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"Tuning" CD's

Shaving Compact Discs to improve the sound (?!)

This Youtube will trigger the usual chorus of self-appointed audio rationalists, but I have a much simpler workaround that involves simply sanding the edge of the CD and then blackening the edge of the CD with a magic marker - all in the service of nullifying incident laser reflections bouncing off the glossy edges of CD's.

The results were so impressive that I now perform this procedure on all of my CD's. I should add that my system plays CD's only which are burned from downloaded flac files. The files are converted to .wav files in JRiver and burned at the slowest speed my desktop drive can achieve.

Please let us know what the you hear or do not hear.

I should also point out that the sonic graphs displayed the the Youtuber for comparison between the treated and untreated CD's are not symmetrical if you look closely.

bolong
bolong OP
623 posts
 

Then this has been a thing for quite some time! I had no idea there were markers made for the task.

The point of first sanding the edge is to ensure that the edge is matte black - not gloss black which would just create a black mirror. What I noticed immediately is that treble glare was reduced most noticeably on piano and higher pitched wind instruments. There was also a widening of sound stage and better separation with longer decay. I have a fairly resolving system.

Were the pens you used actually matte? Looking on Amazon I found one marker advertised as "matte," but the reviews said it was actually gloss.

I don't see anything odd about this idea. It is not a violation of the sacrosanct rebuttal that "it's always and only ones and zeroes." The theory in play here is that the transmission of data is being smeared.

Thanks for your replies.

 

bolong OP
623 posts
 

Ok, I should have researched this topic first:

 

bolong OP
623 posts
 

https://positive-feedback.com/Issue43/green_pen.htm

Post removed 
petg60
1,486 posts
 

@armandoday,​​​​​ that is exactly what @edcyn wrote.

Some of my cd’s still have the Audioprism’s Stop Light green paint, gave up, never tried it again (funny but it seems that i did only REM at the time).

Yes it was mate finish.

Sony in 2009 introduced the green labeled SACD’s but i am not sure if they continued that project.

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