to add more depth and clarity to CD's and more detail and crispness to DVD's. I am not sure how it works, but it does no damage and does not alter the disc in any way, so it may be worth your while to try
I suggest you do what I do: make copies on CD-R of the discs you want to treat, and do all the tweaking on the CD-R's.. Good CD-R's are cheap these days, and often a copy sounds better than the original does (if you use quality media and burn them with care).
Personally, I'd never do anything to an original CD except cleaning it. To answer your question: no, I would not want to buy a "treated" CD at all!
Hi Kana, The reason why I say it is a 5% improvement, as the dealer who used the cutting lathe, nespa pro'ed (30secs) the Cd and then used the Nanaotech fluid on his own Cd copy, of which I have the same, left it with me to audition over a few days. hence the comment on the 5% sound improvement. On a revealing system like mine (IMO)*. I could comfortably say that the CD lathe flattened the sound- it went to a very 2 dimensional sound. Then the Nanotech liquid brought the body back and the Nespa-Pro for 30 secs did not make much change. the recording was a SACD of Ray Brown-Soular Energy (decent quality from the start) so there may have not been much to improve on. *Avantgarde Duo Omega's speakers, EMM signature combo(CDSD/DCC2-SE) and Wavelength Napoleon's amps.
Osgorth thanks for your suggestion, but I struggle with time to listen. Let alone having to burn them to a CD-R as also suggested by the dealer of the tweaks. At the moment due to my travels, I am acquiring more CD's than I can listen to. Nice position to be in as I feel I will one day get the time. Hopefully soon! Neville
Nevillekapadia, I know what you mean.. I tend to make copies of my most loved records, not all I listen to since that would take forever as you suggest. :) I basically listen to the originals first, if it turns out I really like them I take the trouble to make a copy and then I can start tweaking the copy. It's good fun, and doesn't take too much time.
Kana, you are so right with tweaks on poor soinding CD's. We did the same tweak on the Police SACD and it did lift up the level of red book just short of the SACD quality, but did not have much effect on the SACD layer. Tweaks do change the sound, one has to decide if the change is more correct in an overall perspective. My main concern is that I don't sacrifice my Out of print CD's for the sake of sonics. As Osgorth suggested to play around with a burnt copy, would be ideal. With the nova physics I feel that the hard drive would eventually be the way to go. Initial trials with other audiophile colleagues seem very promising, and detail can be comparable to top end sources and in some respects could even better on red book. Always a never ending process! Thanks once again for your inputs as it makes the thread even more informative.
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