Cleaning CDs, to do or foo?

[bobvfr]

I am of the opinion that your final sum up is about correct:

"I suppose I've always thought if the laser is able to read a CD the sound will remain consistent unless the disk is subject to serious manhandling, deep scratching etc whereby it becomes unreadable i.e all or nothing. So...are there any possible sonic benefits to be gained by a good clean with an appropriate product or is it just unnecessary (and expensive) foo as I imagined? "

My first CD player was the Philips CD101, there was only one shop in the Charing X road in London that had any CD's in stock, and I still have those CD's from 1983, as mentioned before some of my CD's have been very much abused, strewn across the floor at parties with wine spilt on them (I don't do this now) and left to dry till morning clean up, they were washed in the sink with the glasses yet they ALL still play.


In this instance it doesn't matter what position you stand in the room, stand on your head, pray to the gods of sound, the CD will either play or wont, it's digital so no amount of FOO is going to change it's sound until it hits the outside world of analogue.



Got to admit I don't think I would recommend using Fairy liquid on them any more as it like most washing up liquids contains salt that can cause micro scratches but even then if I had to clean (Wash) a disc now I would still use it myself ;-)

[prestonchipfryer]

Nothing wrong with keeping all your music-related stuff clean. From source to speaker. Just good housekeeping. So nothing foo about cleanliness.

[MikeMusic]

Work in what way ?

Subtle improvement in SQ.

http://www.russandrews.com/reveel-an...k-54209990000/

Will try it again and report back

[Macca]

Subtle improvement in SQ.

http://www.russandrews.com/reveel-an...k-54209990000/

Will try it again and report back

'"Diy Remastering!"

I was only looking for a CD cleaner, but despite being a little sceptical, I have to admit that Reveel/Relees is so much more.

Bass, soundstage, timing, space around instruments are all MUCH better... like a well-done remastering job'

Oh dear.

[da2222]

Scary...

'"Diy Remastering!"

I was only looking for a CD cleaner, but despite being a little sceptical, I have to admit that Reveel/Relees is so much more.

Bass, soundstage, timing, space around instruments are all MUCH better... like a well-done remastering job'

Oh dear.

[prestonchipfryer]

Let's hope this isn't going to turn into a manufacturing bashing thread. It would seem that the OP says he doesn't clean discs but then says he does if they are dirty. So what is the point of this thread?

[sq225917]

Small marks and dust should have no audible effect but larger ones and crud on the disk can lead to the error correction programs kicking in. One effect of this is to cause difficulties in frequencies above 22k which may be aliased down to audible levels thus causing 'noise', oversampling is used to reduce this.

You have that mixed up.

Error Correction runs all the time, it's never turned off, it's part of the Reed Solomon encoding. It has nothing to do with HF foldback https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-...Solomon_coding

Oversampling (actually upsampling) in the D/A process is used to push the corner frequency of the filter upwards so that any foldback noise (from the filter itself) is kept outside the audible band. This has nothing to do with error correction it's simply a function of the filter design and amelioration thereof.

[Macca]

Let's hope this isn't going to turn into a manufacturing bashing thread. It would seem that the OP says he doesn't clean discs but then says he does if they are dirty. So what is the point of this thread?

The op was asking if there could be any benefit beyond removing any soiling that was affecting the players ability to read the disc, i.e improved sound quality. A lot of people do seem to think that there is (see the buyer feedback I copied from the RA site above) so not an unreasonable question. But there isn't. A CD is not an LP and there are no similarities in the way that they work.

[Andy831]

I tend to just "polish" mine on my t shirt if it looks dusty.

If there are greasy fingermarks then a blob of my normal vinyl record cleaning liquid (distilled water with IPA ) and a wipe dry with a microfibre cloth usually does the trick nicely.

[Macca]

T shirt is normally my first resort too.