Why does the copy sound better than the original

Dougmc, off the top of my head, Red Book CD specifies 16 bit words and 44.1 kHz sample rate. Not sure I can answer where the 20 and 24 bit words enter the picture for CD. If we compare Red Book to Blu Ray for audio, Blu Ray will provide higher resolution than Red Book CD since resolution is determined by bits per word. But I also think that a debate over CD vs Blu Ray or even CD vs CD-R is moot for purposes of the "does the copy sound better than the original?" argument since a CD-R and its CD-R copy can be compared sonically, thus eliminating variables related to physical differences that might exist between CD and CD-R such as pit size, metal layer, etc. or how the laser reads the pits

Gbmcleod wrote,

"I'm simply REPORTING what Peter McGrath and Robert Harley posited. It was THEY who posited that the larger pits allowed more information to be recovered more cleanly, much in the way that Classic Records put entire symphonies on 45 rpms, instead of 33, because, they said, they grooves in a 45 were larger and thefore, it improved the sonics."

If that is what they reported it doesn't make too much sense. The 45 sounds better than a 33 because of greater excursion of the stylus in the groove (dynamic range) and higher rotation speed of the disc. In the case of the CD, the photodetector is simply detecting an ON and OFF conditions that are a function of the pits. The CD laser spot diameter needs to be larger than the width of the pits because the laser reflection off the metal layer cancels the laser reflection off the pit, producing the OFF condition as seen by the photodetector. The ON condition is simply the pure laser spot reflection from the metal layer (land) between the pits. Of course, all of the geometry, the length and width of pits and lands, the diameter of the laser spot, the depth of the pits, etc. has been worked out in advance.

The only thing i think could make the copy sound different (better to some), is if there is some kind of volume leveling or dynamic range expansion done by the recording program....