Can I just add that a scratched CD may seem to sound fine as there's no distortion of some sort, but it isn't that simple.
Every CD player (also the ones in PC's) has an 'auto correction' built in. Without that auto correction, even an immaculate disc would skip within 2 seconds. Every CD player just buffers a bit of audio and if it can't read the audio, it just makes up a little. Sounds stupid, but there's 44.100 samples every second (which is not enough, in my opinion, by the way) so it should be inaudible if the player has to make up a few of them every second.
Point is, it is audible. A scratched CD may seem to play fine, but you lose stereo imaging, you lose dynamics, you lose transparency, you lose the tightness of your low-end. So there's more to it.
Eitherway, it'very true what Freebase says: The info is not on the bottom of the CD, there's first a couple of layers of plastic and such. The audio info is even more close to the label than it is to the bottom of the disc. This is going to sound silly; Your discs are better of when put face down, label up. STrange, eh?
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