Rain-X as CD Enhancement Treatment

So, Doug, are you changing your opinion? I continue to be perplexed at sincere beliefs that some hear differences and others do not. I am also fascinated that some love one wine while others hate it. Humans are a varied lot.

I remember several years ago sitting between John Curl and an TAS reviewer listening to a demonstration of the Shun Mook speakers. John and I were struck by the improvement gained by a slight change they made in the speakers. The reviewer heard nothing. My only judgment was that I would pay no attention to his reviews thereafter. He was soon gone.

Not in the least. I have said before and maintain now that I have heard the difference in my rig between treated and untreated discs clearly. I simply wanted to thank a man who was willing to actually try it. I cannot explain why he did not hear it. I also am not going to continue debate with someone who has tried and did not hear the change. That would be foolish. I will vigorously debate those who argue only from hunches, but there is no value arguing when someone tried and it failed.

I believe due to hearing abilities, the type of treatment used (I much prefer polishing to cleaning), environment, etc. that some will hear it easily and others will not. I have a nearly acoustically perfect room, so even subtle changes are quite readily heard.

If the changes due to treatment were such that I couldn't be sure I had heard them, I wouldn't bother discussing it.
I also make judgments based upon what others say they can or cannot hear. If someone says they cannot hear what I feel should be easily heard, you can bet I won't trust their opinion.

I have had audiophiles come into my room, and I have conducted listening tests on such things as power cords and disc treatments. They have insisted that there is no change. In the course of time I found out they played in live bands extensively. Uh, huh. They had hearing loss. No way would I trust their judgment in what could be heard. :)

It's one thing to have a variance in opinion between what is "preferred" sound. It's another altogether not to even detect the sound. I'm not judging Eldartford on his test; I wasn't there. But I certainly have not been changed in my conclusions from my listening tests.

Douglas_schroeder and Tbg...Note my words..." but this kind of comparison is difficult, and highly subjective...". Implied here is that there might have been a change (improvement?) but if so it was not great enough for me to notice vs what I heard an hour ago. In this test you can't go back and listen to the untreated disc again. The test which someone should do (probably someone who sells a disc treatment product) is a bit-for-bit comparison of digital data files from treated and untreated discs. Maybe there's a reason why they don't do this.

Hi all,
This Rain-X treatment thread/ tip is such an interesting subject and I will give it a try sometime this weekend and will post the result.
The 2 minutes and 10 seconds "proceedure" should be simple but for this little A/B test like this may take me probabpy half a day just to prep. to get an accurate result. Like let the system warm-up, pick out then listen to a track over and over before putting the treated disk in, etc.

However, with all due respect, what can we do to keep this thread interesting and not going off course? Either ones BELIEVE it or NOT, we, as readers, already got your point; we already heard and seen enough. This thread is already long, there's no more need to know who performs better in bed or who's wife has a bigger boobs.... let's keep it clean and respect others' opinion(s). Show us some actual hands-on results.

Eldartford, Yes, I did see your comment on the test being difficult and subjective; I agree in essence. I was not attacking you in my last post, merely stating real possibilities when people conduct these tests. There will be some with hearing issues, some with room issues, some who try cleaners versus polish, etc. These all influence the outcome.

Nasaman, frankly, this has been quite the civil conversation once we got past the initial jousting. :) So far, Eldartford is the only skeptic to actually conduct a test, and I respect his efforts to look into it.

There really should be no need to listen to the track over and over. Find music you like and know well; then select the track or two you want to work with. Polish the disc. Then re-listen. The difference should be so obvious that previous listening saturation should not be needed.

I found an old bottle of Rain-X in my garage! Ha! Now I can find a disc or two and see how efficacious the Rain-x treatment is. It would not surprise me if it comes nowhere near to the improvement of using a polish. It will be interesting to check that.