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Rain-X as CD Enhancement Treatment

I have used the Auric Illuminator treatment on my CD collection for several years now. I am a believer in the AI, and repeated A/B tests of identical treated/untreated CDs bore out significant improvements after treatment with AI.

I ran out of the fluid and my marker dried out, so I was searching for mew treatments on the market before buying another AI kit or choosing something new. That's when I ran across this article by Greg Weaver at Soundstage, where he talks about having used Rain-X and a green marker(Staedtler Lumocolor 357, price about $3.00) as a treatment on his CDs to great effect.

http://www.soundstage.com/synergize/synergize200005.htm

Being the complete geek that I am, I had to try it for my self. I found the marker at Office Depot, and picked up a little bottle of Rain-X for $2.99. I treated a couple of CDs that I have ended up with duplicate copies of (Grant Green's Green Street, Frank Sinatra Sextet Live In Paris)and tested the Rain-X/marker treated vs. untreated disks.

Well, low and behold, the treated disks sounded notably improved; the music was clearer and louder, especially the midrange, the soundstage was larger with better definition and separation of instruments and the bass was tighter and deeper.

I can't say that the Rain-X treatment was or was not better sounding than the AI, but at the least very it is close, for a fraction of the price.

Has anyone else ever tried the Rain-X treatment?
craig_hoch
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larryi
3,886 posts
 
Does anything touch the CD surface while in play? I would guess that any improvement would be purely an optical phenomenon.

My concern would be for long-term effects. Has anyone determined whether the stuff will either react with the CD surface or turn hazy over time?

I have heard comparisons between various treated and non-treated discs and a lot of treatment methods do work. I was particularly impressed with the machine that cuts a bevel on the edge of the CD. That seems to improve all CDs a bunch of us tried on the treatment. I did not buy a machine because I was concerned, again, with long-term effects (will this allow air in to the metal layer and cause oxidation akin to "laser rot" of the Laserdisks).
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
A question you may want to investigate is what could possibly be wrong with the way the transport was reading a clean unscratched CD in the first place?

Remember CD's are digital not analog - there should be no "surface noise" with a CD in good condition.
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