Cheap tweaks...What would YOU reccomend?

You can improve the sound of CDs you buy by turning them into a CDR - on a computer. The commercial CDs are pressed, and by burning a CDR, you improve the quality.

The link below shows you how.

Some also use the computer as the source - with a good soundcard - you can add a DAC to improve still at 24/96.
The jitter is lower than most transports (even high end), and it's convenient to have hundreds of CDs right at your finger tips.
http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Black_CDsII.pdf

The "FREEZER TWEAK".......First you want to put your CD's, DVD'S, cables, or components in a air tight bag.......I am using two good trash bags......then wrap the bag in a big towel and put them in the refrigerator for 24 hours......(the KEY to this tweak is to bring the temperature down very very slowly and then bring it back up slowly)........next step is to put them in the Freezer for 72 hours.....Be sure to set your freezer at its coldest temperature settings.........then put them back in the refrigerator for 24 hours......then put them in the coldest part of your house for 24 hours........after that your ready to enjoy!............Rpatrick

Gonglee3, the computer burning technique may be okay but IMHO black Cd's were total garbage. Muddy, fuzzy, low fidelity sound. Sort of like going from 16 bit to the 12 bit CD player in my Denon mini-system.
Another thought, if one prefers low fidelity sound no reason to spend a lot of money for it. Not that black CDR's are more expensive than others, just that why get an expensive CDP to reduce resolution to a subjective 12 bit level? Skip the black CDR and mega $$ CDP, just get a cheap 12 bit CDP like in the Denon UD-M31 mini-system. Just a thought I've been kicking around for a while.

Actually, CDC, the BLER rate of properly burned CD's is much, much lower than that the mass produced high BLER disc that you purchased at the store. The burned copies sound much better.

Some audiophiles have been for years, buying the store bought disc and making a better, higher resolution/lower Block Error Rate copy. The guys I know have been using the better pro burners to do this, like the Alesis Masterlink, for example.

If you haven't heard the difference, you may want to.

Happy Holidays!

Jes45, I burned the black CDR on a Marantz pro CDR500 at 1x. Like I said, what one person says is "better" is highly subjective. IMHO "Muddy, fuzzy, low fidelity sound" is worse not better. But I have seen more than one audiophile trade in his high resolution setup for one with higher distortion because it sounds "better". That's okay, just not my definition of better. Unless maybe it covers up some problem somewhere else in the system.
None of my burned CDR's sound better unless the recording is very bright and they need a little softening up. But Yamaha makes a hard disc burner which can increase the length of the burned tracks. A CDR can only hold 63 minutes, not 79 because of the longer track length. THAT's a burned disc I'd like to heard.