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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
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Everyone's comments on using Rain-X on car motivated me to use the now 2 year old Rain-X that I tried on my car windows.

I still maintain that a commitment to an existing theory of what explains observations that dismisses new observations is fundamentally unscientific.
rodman99999
6,097 posts
 
If everyone maintained a commitment to existing theories of what explains observations that dismissed new observations, there would be no further "science".
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
It used to be that application for a patent had to be accompanied by a model of the invention. Somewhere in Washington DC there is a warehouse with thousands of interesting models. They changed the rule, and now models are not required with one or two specific exceptions. One such exception is a perpetual motion machine. You have to submit a working model of that. There are some things that are just impossible.
tbg
5,263 posts
 
In the 1850s, about the same time that the first perpetual motion clock was attempted, the miasma theory of how cholera was widely believed by all scientists. Cholera, they thought, came from bad air and bad air came from human excrement. They "knew" Dr. Snow's notion that it was passed in water was simply "impossible." Foolish them!
mnnc
175 posts
 
I have used car wax on scratched dvd's (netflix) with success...remembering to wipe from center outwards.
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