Is INKING the perimeter edge of a cd the Ultimate Tweak?

[Chip Stylus]

Before I weigh in with my two cents,
I'd like to get a feel of how the forum has addressed this
well talked about tweak.

Yes, I ink cd's, but I'm gonna wait for a few posts
to get into the minutae of it.

thanks in advance for speaking up on this once-hot topic.

[Dave]

Thomoz,

Are you speaking of just felt penning the edge of the cd or using the "green light stop pen"?

[FabFourFan]

I hate when I find used CDs that someone inked up and the tray hub is sticky and the booklet is stained.

All that inking is so messy and sticky, and is heck to clean off!

Horrible, and not worth the trouble, IMHO. Don't do it!

[RDK]

I find the audible effect of inking my cds the same as if i move my speakers 3 mm closer to the back wall...








I'm joking in case any tweakers thought i was serious.

[Dave]

Clark,

Que pasa Marigo pen? What does it do, anything good?

[RicP]

My favorite tweak is the Bendini Clarifier which claims to demagnitize aluminium and plastic (grood trick huh?) Actually Bedini claims that the clarifier reduces the static charge on the discs, not the magnetism. Regardless, I've tried the Bedini and found no improvement whatsoever.

I do however, notice an improvement with Auric Illuminator. Call it whatever you wish, but it's happened much too often to be anything but truth.

I have a 5 disc carousel (Sony SCD-333ES) and I placed 2 copies of 1 cd and 3 copies of another in the tray. In both cases 1 of the discs was treated with Auric, the others were not. I didn't know which one it was. Played the discs on shuffle mode with the display turned off and wrote down my choices after 30 or so tracks.

I picked out the Auric discs with a greater than 85% accuracy rate.

I tried the inking of the CDs as well....on some discs I swore I heard an improvement....on others...nothing, no matter how much I wanted to. So I stopped inking them.

[Dave]

Details please Ric!

What is it exactly, what's it claim to do, how much and where to purchase?

THX

[Claviusb]

Originally posted by Dave
Details please Ric!

What is it exactly, what's it claim to do, how much and where to purchase?

THX

You can find Auric Illuminator at www.audioadvisor.com (or at music direct). It's about $40 US and shipping, Dave. I was using it on all my CDs and CD-Rs at one time. The A.I. works great on DVDs too.

[Chip Stylus]

Well, I waited and the ratio of believers was about what i thought it would be.

I read about this practice some years ago, Early in the evolution of cd's.

I noticed the there seemed to be a lack of "air" around the instruments on certain,
not all, cd's. Bass seemed hard and "smacky", not at all wet. These same disks had no front-to-back depth, on headphones it almost seemed that the phantom center of the stereo image had poor phase, voices were hard to hear (on an 80's vintage cd player, remember those?).

Cd's that were silver all over, like early Polygrams, seemed to suffer less "digititis" than others. Even now, my Fleetwood Mac "Mirage" is a wet and wonderful sounding cd, pressed in '84-'86 or thereabouts.

A friend (Nick) pointed out that another friend (Frank) had tried the ink-the-skinny-edge trick and had raved about it.

I called Frank over and he described to me the result of his tests. "Some cd players benefit more than others" he admitted. It was at best an incremental change.

I went home and found a Design art marker, forest green. I listened to some UK vinyl and then a corresponding cd, "Stranglers Rarities" with the same cuts. I took notes as to the differences in bass, hardness, depth, amount of hiss, etc. THEN I inked the disk. This was 1990.

About a year ago, I was in the car with my new wife Joan and we were listening to GP / Grievous Angel on my Pioneer 45w mosfet / Infinity System in my Chrysler. She was reading and not_looking_at_me. We pulled up to a traffic light. I removed the disk, took out a black sharpie, and inked the disk in 2 quick swipes, reinserted it into the player and then we listened, for about 90 seconds. She lowered the magazine, looked at the dashboard and then at me. "What the f*** did you just do?" she asked. I laughed. The voices, tambourine and solo guitar were just a melange before, now each was clear, distinct and EACH ELEMENT had a unique timbre. BUT tape hiss, before indistinguishable, was now evident.

I have had coworkers and friends poo poo this idea, and adopt the practice later.
Usually if I dub something (OOP) for someone, I just ink the edge and neglect to mention the fact. Folks invariably comment on the quality of the dubs, sometimes they ask for the brand of the blank cd's. They're generic!

[Dave]

Claviusb,

And what's your opinion on using this treatment? Is it really worth it to use it on my S.H. recordings?

[Chip Stylus]

My GUESS is that data from elsewhere on the disc is seen as a reflection
at the read point, and that this induces clock jitter.
Pen on perimeter kills the reflection, disk easier to read.

Cd's played on my dvd player do not sound either better or worse inked.
Of course, I find the Toshiba dvd too bright on all but a small handful of my disks.

Aside, my DCC "Straight Up" sounds really weird on the dvd player.
It is as though all the bass is rolled off below 150hz.

----

EVERYONE: next time you are in CD Warehouse of the like, look in the cheap cd's.
Buy a $3 copy of something you already own. Ink the copy, play both back with quality headphones on the cheapest, oldest cd player you have and you should hear a difference. One-bit d/a's, upsampling to 96khz, all seem to largely circumvent the kind of jitter that this tweak is intended for.

[RicP]

Dave,

the best thing about Auric is that it's virtually foolproof. Even if you don't notice a difference in sound, it does absolutely no damage or causes any permanent changes to the CD like inking it would.

At best, it's a great treatment that can improve the sound and clarity of your CDs.

At worst, it's one hell of a great CD cleaner :)

I've had CDs that were mistracking pretty bad, play perfectly after treatment with Auric Illuminator, so it's definitley doing something. :)

Give it a shot, what have you got to lose.


One Caveat: Don't use Auric Illuminator on Hybrid SACDs. There's a compatibility problem with the polycarb layer on Hybrid SACDs that may cause the top layer to become clouded.

On Dual Layer DVDs though, it works just perfectly.

[Claviusb]

Originally posted by Dave
Claviusb,

And what's your opinion on using this treatment? Is it really worth it to use it on my S.H. recordings?

At the risk of getting rocks thrown at me, I have A.I. on all of my DCC discs. It's easily removable (soap and water) and the manufacturer will take it back, but Dave-- if you don't like it I'll buy it from you (I'm almost out anyway after going through my 2nd bottle). Be forewarned (if you don't believe in that sort of stuff) that they do include a black marker in the box for you to mark the inner and outer edges with-- but nobody says you're required to use it. I didn't for a long time. The ink is dense and is not gooey at all afterward.

No question in my mind that disc refraction affects jitter somehow. I'll leave it at that for the time being.

[Claviusb]

Originally posted by RicP
Dave,

At worst, it's one hell of a great CD cleaner :)


Ric, it's not really a cleaner though. Use either Plastic Cleaner or eyeglass cleaner and then apply the AI. Give that a try.

The towels they give you to apply the AI with is almost worth the money to me!

Also, when you apply the AI, make sure to polish the disc with the towel well. I got where I never played or watched anything without putting the stuff on first thing.

[RicP]

Ric, it's not really a cleaner though I know that ;)

But I was giving Dave the "At Worst" scenario. :)

[RicP]

I said.....
naysayers are always concerned about other people's money
Then Dave said.....
As I said, It's your money..... :) Thanks for validating my observation.

. In addition it would seem to me that if there where significant improvements to be had by merely making the edges of a disc opaque, at least one of the major record or audiophile reissue companies would have produced disc that incorporate this simple upgrade While not the "edge" of the disc, the exact same principle was cited by Mobile Fidelity as the reason why they chose flat black as the label of all of their gold discs. The black coating the entire side of the CD was purported to give the disc better reflective ability when compared to a disc whose side was more translucent.

An interesting aside is that some people are claiming now that the all-black CDRs sound better than any other CDR and better than the original CD itself. I haven't tried them personally.

[Dave B]

Ric - I had read that somewhere recently. I've been looking for black discs locally without luck. If you find some let me know the source. I'm up for trying it. It makes sense that if you reduce the amount of extranious light that the pickup has to reject while reading the disc, the error correction circuitry won't work as hard. I'll have to make A/B (silver/black) discs of the same material and see if I hear any difference. Even if they're the same the black discs look cool.

[Highway Star]

I must confess for starting this coloring fad on recorded media back in 1968 as a young hippy-boy with a little extra model car paint. The most obvious effects were a more colorful soundstage and better highs. ;)

[Claviusb]

Thomoz,

Do you have a CD burner? If so, go here (http://www.mediastore.com/cdr/product.asp?pf%5Fid=2000150%5F0000&find%5Fspec=black+cd+r) grab yourself a pack of these do-dads.

I burn my discs, then I add a small amount of black to the inner and outer edge (labels don't cover the entire silver area so you have to give it a little help) and then I print up a stark black label with green text (see below). People comment on how striking the discs look, but it's not about the look for me-- sound is everything. If $40 is too much for you, try Staples. They sell i-mation black CD-Rs for $15 for 20 with slimline jewel case. Personally, I don't think the i-mations "sound" as good as the mediastore discs, but hey-- it's all in my mind anyway!

This is the label side, the other side is... black.

http://pestosoft.com/~claviusb/Wings.jpg

[Chip Stylus]

wow, that really rocks!!!

Clavius, glad to hear you weigh in on the ink scare.

Been a fan ever since you started posting those bogus
dcc's and s&p's you made in photoshop (guffaw!)

- - - -

DO you think the mastering guru has ever inked a cd? One of us should ask him.
The inked DCC "No Dice" is my desert island disc.

[Claviusb]

Originally posted by thomoz
wow, that really rocks!!!

Clavius, glad to hear you weigh in on the ink scare.

Been a fan ever since you started posting those bogus
dcc's and s&p's you made in photoshop (guffaw!)

LOL! Thanks... I think!:D

DO you think the mastering guru has ever inked a cd? One of us should ask him.
The inked DCC "No Dice" is my desert island disc.

Well, I believe most people think Clark just found his way in here via divining rod. The fact that Steve asked him over here should indicate something. It would be wrong of me to attempt to pretend that I know how Steve feels about some of this tweaking stuff and especially inking, but I don't think Steve has a link on his home page to Symposium purely by accident.

[joachim.ritter]

At least aesthetically not a big improvement! :confused:

[Chip Stylus]

Ritter, i recognize that rubber ring! (laughing)

I bought 2 dozen of them but later heard of issues with slot loading car players eating the cd's and so I stopped.

Haven't seen those rings in years now.

Later, I read the Bob Stuart observation and began placing a cd on top of the one I'm playing. My JVC put up with that for about 6 years but it now will not cue that up anymore. In the last couple months it quit recognizing home burned cd's. Of courese, it was made in Nov. '92, so I am expecting a lot from it. My Tosbiba dvd player will not cue up a disk thus weighted.

Yes, I ink the gold cd's too, but I waited a few years to start doing them.

As for blank cd's, I seem to get slightly better bass from the dark blue ones.
Weird, I dub a cd, no eq, no nothing, and it warms the sound up!

Have not tried the ones with the black tops, but I plan to try them now that I know they exist.

- - - -

Any of you here have the Elvis 50 Worldwide Gold Hits (this disk is not gold, but is gold *tinted*)? I have the same material on non-tinted aluminum cds, mastered around the same time, and the sound is warmer on 50WWGH. I wasn't delighted, I was irritated. All my cd's should sound like that!

[Dave]

Thomoz,

What's this about a weighted cd?

Funny thing that statement. I'm not sure if you're familiar with my Sony XA20-ES cd player, but my player comes with a 11/2"x 1/4" circuler steel weight of approx. 1.5 OZ. which fits over top of the cd on the spindle and without it, nothing will play No jitter on this unit!

Hmmmm.....

[Claviusb]

Originally posted by Dave
Thomoz,

I'm not sure if you're familiar with my Sony XA20-ES cd player, but my player comes with a 11/2"x 1/4" circuler steel weight of approx. 1.5 OZ. which fits over top of the cd on the spindle and without it, nothing will play No jitter on this unit!

Hmmmm.....

You don't have jitter, Dave my man?
You need to re-think your master plan!
For you have jitter everywhere!
There and here,
Far and near!
If you want to rid your life of jitter,
there are far more things to reconsider!

My apologies to Dr. Suess...