GOLD CD COMPARISONS
Hornymd590
compare with each other:
Frank Sinatra: Songs for Swingin' Lovers -- MFSL vs. Capitol 20 bit
remastering
Boz Scaggs: Silk Degrees -- MFSL vs. Sony MasterSound Gold
Santana: Abraxas -- MFSL vs. Sony 20 bit remastering
Toto IV -- MFSL vs. Sony MasterSound Gold
If you know where I can get information on the above discs in terms
of sound quality, kindly get back to me privately. Thanks a lot.
[ And post too, please, this is a discussion group after all. -- deb ]
Dan
Larry
This response isn't directly responsive to your actual post, but
to your subject heading. At CES three years ago I had an oppotunity
to speak with the gentlemen with primary responsibility for JVC's K2
recordings.
He tested out gold (plated I presume) cds, aluminum and copper
cds. He felt that the copper sounded the best and the gold the
worst. The distinction, though, in sound between gold and other cd's
wasn't in the coating, but in the mastering. He said that the gold
cd's were merely mastered "better" and that is what accounted for
their different and "better" sound rather than the material on which
the recording was placed.
Reliance on gold or aluminum for better sound is a snark
hunt. It's the recording and mastering that this gentlemen felt would
distinguish one recording from another.
Cheers,
Larry Cox
www.audiomusings.com
gucciphile
>compare with each other:
>of sound quality, kindly get back to me privately.
Before you invest big $$ into the gold discs, do yourself a favor and
get a bottle of Finyl CD solution for around $15. This tweak works!
The results are very consistent from good to bad CDs. I keep hearing
more air, soundstage focus and definition with the treated discs.
Hornymd590
>get a bottle of Finyl CD solution for around $15. This tweak works!
>The results are very consistent from good to bad CDs. I keep hearing
>more air, soundstage focus and definition with the treated discs.
>
Thanks for the advice, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick to
buying gold discs of classic albums. The reason has almost nothing to
do with the fact that they are made of gold (which is after all more
durable than aluminum). The care with which these discs are
remastered brings out subtleties in the original recordings which
usually remain veiled in the regular releases. The separation and
clarity are also excellent as a rule (especially on Mobile Fidelity
discs). You don't even have to do "side by side" comparisons to
notice the difference. In short, if you have a few bucks to spare, I
suggest you listen to an audiophile release of an album you are very
familiar with (suggestions: U2's The Joshua Tree, Steve Winwood's Back
in the High Life, Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles). You will be
impressed I'm sure.
By the way, regarding my original post, I have since come to the
conclusion that the MFSL remastering of Frank Sinatra's Songs for
Swingin' Lovers indeed has more hiss than the Capitol 20-bit release.
However, the latter achieves this lower noise level by significantly
decreasing treble. As a result, the recording loses brightness, which
is a shame given the extensive use of brass. If I had to choose I
would opt for the MFSL release.
Dan
Peter
> get a bottle of Finyl CD solution for around $15. This tweak works!
> The results are very consistent from good to bad CDs. I keep hearing
> more air, soundstage focus and definition with the treated discs.
I find this extremely hard to believe. How can a "liquid coating"
possibly change the way the laser pickup reads the digital
information, unless the disc was dirty, and the liquid cleans the
disc. But since you say that you hear more "air, etc." from your
discs, what can possibly change the ambiance of the "molded in"
recording?
I would be most, most interested if anyone can supply an answer to
this supposed "audio mystery."
Eric Daniel Barry
> durable than aluminum). The care with which these discs are
> remastered brings out subtleties in the original recordings which
> usually remain veiled in the regular releases. The separation and
> clarity are also excellent as a rule (especially on Mobile Fidelity
> discs).
It's hard to say how much of the change in sound is due to what
element, but MoFi definitely uses EQ on the tapes, and to me that's
the biggest difference. On the few I've heard, this involves bass
boost.
--Eric
ddinc
Scaggs: Silk Degrees and the store bought CD sounded
absolutely awful. The recordings sounded "tinny" and thin.
The tape made 10 years ago by LP to tape recording that I own
sounds better.
Hornymd590 <horny...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:7r63mc$3...@news01.aud.alcatel.com...
> I have recently been wondering about how the following
remasterings
> compare with each other:
>
> Frank Sinatra: Songs for Swingin' Lovers -- MFSL vs. Capitol
20 bit
> remastering
>
> Boz Scaggs: Silk Degrees -- MFSL vs. Sony MasterSound Gold
>
> Santana: Abraxas -- MFSL vs. Sony 20 bit remastering
>
> Toto IV -- MFSL vs. Sony MasterSound Gold
>
> If you know where I can get information on the above discs
in terms
Ben
news:7ra2ne$hd9$1...@agate-ether.berkeley.edu...
> > Before you invest big $$ into the gold discs, do yourself a favor and
> > get a bottle of Finyl CD solution for around $15. This tweak works!
> > The results are very consistent from good to bad CDs. I keep hearing
> > more air, soundstage focus and definition with the treated discs.
>
> I find this extremely hard to believe. How can a "liquid coating"
> possibly change the way the laser pickup reads the digital
> information, unless the disc was dirty, and the liquid cleans the
> disc. But since you say that you hear more "air, etc." from your
> discs, what can possibly change the ambiance of the "molded in"
> recording?
Dont forget the numerous other tweaks that "work." These include,
but are not limited to, "anti-static" CD treatments, a green pen
coating around the edge, a fluorescent mat, tiny strips of reflective
foil that "neutralize the negative energy" etc. The last is
especially interesting as it was featured on soundstage. I just
found it very humorous that in the brochure for their "PWB Electrolet
Foil" they even acknowledge that their "treatment" does nothing
measurable by interments. These snake oil products taint the entire
high-end industry and turn many people off to the real differences
between amplifiers, cdplayers, and cables as well as the value of
real tweaks such as vibration isolation and mass loading.
Ben
DonEPearce
>element, but MoFi definitely uses EQ on the tapes, and to me that's
>the biggest difference. On the few I've heard, this involves bass
>boost.
>
>--Eric
Bass boost? To achieve that an awful lot of the actual numbers on the
disc have to be:
a) FFT'd to the frequency domain
b) Bass boosted
c) IFFT'd back to time domain
Care to explain how some gold does that?
Don
ps - could also have been achieved by convolution - maybe that's what
the gold does. - Clever hey?
Larry
There is a huge distinction between the operation of something and
the explanation for why something operates.
I tried the Peter belt foil thingys. I heard a difference, albeit
not a preferred difference. I experimented with three cd's (one
treated one untreated) and five people. The numbers worked out to 4/5
could distinguish the cd's, and of the 4 they were able to distinguish
about 70% of the time.
Personally, I didn't care for the difference, so I'm not terribly
interested in further "testing."
However, the cd solutions seem to make a difference, why again, I
don't know. I've been using Discsolution and it is quite
noticeable. Try it. If you don't like it, it's like trying a new meal
for two at a new restaurant - its the potential that is part of the
attraction.
Cheers,
Larry Cox
www.audiomusings.com
Larry
It's not the gold, its the mastering. The gold is a marketing
item to indicate "higher quality" and the people (at least at JVC)
behind the gold cd's acknowledge that the gold isn't the basis for
better sound. I'd expect that MFSL would say the same, although some
of their new cds have been mastered using all Tim de Paravicini
designed tubed electronics.
Cheers,
Larry
Mike Paquette
>
> > Before you invest big $$ into the gold discs, do yourself a favor and
> > get a bottle of Finyl CD solution for around $15. This tweak works!
> > The results are very consistent from good to bad CDs. I keep hearing
> > more air, soundstage focus and definition with the treated discs.
>
> I find this extremely hard to believe. How can a "liquid coating"
> possibly change the way the laser pickup reads the digital
> information, unless the disc was dirty, and the liquid cleans the
> disc. But since you say that you hear more "air, etc." from your
> discs, what can possibly change the ambiance of the "molded in"
> recording?
>
> this supposed "audio mystery."
When properly applied, the liquid coating modifies optical
characteristics of the disk such that both the sound data and the
associated Reed-Solomon error correction codes present additional
information encoded on the disk that are not normally perceptible.
This information is normally masked by a clever pattern of
micro-grooves applied to the surface of the CD plastic by the
manufacturers of the disks, in cooperation with the makers of
after-market CD solutions.
This scheme is a recent development, designed after the truth behind
those green felt pens was revealed. As it turns out, however, much
the same effect may be obtained by applying a small amount of #2
flooby dust with a soft, lint free cloth, and gently brushing from
the inside to the outside edge of the CD.
Has anyone noticed that by stripping the outer layer of black plastic
off a TOSLINK cable, and carefully applying a green felt pen to the
optical fibers, that one can completely eliminate jitter from the
interconnect?
*SIGH* Some days, I just don't know why I work at an honest job, when
there's so much money to be made selling to the high end audio
market. Liquid treatments are nice for cleaning CDs that are so
filthy or scratched that they have dropouts, skips, and whatnot.
Stewart Pinkerton
>I am not sure what MFSL means, but I recently purchased Boz
>Scaggs: Silk Degrees and the store bought CD sounded
>absolutely awful. The recordings sounded "tinny" and thin.
MFSL = Mobile Fidelity Sound Limited. It's an 'audiophile' label
famous for half-speed mastered vinyl and gold-plated CDs.
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is art, audio is engineering
Scott Carmichael
wrote:
> > Before you invest big $$ into the gold discs, do yourself a favor and
> > get a bottle of Finyl CD solution for around $15. This tweak works!
> > The results are very consistent from good to bad CDs. I keep hearing
> > more air, soundstage focus and definition with the treated discs.
> I find this extremely hard to believe. How can a "liquid coating"
> possibly change the way the laser pickup reads the digital
> information, unless the disc was dirty, and the liquid cleans the
> disc. But since you say that you hear more "air, etc." from your
> discs, what can possibly change the ambiance of the "molded in"
> recording?
> I would be most, most interested if anyone can supply an answer to
> this supposed "audio mystery."
I guess I just don't see how a liquid coating affects 1's and 0's. I
mean, it is either on or off, no in between. That's the definition
of binary data. I can halfway understand analog tweeks. But I just
don't understand how it can change the sound when it is binary
information. Is it actually changing the data? If so, how does the
liquid know the word length of the data to change it?
Not being a smartass, just not understanding how this tweek actually
works.
Scott
--
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Scott Carmichael
Visual Effects Artist &
AVID system administrator
Radio/TV Services & WTIU-TV
Indiana University
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
paul bamborough
>Bass boost? To achieve that an awful lot of the actual numbers on the
>disc have to be:
>a) FFT'd to the frequency domain
>b) Bass boosted
>c) IFFT'd back to time domain
>Care to explain how some gold does that?
>Don
>ps - could also have been achieved by convolution - maybe that's what
>the gold does. - Clever hey?
A couple of years ago, HiFi News in the UK carried a cover gift which
was a bottle of fluid that was claimed not only to improve the sound
of audio CDs but to improve the clarity and colour saturation of
photo CDS. To do *that* the liquid would have to:
a) Indentify the files and their formats
b) Decompress the JPEG format using appropriate Huffman tables
c) Convert the YUV encoding to something like HSV
d) Fiddle with S and (for clarity) some edge-enhancement
e) Reconvert and recompress.
f) Rewrite the revised values to the (read-only) disc.
I rushed out and bought some at once, and my life hasn't been the
same since.
p
Mike Paquette
> I guess I just don't see how a liquid coating affects 1's and 0's. I
> mean, it is either on or off, no in between. That's the definition
> of binary data. I can halfway understand analog tweeks. But I just
> don't understand how it can change the sound when it is binary
> information. Is it actually changing the data? If so, how does the
> liquid know the word length of the data to change it?
The data recorded on the CD includes both binary data representing
sound, and binary data representing an Error Correction Code (ECC).
The ECC data is about 1/4 of all the bits on the disk. When a disk
is played, the laser lights up the microscopic pits and lands that
contain the data, and a photodetector picks up the result. The
photodetector signal goes into some fancy electronics that spot the
fluctuations in photodetector output and turns those into a binary
data stream.
The binary data goes into a piece of digital logic that buffers the
data bits and sorts out the ECC bits, and generates a thing called a
signature or syndrome word from the data bits. This syndrome word is
compared to the ECC bits, and any differences indicate that some of
the data bits are wrong. What's really neat is that the difference
between the ECC and syndrome word indicates just which bits of the
data in the buffer are wrong, so the digital logic can fix them!
This fancy trick is called Reed-Solomon Error Correction. It lets
audio (and digital data) CDs play properly in spite of fingerprints,
dust, and small scratches.
Now, in order for a liquid coating to affect the data coming out of a
CD player, one of three things would have to be true:
1) The liquid coating correctly identifies and modifies the ECC bits
to match the modified data bits. 2) The CD player ECC circuitry would
have to be disabled or somehow designed out. 3) The disk would have
to be sufficiently smudged or scratched to have had audible dropout
from unrecoverable blocks of data.
Item 3 I've seen. The disk resided in a 3 year old's Duplo block
collection for a while. Eecch!
Item 2 I've never seen, as the ECC correction is built into the chips
used in the photodetector circuits in consumer electronics, but it
wouldn't suprise me too much to find this missing in a sufficiently
high end player. That is, someone would have to go to a great deal
of trouble and expense to build a custom mechanism subject to
problems and defects not found in mid-fi equipment, stripping out and
discarding the ECC bits and passing the uncorrected data bits.
Item 1 would probably be classified by the government as advanced
nanotechnology.
Mike Paquette
Norbert Hahn
[snip]
>Item 3 I've seen. The disk resided in a 3 year old's Duplo block
>collection for a while. Eecch!
[snip]
There are two more items
Item 4: badly aligned optics. The liquid has an optical effect simply
because it is different from air. It may improve focusing with badly
aligned optics and hence reduce the number of read errors.
OTOH, uncorrectable errors cause the Cd player to mute. The audible
results are not subtle.
More likely is
Item 5: Poorly contructed CD-player: The focusing drive draws a varying
amount of current from the power supply. These variation modulate the
frequency of the crystal which causes some kind of jitter. This will have
some audible effects. If - for some reason - the liquid changes the load
of the power supply by the focusing drive, the result may be subtle
changes in sound. It may be perceived as an improvement or degradation,
depending on the direction of change. However, the liquid is then a cure
for a mis-constructed CD player.
Norbert
Krishna Kant
> Item 1 would probably be classified by the government as advanced
> nanotechnology.
:)
Thanks for the informative post Mike. Question: what happens if one of
the ECC words is corrupt (by a scratch, or whatever)? If ECC bits are
25% of the CD, then this would be a likely situation. How does a
computer CD-ROM drive (non-real-time) handle this situation differently
from an audio CD player?
--Krishna
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Krishna Kant <kk...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>Thanks for the informative post Mike. Question: what happens if one of
>the ECC words is corrupt (by a scratch, or whatever)? If ECC bits are
>25% of the CD, then this would be a likely situation. How does a
>computer CD-ROM drive (non-real-time) handle this situation differently
>from an audio CD player?
The ECC plus original data can identify which bits are bad, that
means either EEC or data bits.
This is true up to some number of bit errors. Above that, it's safe
to say that NO data can be recovered.
But, don't forget the cross-interleave. The data from one RSC is not
stored in the same place, it is spread across quite a bit of one
track of the disc. (well, across quite a bit of rotation, there is
really only one track)
--
Copyright j...@research.att.com 1999, all rights reserved, except transmission
by USENET and like facilities granted. This notice must be included. Any
use by a provider charging in any way for the IP represented in and by this
article and any inclusion in print or other media are specifically prohibited.
Buchanan
of the dreaded NoNoise. Pity
yours
John Buchanan
PS What's a little hiss between consenting adults anyway?
Alexander Pankratov
> Mike Paquette <mpa...@ncal.verio.com> wrote:
> > Item 1 would probably be classified by the government as advanced
> > nanotechnology.
> :)
> Thanks for the informative post Mike. Question: what happens if one of
> the ECC words is corrupt (by a scratch, or whatever)? If ECC bits are
> 25% of the CD, then this would be a likely situation. How does a
You should to read any book related to ECC technology,
there are a lot of them. In several words - data bits aren't
distinguished from ECC bits. You just take the whole word
and after some mathematical processing get right data word.
If number of damaged bits in word doesn't exceed definite
level you can completely recover data. If data has too much
errors you can recognize it, and thus mark data word as
wrong and use interpolation technology.
> computer CD-ROM drive (non-real-time) handle this situation differently
> from an audio CD player?
CD-ROM works exactly the same, but ISO-9660 data format has
some more ECC bits than CD-DA (audio CD). And records are
better structured, so device can easily return to the track
if pickup laser looses it (repositioning). For CD-DA
repositioning takes more time and computation.
>
> --Krishna
Alexander.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Alexander Pankratov <apan...@u1.net> wrote:
>If data has too much
>errors you can recognize it, and thus mark data word as
>wrong and use interpolation technology.
Actaully, that is not quite right. IF there are enough errors, you
may not be able to tell that the data is even invalid.
It depends all on how much of the protection space is given over
the correction vs. detection.
Richard Tuck
reduces glare on strings etc.
The cleaning system I use evolved from Russ Andrew's Reveel product
which appears to be a detergent impregnated tissue. It is claimed
that it removes mould release agent from the pressing.
I now use a 2.5% solution of a non-polar detergent called Neutracon
in demin water sprayed on and then use a spectacle cleaning cloth
(plastic lens variety) to lightly (and radially) rub the playing
surface. I take a few trips around the CD with this.
The CD is then rinsed under a running tap with water just above room
temperature. I used to pat them dry between paper kitchen towels.
Since the filler in paper towels is abrasive to polycarbonate plastic
it is vital not to rub the disc or it will be scratched - just blot
it dry. I now have a couple of non-abrasive Selvyt polishing cloths
as used by opticians and metallographers which I use to dry the
discs - these get put in the washing machine now and then.
In earlier experiments before Neutracon, which one would gets from a
scientific supply house,I used dishwasher rinse aid (NOT THE
DETERGENT WHICH BEING ALKALINE MAY WELL STRIP OFF THE ALUMINIUM
LAYER) at a similar concentration with good results.
It really works and I am working through my CD collection with this
process. The results are always an improvement. Before anyone cries
placebo effect, I would point out that my very non-audiophile wife
can also hear and describe the differences.
So how might it work? A while ago there was a debate along similar
lines to this one in HiFi News. Russ Andrews proposed the error
correction argument and was shot down by Barry Fox (a bits is bits
man if ever there was one) later Paul Miller did some measurements on
a few CDs and showed a small reduction in jitter. So that may be it
- perhaps those that know their way around CD players better than I
would like to comment?
Using the rinse aid/kitchen roll route it should be possible for
others to repeat this experiment and report back. Do make sure that
you use a not abrasive cloth for the scrubbing.
--
Richard Tuck
Kazushi Endoh
>A couple of years ago, HiFi News in the UK carried a cover gift which
>was a bottle of fluid that was claimed not only to improve the sound
>of audio CDs but to improve the clarity and colour saturation of
>photo CDS. To do *that* the liquid would have to:
>
>a) Indentify the files and their formats
>b) Decompress the JPEG format using appropriate Huffman tables
>c) Convert the YUV encoding to something like HSV
>d) Fiddle with S and (for clarity) some edge-enhancement
>e) Reconvert and recompress.
>f) Rewrite the revised values to the (read-only) disc.
>
>I rushed out and bought some at once, and my life hasn't been the
>same since.
Some manufacturer of CD demagnetizer claimed similar thing in ad.,
but decoding and D/A process has nothing to do with CD reading, in
contrast to audio CD playback. The clarity and colour saturation
improvement should be addressed in videoRAM->display process if it
really exists. This can not happen unless otherwise CD reading itself
could improve the video hardware, like demagnetizing, break-in, etc.**
*
--
Kazushi Endoh Med.Univ.Yamanashi
ken...@res.yamanashi-med.ac.jp
Peter
>
> I can certainly confirm that cleaning CDs improves the transparency,
> reduces glare on strings etc.
>
> The cleaning system I use evolved from Russ Andrew's Reveel product
> which appears to be a detergent impregnated tissue. It is claimed
> that it removes mould release agent from the pressing.
I wonder if you have tried your above treatment with a brand-new CD?
I truly fail to understand why any part of your treatment should improve
a "clean" CD. On the other hand if there are fingerprints, smudges,
etc. on the CD, then I believe that your "treatment" might indeed be a
worthwhile improvement.
But the main question is "are you primarily *cleaning*, or are you truly
*altering*, or perhaps *coating* the surface of the CD"?
Your turn!
Richard Tuck
<p_ul...@ix.netcom.com> writes
>I wonder if you have tried your above treatment with a brand-new CD?
Yes - initially I did before and after tests but it is not just routine
so I do every CD before playing.
>
>I truly fail to understand why any part of your treatment should improve
>a "clean" CD.
The key point is that, in Russ Andrews' opinion CDs as delivered are not
clean but covered in a thin film of silicone mould release release agent
left over from the pressing process.
It seems unlikely that the silicone is going to have the same refractive
index as the polycarbonate so, if the film happened to be of the same
order as the wavelength of the laser in the player, interference effects
could occur which either enhanced transmission or reflection as in anti-
reflection lens coatings or dichroic mirrors. In fact it would be
pretty amazing if the film was of uniform thickness, so we are going to
get spatially random changes in reflection coefficient over the disc
surface. This cannot help the reading process.
>On the other hand if there are fingerprints, smudges,
>etc. on the CD, then I believe that your "treatment" might indeed be a
>worthwhile improvement.
As someone who was brought up in the era of LPs where the maxim was
"never touch the playing surface" my CDs have never had fingerprints
smudges etc.
>
>But the main question is "are you primarily *cleaning*, or are you truly
>*altering*, or perhaps *coating* the surface of the CD"?
The intention is to clean but it is always possible that a mono-atomic
layer of surfactant is left behind but this would be too thin to have
optical effects.
While CD players continue to derive their clock directly from the disk,
it seems reasonable to believe that anything that helps consistent
readout has got to be good e.g. anti-vibration mounts, dampers, disc
cleaning, lens cleaning. The readout system must have some detection
threshold to register a pit so it seems reasonable to believe that a
uniformly clean playing surface may help to reduce leading edge jitter -
but now I am straying onto the hallowed turf of CD player design about
which I admit to know little............. I just know what I and my
sceptical wife hear.
Give it a try.
--
Richard Tuck
SoundStage! Online Magazine
has been remastered. The remastering will make the biggest difference
by a long-shot. The only way to tell if gold has any benefit is to
press a silver and a gold disc from the same masters then compare.
Doug Schneider
SoundStage!
http://www.soundstage.com/
Larry wrote:
> Don:
> It's not the gold, its the mastering. The gold is a marketing
> item to indicate "higher quality" and the people (at least at JVC)
> behind the gold cd's acknowledge that the gold isn't the basis for
> better sound. I'd expect that MFSL would say the same, although some
> of their new cds have been mastered using all Tim de Paravicini
> designed tubed electronics.
> Cheers,
> Larry
>
> DonEPearce wrote:
>
> > >It's hard to say how much of the change in sound is due to what
> > >element, but MoFi definitely uses EQ on the tapes, and to me that's
> > >the biggest difference. On the few I've heard, this involves bass
> > >boost.
>
> > >--Eric
>