Do CD-Rs sound better than the original CD?

Rob Babcock

Rob Babcock

Moderator
<font color='#8D38C9'>Does anyone have an opinion on this one? &nbsp;I know many, many audiophools that swear that a CD-R copy sounds better than the original. &nbsp;Especially when burned onto the infamous &quot;Black CD-R.&quot; &nbsp;

I've seen lots of possible reasons for this, some credible and some pretty wild. &nbsp;And it's not only the lunatic fringe that believes this- there are some engineers who also swear it's true.

What do you guys think? &nbsp;Has anyone here tried to put it to a rigorous test? &nbsp;Can a CD-R sound better than the source CD or is that Audiophool Urban Legend?</font>
 
<font color='#000080'>I've used error correction to make copies that were better than physically-damaged originals, but I have no idea how a copy could be better than a well-manufactured original.</font>
 
Rob Babcock

Rob Babcock

Moderator
<font color='#8D38C9'>I'll have to look around for some of the sites where I've seen it discussed. &nbsp;Something to do with jitter, and sometimes related to pit size- it seems ludicrous at first site, but I've heard stranger things turn out to be true.

Has anyone tried this on their own? &nbsp;Pretty much everyone that hits this site probably has a burner in their PC. &nbsp;I've burned about a bazillion CD-Rs myself, but I don't really have a solid answer as to whether the mere act of duping them improves the sound. &nbsp;Certainly it doesn't hurt it any.</font>
 
Rip Van Woofer

Rip Van Woofer

Audioholic General
<font color='#000000'>If you can trace the stuff about jitter back to Bob Harley of Stereophool, etc., you can pretty well ignore it. The man seems to be generally regarded as an ignoramus by genuine experts in digital electronics.

On a thread some time back, a poster pointed to an article on the Rane Audio (a pro sound outfit) site, I think, about jitter. The upshot seemed to be that jitter problems &quot;upstream&quot; (as in copying) can still be neutralized by the CD player you listen to the disks on. Your player's error correction takes care of it, apparently. Maybe I got it wrong, though. Can someone tell me if I have it right or am all wet?

I can say with more certainty that thanks to Harley et al, the whole subject of jitter has been made a mess of, and there's a lot of crap floating around out there as a result.

I always come back to this possibly simplistic principle: you can't make 1's and 0's any more or less &quot;1-ish&quot; or &quot;0-ish&quot;. The subtle sound degradations found in analog copies aren't an issue. When digital goes bad, it generally goes very bad. As in clicking, skipping, or simply refusing to play.

Oh, and Macs make better copies than Windoze boxes!


(had to slip that one in!)</font>
 
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jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
<font color='#000000'><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>
Rip Van Woofer : Oh, and Macs make better copies than Windoze boxes!


(had to slip that one in!)
LOL
I can vouch for that as well. See Rip, we can agree on that subject too. I'm gonna convert you yet
</font>
 
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Yamahaluver

Yamahaluver

Audioholic General
<font color='#0000FF'>Actually I read somewhere that according to Phillips, there is a 10db loss in CDR recording.</font>
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
cdr's

im not suprised, ive flipped between cdr's and orignals and the treble is cloudy
and bass is lessend and its not as loud.

do any of you listen to mudvayne?
 
A

av_phile

Senior Audioholic
Rob Babcock said:
<font color='#8D38C9'>I'll have to look around for some of the sites where I've seen it discussed. &nbsp;Something to do with jitter, and sometimes related to pit size- it seems ludicrous at first site, but I've heard stranger things turn out to be true.

Has anyone tried this on their own? &nbsp;Pretty much everyone that hits this site probably has a burner in their PC. &nbsp;I've burned about a bazillion CD-Rs myself, but I don't really have a solid answer as to whether the mere act of duping them improves the sound. &nbsp;Certainly it doesn't hurt it any.</font>
A straightforward copy of a CD via a respectable PC burner using a 2x or 4x write can make virtually identical copies. I've had problems on my home player reading copies burned at 12x write and I've read some fora that advices certain brands and types of CD-Rs or CD-RWs that can determine the outcome. haven't verified this if true. I just use ordinary no-namers for my CD blanks and I don't see any diminution in loudness, detail or loudness.

Not all CDs have the same loudness level. When I compile my favourites from various CDs, I make sure the CD levels are normalized so all of them sound nearly on the same loudness scale as possible. As a result, a selection that has been boosted seem to sound better than the original track. And there are some tracks whose hights and lows I prefer to boost or attenuate via a parametric eq operating in the PC's digital domain and the result is a more listenable and interesting copy than the original.

Some tools I use on the NERO and Goldwave software do enhance the copies. Like restoring dynamic range, and correcting DC-offset, de-jittering, widening stereo separation a bit, etc. on some tracks I feel can be further improved. These I do with the utmost prudence and care so as not abundantly rehash a recording beyond recognition. (I often feel the recording engineers did a less than spectacular job in the mix. But these are quite few and applies mostly to old analog sources remastered into digital.) And many colleagues who hear them swear they are better than the originals.
 
Yamahaluver

Yamahaluver

Audioholic General
Actually cdrmedia.com and ixbt-hardware.com acquired some real expensive CD media testing equipment and did some of the most exhaustive tests including the quintessential BLER tests in the industry. Their conclusion was surprising and breaks the norm of recording at lower speeds. According to their tests, today’s high recording speed burners tend to produce lower errors when the recording is done at near their maximum rated speed or at least only a few notches down. Their BLER studies revealed that at lower recording speeds of 4x to 2x, burners which have max speed of 16x-52x produced more errors than if they were recorded at their maximum speed level.

Of course the media used also has a very significant role to play in this game. The Mitsubishi/Verbatim Super Azo formulation has shown the least amount of errors with burners of different makes and their error count was significantly lower than other media when lower than optimum recording speeds were used. The same goes for some other media like Taio Yuden and TDK as well as older SONY media.

Of course commercial stand alone recorders used in homes and studios only record at 1x but that is due to their stipulated use of royalty paid media.

I have burners from Plextor, Yamaha as well as Liteon, the Plextor is rated at 12x, the Yamaha rated at 40x and the Liteon is rated at 52x. I usually burn at near the maximum speed of the burners and have yet to encounter any problems with my Yamaha SACD player, my fifteen years old Yamaha CDX-1050 or my equally old Accuphase DP-70V. I primarily use Mitsubishi Super Azo or TDK Gold media.

One interesting aspect in all this is Yamaha’s patented Audio Master mode where larger than the Redbook standard pits are burnt, in this mode the default recording speed can not exceed 4x. Also the 700mb media is reduced to 650mb capacity. I have burnt some CDR with this mode as well and find that on old as well as CD players of poorer make usually found in compact systems as well as portable CDP, the tracking is better and jitter is significantly lower. However with good CD players, the Audio Master mode is not neccesary.

Just my two cents from my experience with cheap, shoddy, sub-standard, low end stuff that I own and also bear in mind, all this is from my personal experience from my limited mental resources.
 
M

mike_p

Audioholic Intern
older cd players

i believe most modern CD players.. and probably all modern DVD players buffer and then relock the clock.. therefore eliminating jitter. I could be wrong.

There were reports from recording engineers that some record pressing plants did not do a very good job of maintaining their equipment. Things came out of spec, which would introduce jitter into the pressed CD. After getting the CD back from the plant a comparison was made to the master (most likely on a harddrive, where jitter cannot exist) and there was noticable degradation.. but after ripping the pressed CD (eliminating any and all jitter) and burning (which will most likely introduce some jitter, but less than the pressing plant) it sounded just as good as the master.. but this shouldn't be much of factor any more.

It is not possible for levels to change when you rip.. unless somehow your ripping process is throwing data away.. use EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Also, normalizing or any processing will only introduce more noise.
 
A

av_phile

Senior Audioholic
mike_p said:
i believe most modern CD players.. and probably all modern DVD players buffer and then relock the clock.. therefore eliminating jitter. I could be wrong.
I think DVD's are less prone to jitter than do CD players as the DD/DTS data streams are buffered prior to DAC. The data streams are in packets and must be stored or buffered to de-compress the compressed files prior to analog shaping. The algorhythm is such that the de-compression cannot happen if there are timing errors in the arrival of the bits.

Also, normalizing or any processing will only introduce more noise.
I don't normalize but I correct DC offset errors and do dynamic range restoration using NERO and sometimes Goldwave. Some equalization is done to correct some materials I feel have inadequate bass or bright highs. All in the digital domain. The results so far have been satisfying.
 
annunaki

annunaki

Moderator
When "level matching" songs, isn't one actually degading the original, true to the source signal on the disc, due to the fact, that some (level matching programs) actually would use a compression sceme in order to change the relative volume level?
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
annunaki said:
When "level matching" songs, isn't one actually degading the original, true to the source signal on the disc, due to the fact, that some (level matching programs) actually would use a compression sceme in order to change the relative volume level?
It depends on what you mean by 'level matching'. I see people say that they normalize to make all the songs sound about the same in volume. However, they are usually referring to PEAK normalizing, which in no way shape or form will make the songs sound the same in volume unless they were already with 1-2dB of each other (in which case there is no reason to normalize).

Example:
song 1: average level -12dB, peak level 0dB (basically any cd mastered since the mid 90s, quite LOUD)
song 2: average level -18dB, peak level -1dB (80s cds or more conservatively mastered cds)

Normalize to 0dB:
song 1 - no change - the peak is already at 0dB.
song 2 - average level becomes -17dB, peak is now 0dB.
[the peak was originally -1, the difference between 0 and -1 is 1, so the whole waveform is increased in power by 1dB to reach the peak of 0dB you specified]

Song 1 is still 5dB louder on average (and the ear responds to average levels), therefore it will still sound *almost* twice as loud.

RMS Normalization on the other hand means to set the average levels of each song to a given value (you choose it). This does involve compression. Compression can improve the sound quality by making it louder (psychoacoustic effect that we tend to think louder sounds better - up to a point). The RMS normalization routine does all the calculations for you to reach the average level you specify - you could do it yourself using dynamic compression if you are skilled enough to know the right values to set for threshold, attack, release, and compression ratio. Compression can also degrade the sound.

Level matching tools built into software such as Nero, always use simple peak normalization. Normalizing will bring up the noise floor too, although i wouldn't worry about it too much unless the original recording was very noisy to begin with in the audible range (say above -40dB).
 
M

mike_p

Audioholic Intern
levels and compression

Unregistered said:
Level matching tools built into software such as Nero, always use simple peak normalization. Normalizing will bring up the noise floor too, although i wouldn't worry about it too much unless the original recording was very noisy to begin with in the audible range (say above -40dB).
back in the day when I was doing amateurish mastering I used software from Waves.. L2 Ultramaximizer, great piece of software. Allowed me to get mixes up to the crazy levels most commerical pop recordings are mastered to, absolutely killed the dynamics.. but that what people wanted. I was usually using a 24/88.2 mixdown -> mastering (EQ -> Pultec EQ -> LA-2A compressor -> Waves L2) -> dithered/shaped to 16/44.1.. at least with the 24 bit source I could keep the noise floor low and use almost all them fancy 16 bits of resolution.

Those Universal Audio UAD-1 pluggins sure sounded good.

mike p
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
mike_p said:
back in the day when I was doing amateurish mastering I used software from Waves.. L2 Ultramaximizer, great piece of software. mike p
I've heard good things about Waves, but never used it. I think the Ultramaximizer is a limiter. Of course these are professional level audio editors, like SoundForge (still usable by amateurs with an interest in digital audio, like myself).

Apps like Nero provide some basic tools that can be useful; eg, Nero includes a 'reduce tape noise' preset. What does it do? Its a simple noise gate set to -60dB.
 
M

MarkOcena

Audioholic Intern
Normalization and Equalization

I've have Goldwave and have found it useful for volume adjustments and equalization. It seems to have quite a lot of flexibility that I havn't really tried taking advantage of. It's got a bunch of other functions that are fun to fool around with too. Anyone who wants to make compilation CD-R's should definitely look into this program (it's free, btw) or an equivalent so that levels aren't bouncing around through the disc.

Mark
 
M

MarkOcena

Audioholic Intern
CD-R versus Original

Forgot to add my two cents to the original discussion. If 'sound better' is defined as realism of the music, then it seems to me that CD-R's can't really sound better, because they are only copies. I would assume that the quality would either be the same or worse, because the original data is being copied over either exactly or with some loss. For the CD-R sound quality to be better, it's data would have to be taken from a higher quality source than the original CD. The burner is not going to pull extra 1's and 0's out of the air. So the fidelity of the CD-R source won't be higher than the original CD unless it is recorded from a higher fidelity source.

But if 'sound better' is defined more subjectively, then indeed CD-R's can sound better. Some people like more bass in their rock music, so they can make tone adjustments and maybe add some reverb to songs to cater to their likes. Programs like Goldwave or Nero are great for doing this between ripping and burning phases so that the listener is happier with one's own CD-R mix of his/her favourite music.

Mark
 
M

mike_p

Audioholic Intern
MarkOcena said:
Forgot to add my two cents to the original discussion. If 'sound better' is defined as realism of the music, then it seems to me that CD-R's can't really sound better, because they are only copies. I would assume that the quality would either be the same or worse, because the original data is being copied over either exactly or with some loss. For the CD-R sound quality to be better, it's data would have to be taken from a higher quality source than the original CD. The burner is not going to pull extra 1's and 0's out of the air. So the fidelity of the CD-R source won't be higher than the original CD unless it is recorded from a higher fidelity source.

But if 'sound better' is defined more subjectively, then indeed CD-R's can sound better.
not subjective, if you read my above post.. copies can sometimes sound better because the 1s and 0s are placed into the proper places, therefore elinimating jitter.. or sometime introducing it (depends on the press planet and the quality of your burner/media). Jitter is a real thing, but as already stated of little concern with modern DVD player.

this guy makes an interesting case... if not bordering on the verge of neurotic:

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Black_CDsII.pdf

mike
 
L

lanecoveking

Guest
CD-Rs definitely sound better than the original CD!!

Just the day before I read this thread, I backed up some of my best CDs on CD-R. When I briefly listened to them after backing up, the back-ups seem to sound better. I thought it could not be true. When I read this thread the day after, I was absolutely amazed. So I compared all the back-ups to the originals, clearly the CD-Rs sounds a lot better.

The very clear examples are that I have a Japanese version of Eddie Higgins' Haunted Heart (Hyper Magnum Sound 24bit Gold disc), and an audiophile version of a Taiwanese singer called Caiqin pressed from original master tape with JVC XRCD technology (I am not exactly sure what technology it is, but on the cover it says it is for really serious audiophiles). When I first listened to Eddie Higgins' one, I was disappointed that the sound quality was rather dull compared to other Eddie Higgins CD's I have (by the way, I have a couple of high resolution gold discs that sound terrible). For the other one it was good, but not as good as I expected, so I did not listen to it much. But now when I listened to the CD-R back-ups, the Eddie Higgins one became some much brighter, more open, more air, it seems like you can touch the double basses playing, not to mention the clarity of the piano. For the other one, it was even more amazing, it is like I can see the music coming out from the grand piano, and the singer singing in front of it. I never had that experience before. (For many of you who may not know Caiqin's recordings are listened to and used by many audiophiles in Asia to test their systems.)

I have not yet used the black CD-Rs (ordered them just this morning, to be available in a week). I just used very ordinary CD-Rs, and can't wait to try the Melody Black Diamond.

I am so excited now, I am going to copy all my Diana Krall and Lee Ritenour onto Melody Black Diamond to see how good they sound. It is going to open up a whole new listening experince to me.
 
Rob Babcock

Rob Babcock

Moderator
I've read a technical explaination for why a CD-R does sound better; unfortunately, my level of knowledge is such that I understood it while I was reading it but not enough that I can explain it here. It's not a matter of BLER or any other error rates, nor a function of jitter. Apparently one factor is the differing rates of birefraction due to the different construction methods. I've read of a couple very well known mastering engineers who didn't believe there could be a difference that were stunned when they did some listening comparisons & were forced to agree the copy sounded better.

If a copy can sound better, it may be due to a factor that we haven't yet identified as meaningful. That doesn't mean it isn't real, merely that we haven't pinpointed it nor quantified it yet.

I've not done a comprehensive test yet, myself. I lack the facilities to do a true, ABX'd & level matched 2X blind test, unfortunately. But I'd love to take part in one if the chance ever came up. For now, I can neither confirm nor deny the possiblility, but I will say in my experience a good copy won't sound worse.
 
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