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How can I improve my CD sound?

Anyone out there know the secret as to why I can't listen to cd's on any of my players I've tried or anyone elses either? What is interesting is that I can listen to FM, which is mostly CD's and I don't get the ear pain I get from mine. Why not a bother? Don't give me any easy answers. I've tried them more that likely. I've spoken to the engineers at many radio stations and they all tell me that they are not placing any "correction" electronics at their stations. Got to be an answer to this. Love to be able to to listen to them. Thanks, you guys!.
leegum
rhyno's avatar
rhyno
649 posts
 
you will get much more enjoyable sound out of CDs when you
A) address vibrations
B) address noise on AC / ground

lots of ways to do it---but you have to experiment. inner tubes under a maple butchers block for vibration is a nice cheap tweak, and i'm still playing with products on treating AC (the Acoustic Revive ground conditioner is a very nice product, and their power conditioner is a great product, and i'm about to plug in Audio Magic's Pulse Gen).

i can listen to CDs all day with no fatigue. having an EMM CDSA helps ;-)
slikric3000
638 posts
 
Radio stations have a bigger budget to spend on audio reproduction than you do is probably the answer. Independent and college stations can sound even better.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
FM Stations use compressors and peak limiters to tailor the sound to get the most punch from small radio speakers or headphones.
steuspeed's avatar
steuspeed
501 posts
 
Tube dac or CD player. It takes the harshness away and it sounds even better too.
carl109
134 posts
 
How do you go listening to compressed music files (eg mp3)?
If these sound ok like FM radio, it could be that your hearing is especially sensitive to some forms of digital distortion which would be annoying to your ears from a quality CD player and rig, but not audible in compressed files or the dynamically compressed and imperfect nature of FM radio.
Try burning an audio CD from some compressed files (like mp3 or aac) of songs you're familiar with and play that on your rig. I'd be interested to hear what you find.
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