Rain-X as CD Enhancement Treatment

Shadorne, You believe in a process that's slow and neigh unto imperceptible which changes components over 1,000 hours, but you do not believe that disc treatment can immediately influence the sound of media (or how a player audibly processes it).

You are skating on thinner intellectual ice than I am.

I can demonstrate my process/change in about two minutes and ten seconds (about two minutes to process the disc, and about ten seconds of listening to experience/verify the change). How would you demonstrate yours?

I'm not accepting your anecdotal evidence. However you can move from my anecdotal evidence to certainty in about two minutes. :)

Here is thorough early treatise from Stereophile on the subject of these tweaks. Includes technical discussion of related optical and electrical factors.

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/

Relevant extracts from the non-technical sections of the article:

"The intensity of my interest in the subject was heightened by a product called "CD Stoplight," marketed by AudioPrism. CD Stoplight is a green paint applied to the outside edge of a CD (not the disc surface, but the 1.2mm disc thickness) that reportedly improves sound quality. I could not in my wildest imagination see how green paint on the disc edge could change, for better or worse, a CD's sound. However, trusting my ears as the definitive test, I compared treated to untreated discs and was flabbergasted. Soundstage depth increased, mids and highs were smoother with less grain, and the presentation became more musically involving."

"The makers of CD Stoplight claim to have measured a difference in the recovered analog output signal with a treated disc. They played a pure tone from a test disc and measured the spectral content on either side of the tone. Reportedly, a CD Stoplight-treated disc produces lower-amplitude sidebands around the pure frequency. Just as this was going to press, AudioPrism faxed me graphs made on a Hewlett-Packard spectrum analyzer that support their findings. Without knowing all the measurement details, the graphs do appear to show a slightly lower noise floor after the addition of CD Stoplight."

"From my measurements, it is apparent that none of these CD tweaks have any effect on a player's error-correction ability or on the amount of jitter in the HF signal. However, it is beyond doubt that they increase the musicality of CDs. Just as in analog audio, there are things going on in digital audio that have not been identified, but influence sonic characteristics. There is a real need to explore these questions through empirical measurement and by listening. I am convinced that undiscovered optical phenomena in CD playback affect sound quality. Only by combining critical listening with the scientific method can these mysteries be solved.

"All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.""

You believe in a process that's slow and neigh unto imperceptible which changes components over 1,000 hours,

Actually I don't - at least not for my crap target gear.

My example was just taking the attributes commonly ascribed to a designated "audiophile component" by yourself and others and making a logical conclusion.

Now you say burn-in is imperceptible - well if it is imperceptible then how come so many people claim to hear it?

I see no point to going any further as this is becoming ridiculous - it is becoming just an argument for arguments sake. I don't want to continue to contribute to this. i'll finish by saying that this statement by stereophile just about sums things up

From my measurements, it is apparent that none of these CD tweaks have any effect on a player's error-correction ability or on the amount of jitter in the HF signal. However, it is beyond doubt that they increase the musicality of CDs. Just as in analog audio, there are things going on in digital audio that have not been identified, but influence sonic characteristics.

There are indeed things going on inside the head of the listener and this has been documented tens of thousands of times: a very well understood scientific phenomenon called "The Placebo Effect". Humans are not machines. We are not instruments of precision. Our perceptive senses are significantly modified by our expectations.

The only question is "Why do some people refuse to accept the obvious conclusion?" I explained in several posts above with a reference to Jung and Myers Briggs...a lot has to do with personality as to whether a particular individual is willing to accept that his/her own perceptions are easily modified by his/her expectations.

Shadorne, the belief in the Placebo effect to explain clear observation is unscientific. Selectivity bias works both ways as if you don't want to hear a benefit you will not. If people hear a difference and the precepts of engineering cannot explain such differences, it demands better science.

I find it incredible that your embrace the statement in Stereophile and ignore the statement, "...there are things going on in digital audio that have not been identified, but influence sonic characteristics." Engineering schools, not withstanding, we don't know all natural phenomena.

I don't understand your decision to embrace "target" components, that is your decision, BUT is NOT justified on scientific bases.

the belief in the Placebo effect to explain clear observation is unscientific.

Tbg,

That is a good one! What we "clearly observe" is the truth. Our perceptions are reality. A lot of homeopathic medicine manufacturers would be delighted with this version of the world. They also cannot prove their products work in medical trials but people swear by them. I must remember to put on my copper bracelet with magnets.

But lets not drift into philosophy - above I already pointed out some useful psychology to help explain how people sense/perceive/think/judge the world differently.

"Target" components is the synonym given by some audiophiles to the kind of system I have chosen. Gear that is not resolving enough to change in response to the mere beating of a butterfly's wings from across a field. It just plays music reliably - what is on the source is pretty much what comes out of the speakers. Of course it sounds awful but I am happy with it. I simply would not want a system that played music unreliably (changes sound audibly with the change of power cord or any other minor detail). Surely this is not so hard to understand ?