Copies Better Than Originals?

One might be tempted to ask, "If a copy was somehow better than the original, then where did the copier get the knowledge/information to add anything, without that that information being part of the original in the first place?" If in fact, the original did not contain the information that is added in the "better copy", then how can it be considered a "copy"? It cannot. It can be considered a synthesized enhancement, like an airbrushed Playboy centerfold.

It is totally impossible for a copy to exceed an original for content quality. As I stated above, to do so would require the addition of information or material that didn't exist in the original, and therefore anything added would simply be "made up" out of whole cloth. It can be "touched up", enhanced, restored, etc, to make it more "acceptable" to some, but never exceeded.

I don't remember the exact description but this was discussed in Sterophile a number of years ago. The author stated that copies had lower jitter and this could account for the improved sound over the original.

In my case I experiment what mapleshade did, they use
this mikro smooth to the surface of the blank cd,
then I put the original to the bedini ultraclarifier,
then start burning in, guess What ? One on the cd
that is so bright and I cant listen, suddenly, it
I can listen to it longer. IT WORKS.

Pioneer has been known to rewrite the laws of physics. About 25 years ago they advertized a head shell that was low in weight but high in mass.

If we combine the comments from Hpshps and Rec, we are pretty close.

The file format redbook uses is call CDA. One feature of this format is self-generated clock. That means the clock is regenerated by looking at a limited run of the data stream in real time. If the data stream contains errors, the generated clock will be a little off and causes jitters.

Now if you make a copy, data streams are treated as files, the software can apply a much better error correction scheme to the data and burn a perfect copy of that data stream to CD-R. If high quality disc is used, you will get much lower error rate at playback and therefore much lower jitters.

You can hear improvement only if you use high quality CD-R and playback on relatively mid to low-end players. Most high-end players have large buffer to store data stream. They can apply extensive error corrections to it and regenerate the clock form there.