Have your say & ask the experts

I am not gonna knock it until I try it (although few years back I though that no way the like of SACD and DVD-A gonna took over CD format).

Thaiman:

15 Carpenters CDs for £250?  may just do that

+£35 for express shipping, plus probably about £50 for VAT and the collection charge

I think like most of these 'formats' they will be Japan-only releases, available as expensive imports for collectors elsewhere.

Currently doing some listening/viewing to a superb Japan-market classical release on Blu-ray Disc, but that one's the better part of £50 shipped from Japan. More on that in a blog sometime soon...

It sort of parallels the way in which JVC's (and others) SQ/CD4 quadraphonic experiments in the early 1970s improved stylus technology and plastics/pressing standards.

In order to preserve the ultra-sonic 'carrier' frequency pressed into the groove, stylus profiles like 'Shibata' were used and vinyl + pressing had to be of a higher order of quality so that the ultrasonic frequency did not get worn away after a few plays.

Because so many major companies were involved (Arista, Atlantic, Elektra, JVC, RCA, Reprise, Warner for CD4 and Capitol, CBS, Columbia, EMI, Epic, Harvest, HMV with SQ) the 'trickle down' of improvements benefitted stereo users also. (Well, those with good enough equipment to tell.)

Let's hope enough big industry 'players' think it is worthwhile to adopt this new CD manufacturing technology. I doubt it though.  The world of early 1970s hifi was a humungous marketplace in comparison to today and (apart from cassette and FM) vinyl dominated.

CD is becoming more of a niche in a market that is becoming smaller and more fragmented by the day and where downloads increasingly dominate.

Demographics play a part in this too. There is no longer the interest from countless millions of affluent post-war  'baby boomers' in this sort of technology. (Even they have iPods now).

To get to number 1 in the album charts of the 1960s & 1970s you had to sell millions. On a quiet week today you can get to number 1 with a few tens of thousands of sales (unless a big name happens to die the same week!)

I just don't think the economies of scale are there to support it in a widespread way. 

Oh how times have changed, it was either the Kaiser Chiefs or Elbow whose last release got to number one in the record charts by selling under 100 copies in the first week!

I asked this on the blog, but no harm in asking again, Andrew, will you have a try at importing one of the CDs onto itunes and make a comparison? Please.

Easy reading
So if you can make a disc easier to read, the error correction has less work to do, and the result should be a better sound, right?

Really interesting article but it has got me thinking, If this is the case that the cd materials and manufacturing make a difference and I will admit I am open minded about these things, then how much credence is there in the CD tweaking side of things that are also supposed to improve the reading of the disc, green pens, freezing the CD's etc, I realise I may be hunted down and branded a which for even mentioning such things but what experience has anyone had with CD modding, I would love to sit down on a blind test of these 'tweaks' just to see for myself maybe a Big Question article?

idc:

I asked this on the blog, but no harm in asking again, Andrew, will you have a try at importing one of the CDs onto itunes and make a comparison? Please.

Already tried that, idc, and there's no obvious difference in the sound between standard and 'new-spec' CDs.

Of course, because the rip is able to use more error-correction, and isn't happening in real-time (as the data-extraction is when simply playing a disc), that's exactly as you would expect it to be.

pwiles1968:

how much credence is there in the CD tweaking side of things that are also supposed to improve the reading of the disc, green pens, freezing the CD's etc

Can't speak for the effects of freezing, but the idea of the green pens was to reduce light scatter within the transparent layer of the disc, while other companies made green 'tyres' which fitted round the rim and had the extra claimed effect of increasing the mass a little, adding to the flywheel effect and thus stopping the discs from wobbling as much in the player.

Similar thinking was behind the TEAC VRDS system, with its disc-sized clamp, Pioneer's Stable Platter Mechanism – disc upside down on a turntable, read by the laser from above – and any number of aftermarket disc stabilisers.

Andrew Everard:

idc:

I asked this on the blog, but no harm in asking again, Andrew, will you have a try at importing one of the CDs onto itunes and make a comparison? Please.

Already tried that, idc, and there's no obvious difference in the sound between standard and 'new-spec' CDs.

Of course, because the rip is able to use more error-correction, and isn't happening in real-time (as the data-extraction is when simply playing a disc), that's exactly as you would expect it to be.

pwiles1968:

I realise I may be hunted down and branded a which

A what?

JohnDuncan:

So bit-perfect data ripped to hard discs is better than CDs?

Now don't start that one going again.

Get a naimuniti then you can compare directly between CD and streamed lossless via the same DAC (and even have the output levels matched I think.)

Hopefully Joel did not read this.('Naim'. 'lossless', 'streamed', and 'DAC' all in the same sentence!)

[Edit] Just checked the online manual. And there is a function called 'input trim' (section 4.3 page E9) which.. "Enables the relative level of each input to be adjusted so that each is of an approximately equal volume."

Ideal 'vehicle' for those CD vs Lossless blind tests

the_lhc:

pwiles1968:

I realise I may be hunted down and branded a which

A what?