CD Tweeks...Improve Ripped SQ?

However, I don't see those findings as being relevant to the situation the OP was asking about, in which what is being played is a computer file. The computer files that would be compared having in turn been produced by ripping a treated and untreated CD using software that assures both files have bit perfect accuracy.
09-09-13: Almarg

Al,

I would agree that is why I asked Rodge827 in my last post if he had tried it yet.

The computer files that would be compared having in turn been produced by ripping a treated and untreated CD using software that assures both files have bit perfect accuracy.

At this point I personally can't say one way or the other for sure.

After the listening tests at the dealer's store, I told the listeners what I did to the original CD before making copies.
The dealer said, as you, he could rip the CD, untreated and treated to a computer hard drive and there would not be any difference in sound. I should add there was more in what he said about the process than I described. He went into great detail in why.

I reminded him a few years back he said he could make a perfect copy of a CD with the exact copy program on a high dollar audio hard drive unit he had in the store.
I took him up on his claim and came back with a few well recorded redbook CDs.
Long story short critical listening proved him wrong as well as one of his sales persons.

The dealer said in reply that was then and computers and programs have come a long way since then.

So, lol, on one of his slow buisness weekdays I will take a few CDs and my Bedini clarifier down to his store.
We'll see then if the proof is in the pudding.

In closing, in my mind I still see a CD transport spinning a disc 200 to 400 RPM that may be slightly magnetized, basically, a spinning rotating magnetic field. A dynamo? Who can say how it can affect the surrounding electronics and laser reading/correction apparatus of the transport?

Usually garbage in will yield garbage out.
Jim

FWIW, I can only think of one means by which the sonics resulting from playback of two computer files located on the same drive could differ, when the bits comprising their musical content are identical. And assuming that possible extraneous variables such as the warmup state of the components in the system, AC line voltages, etc., are equal when the two files are played back.

That would be if a mechanical hard drive is being used, and one file is very highly fragmented, while the other file is minimally fragmented. The slightly greater amount of electrical noise that is present within the computer when the hard drive is jumping around among different locations while playing the fragmented file conceivably might result in a slight increase in jitter at the point in the system where D/A conversion is performed.

If one of those files had been created from a treated CD and the other from an untreated CD, undoubtedly some audiophiles would conclude that the difference is attributable to treatment vs. non-treatment. But of course in that situation treatment vs. non-treatment would have nothing to do with it.

Best regards,
-- Al

While it's possible that some fault with the system is producing some effects. However, the problem with the theory of mysterious intervention is that results of treating CDs by coloring, demagnetizing, reducing static fields, using cleaners and optical enhancers, etc. - including treating them before ripping - are repeatable for systems of different types and different manufactures. One can cling to the bits is bits theory only so long in the face of 100% or more improvement to the sound. There is a red line between the uber skeptics and the experimentalists.

There is a red line between the uber skeptics and the experimentalists.

I would put it that there is a broad spectrum between the uber skeptics and the experimentalists. It is not simply a matter of being at one extreme or the other.

Also, Geoff, although you appear to realize it, let me emphasize that I do not dispute the effects that CD treatments can have on sound quality, when the CD is being played. I do, however, strongly question any claims that treatment before ripping will make any difference when a computer file is being played, assuming that the ripping software assures bit perfect accuracy. They are two completely different situations, and I would not lump them together under the "bits is bits theory."

Regards,
-- Al

"assuming that the ripping software assures bit perfect accuracy. "

That's an optional setting and not a guarantee on some ripping programs, so its possible that read errors could come into play, depending on the implementation of the ripping software.

Even in that case though, I would seek out a rip program that does assure bit perfect accuracy as the best solution. Then, its just a matter of how long the rip takes. Rips with more error reads from disk will take longer to re-read, so any improvement to the physical disc reading system might help produce faster rips perhaps, how much faster depending on disc quality and how well the optical disk reader does its thing. With most decent modern commercial grade optical disc readers, I find only CDs that are visibly in very bad shape (like some from the library) or physically defective in some other way rip significantly slower when bit perfect accuracy is in play, but of course YMMV.