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TAS Recommended CD Tweak….


In The August issue of The Absolute Sound, RH gives a glowing review of a product from Digital Systems & Solutions – “UltraBit Platinum Optical Impedance Matching Disc Treatment System.” According to RH, he was floored and, “….This wasn’t a subtle difference; there was a wholesale increase in apparent resolution, space, clarity, soundstage dimensions, and vividness.”
Apparently, this is a liquid solution that is applied to CDs and DVDs ($65/bottle).

Regardless of the whole “advertising thing,” I don’t believe someone like RH would put his reputation on the line by giving a bogus review. I wonder what, “This wasn’t a subtle difference…” means to the average person’s ears?

Also, in the same article, RH makes the statement, “…Similarly, it’s incontrovertible that a CD-R burned from a CD sounds better than the original CD.” I did not know this. Have any of you come to the same conclusion?
2chnlben
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
I am about 1/3 to 1/2 way thru a bottle and I have done maybe 60 Cd's.
The bottle will never do the 500 CD's as claimed.

Wow but that is amazingly good. I would not complain.

Tonight, I am 1/3 to 1/2 way through a $40 bottle of wine and it is merely my second CD!
eweedhome
227 posts
 
I've tried 3 different CD cleaners. The first was called Q-151, of which I have not heard in a while. The bottle says "CD Coating Oil." I did some A-B testing, and concluded that it did have a modest effect of seeming to make the sound somewhat more detailed and clearer. I did not notice a timbre change.

The same would be true for Mo-Fi Shine Ola. Modest, but the difference seemed to be real. I guess, however, that it wasn't quite real enough, because I haven't been using it lately.

I also tried something called Optrix. There is some information posted elsewhere on the 'gon about Optrix. I tried it on one CD and thought the sound was a bit brighter (which is something I really can't stand), so I didn't mess with it anymore. One could say that I didn't give it a fair chance, I guess. But, you know, first impressions...
racamuti's avatar
racamuti
362 posts
 
Thanks Eldartford, Looks like I have some studying to do!
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Extreme A/V Liquid Resolution and Jena Labs 3D-X are among the very best of today's CD treatments.

Anyone try purple pen on the CD edge?
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Racamuti...Error correcting codes are really interesting, and much more widespread than you might think. IMHO the most dramatic example is in the transmission of data from distant space probes using tiny transmitter power. For example, transmissions from a probe in orbit around Saturn can "drop out" for about a minute, and still all the data can be recovered intact. Of course, to do this a great deal of bandwidth is devoted to the redundancy needed for error recovery.

As I have said before, error correction is not a band aid for transmission errors. It is an integral part of the Hardware/Software data transmission system. Error correction makes it possible to operate the hardware much faster than if it had to be error free, and even though some bandwidth is used up for the error correction capability, the overall result is higher bandwidth.
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