How to remove harshness from my digital gear

Audioengr wrote,

"Geoff - the CD sounds thin due to jitter from the badly formed pits. Rip the CD with dbpoweramp to .wave file and then rewrite onto a CDROM using a good writer and you will experience lower jitter. Reclock the CD transport and you will experience even lower jitter."

There are many reasons why CDs sound harsh and I think badly formed pits is probably one of them, as the Nespa photon device seemed to illustrate. However, the badly formed pits are not the end of the story, not by a long shot. To name a few other reasons: scattered background laser light, mold release compound on the surface of the CD, out of round condition of the disc produces excessive wobble, transport not level during play, magnetism build up in the CD, static charge build up on the CD surface, structureborne vibration. In addition, there are many other reasons why CDs often sound harsh, thin, etc. that are probably too controversial to mention in this discussion. We'll save those for a rainy day.

1st thing. Isolate, isolate, isolate form therest of your setup. Do this before anything else.

"Most of the problem is related to the CD. Stock off the shelf CDs almost always sound harsh, tinny, thin, generic, boomy, grainy, two dimensional, distorted, uninvolving, boring and metallic."

Really, you have all of those problems? I don't have any of the problems you mentioned.

Geoffkait, Maybe you need to improve your system.

Has anyone actually done a scientific survey of such things as "magnetic buildup" on a CD, "static buildup" on a CD, etc.? These things should be easily measured and quantifiable. And, if they exist, it should be easy to measure the efficacy of products claiming to reduce these anomalies.

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that a non-ferrous entity like a CD could support *any* "magnetic buildup". I can see how a the polycarbonates used for CDs could support a static charge. But it would certainly be instructive to know just how much is this charge and how effective are the products claiming to reduce this charge...

-RW-