"Tuning" CD's

The plot thickens.

Lesson Explainer - Infrared Radiation

"In the other direction, rough surfaces such as fabric or cloth will not reflect IR well, instead absorbing it nicely."

"An object with strong reflectivity will reflect more IR, meaning it must be weakly reflecting to absorb more IR."

"Besides color, the second factor affecting how much IR is absorbed or emitted is the reflectivity of a surface. A highly reflective or glossy material, such as cut obsidian, will poorly absorb and emit IR, even though it may be a deep black color."

I have used 3 different CD mats in the past 20 years.  I have found that on lesser CD players, they do make a difference.  On the more high end players, not so much.  Once I moved on to Esoteric, there was no reason to use them. 

I am running a Jay's Audio CDT2 mk3 - not exactly a slouch. Would love to have an upper end Esoteric one day, but $15,000 and up is beyond me for the time being.

Not using "mats" - just abrading the edges to stop IR reflections. Finding it "worth it," The only added cost is a little time spent abrading

I still have CDs where I painted the edge with a special, audiophile-marketed green marker. Did it help? Maybe when I played them on my first CD player, a player that went belly-up maybe three days out of warranty.  I can't recall the player's brand name. In any event, I haven't painted a CD edge since.  upsers portal
 

Well looky here - a guy who thought of sanding CD edges 13 years ago.

Oddiophile CD Tweak

I have also just started using "Auric Illuminator" which does indeed clarify CD output though I am not sure it works the way the manufacturer claims. It may simply be cleaning off age related chemical plastic degradation.

Not to belabor the obvious here but these CD tweaks should also be performed on blank CD's prior to burning music data on them - not after. We want to start with superior data collection on our discs.