I'm not dreaming - these are great CD copies


I have an out of town friend who's given me some CD-Rs that he's made by simply copying music off of red book CDs. The music quality is extremely good - better than I'm used to hearing from my red book CDs. He's not an audiophile and has no idea what format is being utilized e.g. Lossless, etc.
Question - Can you really improve the quality of music from a red book CD by simply copying to some other format? If so, I'm boxing up all 300 of my CDs and asking my friend to copy make copies for me.
rockyboy
Can you really improve the quality of music from a red book CD by simply copying to some other format?

No. Data on a red book CD is stored as a cda file. As such, copying a cda file results in the same cda file being copied elsewhere. Ripping a cd on the other hand can result in a change of format, such as wav. Once in an editable format such as wav, the file can be reworked in the digital domain and as such can be improved (subjective) relative to its parent source file.
I thought Audioengr (Steve) had commented about this in another thread some time ago. My recollection is he said copying the CD onto a CD-R eliminated one contributor to jitter (I don't believe it eliminates jitter in any absolute sense).  If I recall correctly (and that ain’t anything to bet on) there’s less (imprecision?) in how the dye-based copy is read vs how the laser beam falls on the "pits" making up the stamped CD’s information.
There is a review (that I can't locate) that explained how a laser reads the physical pits and grooves of a CD. It's being done in an analog fashion ( a mechanical process) which then had to be processed into the digital domain. 

With the laser just reading a painted pit and groove, there is less chance of error. Physical pits and grooves aren't as well done as they should be when stamped. A painted one can be very precise, comparatively.

All the best,
Nonoise
I’m not dreaming - these are great CD copies
I think your hear an extra something to you good or bad) that error correct gives.

Original retail is always best.
There’s a lot more laser error correction goes on in a burnt cd compared to a stamped retail CD see the "pits" the laser has to read.

Left moulded/stamped retail CD pits
Middle and right burnt CD-R pits one gold one normal silver
https://www.iasa-web.org/sites/default/files/tc05-fig20.jpg

Cheers George