A number of years ago, Audio magazine did a double blind test on audio cables with the help of their staff, members of the audiophile "community," and several noted audiophile writers. If I remember correctly, they tested 12 gauge lamp wire against esoteric cable from Spendor, Apogee and a bunch of others. I beleive the result was just about always incorrect.
Sometimes, what the listener believes he or she is hearing is at least as important as what's actually there. It's part ego and part ignorance, but the fact is, broadly, that if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. Even if you can measure it, it doesn't mean you can hear it. For instance, I doubt very much the claim of some audiophiles that they can "hear" a 30 kHz signal. They might sense a harmonic, but then, how do I disprove their claim? I freely admit I can't hear 30,000 cycles, so, I must be inferior. I can accept this as a snobbish audiophile sensibility.
Now - if I client has me remaster something because he "hears" a difference, and I suspect he or she is deluded, I will provide a master with a "fixed" version along with the "original" version. Can you guess which one they pick? They always pick the second one. Can you guess which one is the second one?
What I'm getting at is that green pens, stabilizing "coatings" and supercooled RCA cables may yield a difference in measurement, but a change in barometric pressure can just as easily explain some of this. I mean, a CD is injection molded at around 500 degrees - what can the differential between room temperature and 20 degrees possibly mean in mechanical terms? Sure, the atoms are moving more slowly, but not that much more, and logarithimacally insignificant compared to the difference between the melt, flow and hold points of the polycarbonate. There's more variation induced by placing the disc in the player than anything else. BTW - don't imagine that the CD hole lines up with the player's spindle the same way twice, because it won't.
Real world issues - things that cause EC circuitry to go into action - are the things that need to be addressed in a client master or manufactured product. And as anyone who's been in the pressing business will tell you, there's no such thing as a perfect disc. Go to your CD collection, whip out a Chesky or two and maybe a Water Lily and a Reference Recordings and put them in your checker. Jtttrrrrrr. E 22's. Out of center. Put it in a cheap player: sounds krappy. Put it in your Ayre C-5xe - mmmmmm, good!
In other words, better cables reject noise better, are more consistant impeadance-wise and so forth, but the upper limit is where no one really, actually can hear change. The difference between Wyde Eye cabling and Radio Shack molded-end RCAs does matter, but freezing a disc? Doesn't it get warm as it plays back (in the warm environment of the player?) Doesn't that cause MORE physical change to the disc DURING playback, which translates in less stability?
Finally - the marginality of any medium (tape, vinyl, CD, etc.) means that we've likely reached the edge of its domain. If it's really an issue, there's whatever is next, i.e., SACD, DVD-A, etc. Otherwise, if it's as good as it can quantifiably be, that's it. And in a world filled with iPods and streaming media, I tend to look askance at those claiming to "hear" unmeasurable improvements.
Of course, the client is always right. For those situations, see paragraph 3. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Thanks again for your patience with what are probably way too many words.
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Topic: What's the best way to make a copy of a Master CD? (Read 8691 times)