CDs And Green Markers. Please Don’t Laugh.

The way it was explained to me and it makes a lot of sense is.....the laser hits the disc and then comes back  to the reader....since discs are mass produced, they are not entirely a smooth surface...they are pitted thus causing the laser going back to the reader to be scattered because of that pitted surface of the cd. The reader is only receiving about 90% of the actual information that's on the disc because of this defraction of the signal. When you treat the surface with a substance that "fills in the pits "...it creates a glassier surface that allows 100% of the information to come back to the Reader thus giving you the exact info that was originally embedded on the disc because the Pitted disc has been re- surfaced to smooth making the entire reading system more accurate. Bingo...better retrieval...better sound.

I had a friend that worked at a Sony disc manufacturing plant here in Eugene years ago. They had a listening room with Dunlavy speakers and someone got paid to listen to CDs to make sure there weren't gross errors like mixed up track order, incomplete songs, AC hum that somehow got recorded, obvious stuff like that. He pointed out to me that the error correction method on the CD and the CD players had been tested to be quite good, and they saw no improvement from green markers. Data that was intended to go on the CD from their ram stacks was what was reaching the DAC. Of course they didn't try all CD players and there could be individual CDs with problems that a little treatment would be just enough to fix.

Try washing a CD as well. Some have more release agent on them than others washing them makes a difference as well. 

As I wrote earlier, I’m a reformed Armor-All user. The 1980s must have been a bull market for audio tweaks because besides the green pen and AA, I also followed a rumor that plain ol’ dishwashing detergent was another sound booster. I diligently washed every new CD I bought. Of all of the tweaks, I thought Dawn or Ivory Liquid or whatever my mother had on hand was the best of ‘em. But eventually I quit them all. My skeptical, cynical personality was forming—a career in journalism would solidify it—and I had no time for such unscientific antics.

Indirectly, however, I have continued to use dishwashing detergent. When one of my discs develops a skip, it makes a trip to the kitchen sink. After a good rubdown, 99 percent of the problems disappear.

(I’ve seen advice on this site that discs should be washed in a radial manner, starting at the center and moving outwards. I believe that this is an example of one of the core beliefs in audio: Whatever is the most trouble sounds the best. Vinyl instead of CDs, manual instead of auto, CD players that require two boxes instead of one. Trust me, the same thing happens no matter which way the sponge hits the disc.)

Anyway, I’m playing discs that have been coated in something like the way that buddyboy’s have. And they’ve always sounded better after a good scrubbing. Not enough to risk ridicule, not enough to overcome my inborn skepticism, but a nagging feeling that comes back whenever I wash a disc.

Maybe buddyboy has pushed me over the hump. Maybe he is providing me enough support to risk mockery. Besides, who has to know? It can be a secret between the Armor-All and me. And the small group reading this thread.

I think that AA will last longer than dish soap. One bottle will probably last a lifetime. Maybe tomorrow will be the dawning of a new era. I’ve been making upgrades for the past year and so many things I once thought were frauds have proved true. Speaker cables. Burn-in. The Super Black Hole was the leap over the moon. None of those phenomenon have been sufficiently explained to me but that hasn’t stopped any of them from being true. Buddyboy and I are leading a charge into a new world. Who’s with us? LET’S GO!

[Bluto charges from the room. No one follows.]

Here is some non audible proof the green pen does something beneficial to a disc. Bought an used Police SACD that was supposed to be in great shape. My default setting was stereo SACD. Every time I played it in the Yamaha 1800 SACD player it locked up. The Yamaha froze so badly, it had to be unplugged from the wall to clear. 

Tried cleaning the disc multiple times with no luck. I'd switch the player to multi channel SACD, before playing the disc, and all was fine. Except I forgot to switch 5 or 6 times and the player locked up every time. One day I used a green Sharpie pen to paint inside hole and outside disc edge. To this day, the Yamaha has never locked up playing that disc in stereo SACD. 

Thanks,

aldnorab