I have used the Auric Illuminator treatment on my CD collection for several years now. I am a believer in the AI, and repeated A/B tests of identical treated/untreated CDs bore out significant improvements after treatment with AI.
I ran out of the fluid and my marker dried out, so I was searching for mew treatments on the market before buying another AI kit or choosing something new. That's when I ran across this article by Greg Weaver at Soundstage, where he talks about having used Rain-X and a green marker(Staedtler Lumocolor 357, price about $3.00) as a treatment on his CDs to great effect.
Being the complete geek that I am, I had to try it for my self. I found the marker at Office Depot, and picked up a little bottle of Rain-X for $2.99. I treated a couple of CDs that I have ended up with duplicate copies of (Grant Green's Green Street, Frank Sinatra Sextet Live In Paris)and tested the Rain-X/marker treated vs. untreated disks.
Well, low and behold, the treated disks sounded notably improved; the music was clearer and louder, especially the midrange, the soundstage was larger with better definition and separation of instruments and the bass was tighter and deeper.
I can't say that the Rain-X treatment was or was not better sounding than the AI, but at the least very it is close, for a fraction of the price.
I have tried many different tweaks for cd playback, but have not tried rain-x. I have some in the shed and will give it go . These are my finds . Stoplight helps mostly on poor quality cdp,s. Green pen similar to Stoplight but not as effective. Finyle surface treatment has the same effect on good and poor player,s(not always an improvement depending on the disc)sometimes over softening of attack or transients. The best I found is a zerostat used for LP,s . Use it the same as you would for an album on both sides of the cd. Don,t discount until you try it. I read research paper on this back a while,that stated when a cd/dvd is manufactured it will have a static charge on the suface that has negative impact on the reading of the lazer.
The problems with rain-x on plastics can be seen on motorcycling sites since the windshields are not glass. The comments I've read indicate effects which would ultimately be degrading to our CDs. Google in Rain-x and explore. Happy listening. Pete
Shadorne, Consider changing the entire set up because a low budget treatment improves sound?
Absolutely! I find it totally unacceptable that digital equipment should perform so badly. Analog has major problems in this area (must be clean and even then you get surface noise) but digital should not be a problem. This is shoddy design - something awful is going on if you get such an improvement.
It works the same with transports using external DACS. I have tested it as well with Benchmark DAC1 and Monarchy M-24 pre/DAC.
Are you saying that a proper re-clocking DAC like the DAC1 can tell if a bit was read by the laser from a treated disc or an ordinary disc? I find this beyond credibility - not unless the disc was damaged or really dirty and some interpolation* was going on in order to generate the bit stream by "guessing". If the CD is in good condition but a CDP is making extensive interpolation (without help from a special green marker CD treatment) then it is a fault of the equipment, IMHO.
I, for one, would rather spend five bucks and a few hours of my time rather than sell off and purchase a new source.
This may be acceptable for you - but if the sound changes audibly with special treatment (other than simply a clean unscratched disc) then basically it proves the equipment is faulty or at the very least sub-par. No audiophile should accept that, IMHO. Say a CD improves 10% after treatment - how in the world do you know that the poor performance of the transport/laser is not still affecting the sound quality by a further 10%? I would not be satisifed with this situation and I would want to get to the bottom of it.
*interpolation - this is very bad as this means missing bits that cannot be reconstructed without a "guess" (these occur about 1 uncorrectable bit in 1,000,000,000 under normal conditions) If you ever heard a CD with "CD Rot" then this is an example of massive interpolation going on - so much data is bad that you are hearing interpolation or "guessing" nearly all the time.
I guess it boils down to philosopy or expectation of what digital equipment should be capable of - to me digital should be a lot more robust than you seem willing to accept.
Shadorne, Consider changing the entire set up because a low budget treatment improves sound? Sheesh. You should be an audio salesman. ;)
It works the same with transports using external DACS. I have tested it as well with Benchmark DAC1 and Monarchy M-24 pre/DAC. You're still looking for a problem where there isn't one. I haven't tried it with PC's transports, but I wouldn't be surprised if it improved them audibly as well.
Enough treatment has been made when the disc is shiny. You know, sort of how you can tell when enough car wax has been applied to get a car shiny.
I tested whether re-treatment after a year or two was effective. It was not. The effect was permanent improvement from one treatment.
Man, just DO the test; just get some goop and use it! Don't tell me you won't spend five bucks to find out for yourself? I think you would be VERY surprised at the result. I, for one, would rather spend five bucks and a few hours of my time rather than sell off and purchase a new source. :)
Shadorne, There is nothing wrong with his transport. From my experience treatment of discs works on ALL cdp's.
Then I'd suggest PC audio + external DAC or CDP player + external DAC (re-clocking DAC preferably) => this way you completely separate the transport laser "smoothness" issues from the D to A conversion. Just common sense really - rather than treat every disc which seems impractical. (how do you even know when enough treatment has been made?)
Shadorne, There is nothing wrong with his transport. From my experience treatment of discs works on ALL cdp's. I have confirmed it on these players: Ah! Njoe Tjoeb NAD Rega Marantz Ayon Cambridge Audio Parasound
Not one of these players had an issue. It's the MEDIA which improves, making the players more efficient.
You can say, "A Bit is a bit, is a bit...." Until the end of the world, but this is WAY too easily heard an improvement (treatment, not necessarily Rain-X) to experience to be held up by objections. Anyone can do this and find out for themselves. I would suggest that anyone who cannot hear the improvement has either profound hearing issues or really, really crappy equipment (or both). This is NOT a comment directed at you, Shadorne! It's an arugment in general. :)
When a fuel additive is put in the gasoline of a car's tank and the performance improves slightly, one does not say, "There was a problem with the engine". Similarly, treatment of the disc resulting in improvement of sound is NOT a sign of a "problem" with the transport/cdp.
Excellent point, Elizabeth! An already "slippery" disc will seem like a "failure" when treated.
Read my comments on the Jena Labs Disc treatment goop:
http://www.dagogo.com/JenaEsoteric3DX.html
Note that I was treating discs on my own long before reviewing this disc treatment system.
So something real may be happening. (besides suggestion)
If something is happening and you are getting improvements this way then it suggests an issue somewhere. Perhaps jitter is getting into the DAC of the CDP and this is partly created by minute changes of the laser (smooth versus not so smooth). Ed Meitner claimed that cryogenic treatment of CD's helped - however, IMHO, this all sounds like a band-aid solution. To my way of thinking, a transport should not be so finnicky as to require all this extra special CD treatment simply to play a digital CD properly - a CDP player should be more robustly designed than that.
I don't wish to appear negative-and I have not tried Rain-X except om my windows where I was an early adopter and still love it-however; Rain-X is specifically designed for use on glass. It is worth enquiring the manufacturers opinion on its suitability for plastic.
I wondered about the airflow issue that you mentioned. But, it could also be an optical issue. Certainly other treatments tout the improvement in the optical characteristics of the surface of the CD.
One more thing, RainX leaves haze and streaks (on windshields) unless very vigorously buffed. I would be very carefull about the buffing process. I would only use tissue paper made for cleaning glasses (facial tissue has fibers that will scratch plastic, hence, the need for quite expensive tissues for glasses). Camera lens tissue is also a possibility, but that stuff is WAY expensive and too small, thin and delicate to use easily.
A question you may want to investigate is what could possibly be wrong with the way the transport was reading a clean unscratched CD in the first place?
Remember CD's are digital not analog - there should be no "surface noise" with a CD in good condition.
Does anything touch the CD surface while in play? I would guess that any improvement would be purely an optical phenomenon.
My concern would be for long-term effects. Has anyone determined whether the stuff will either react with the CD surface or turn hazy over time?
I have heard comparisons between various treated and non-treated discs and a lot of treatment methods do work. I was particularly impressed with the machine that cuts a bevel on the edge of the CD. That seems to improve all CDs a bunch of us tried on the treatment. I did not buy a machine because I was concerned, again, with long-term effects (will this allow air in to the metal layer and cause oxidation akin to "laser rot" of the Laserdisks).
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