scratched cds
 

How many of us have encountered numberous scratched cds? Most of my cds I have purchased are used and/or out of print and forced to purchase what is available at the time. Even iTunes and Amazon don't have mp3s for most of these so called out of print. Searching over the web I have found toutorials of repairing scrathed cds by using such items as tooth paste, banannas, and even eggs. What method do you use? Of all the nearly thousand cds I have collected through out the years, I have only had to replace aproxmanly six cds. I know the other option would me only purchase mp3s, but as I mentioned, most of my music is out of print and not available in mp3.

I used to use the toothpaste method—and it works pretty well I have to say—but I can't remember the last time I bought a CD so it doesn't come up much for me these days.

Sometimes used CD stores having this little machine that puts a glossy finish on scratched CD's to make them work again, I would suggest asking around. Game stores also sometimes have them, so they're another place to try.

I worked briefly in a games shop and yes, the machine they have there does work well. It carefully removes the top layers of the underside of a disc until it's smooth.

I've always used toothpaste, which I believe just fills in the tiny cracks and allows it to run smoothly again. It's usually worked for me.

I also want to point out that I was recently listening to a particuler cd, on track #2 the cd stops playing. Although my player is actually a dvd player, it's connected to the cd outlet. However, if I play the same cd on my computer there is no problem. Even after trying the tooth paste method, the cd still gets stuck on track #2 at 1:06 on the dvd player. I know some cd players are very sensitive, maybe this can be the case. It gets me down that I'm worried that this can happen to my other cds. I hate to relace the cds-and there is no guarantee that replacing them that the newer purchased cd is going to work.

Toothpaste. But a more careful method (and I'm not talking **** here) is to take a green permanent marker and make the edges (around the center and around the whole disc) of your disc green.
It's very common amongst audiophiles to colour your discs that way. Somehow this causes the CD player to read less errors. For those of you who don't know; A CD player makes loads and loads of mistakes but it 'makes up' bits of music. If it can't make up music anymore, you'll hear a sharp 'tic!' or the CD will skip.
Anyway, when you have a perfectly good CD and colour the edges green, the CD will indeed sound better. Not on your laptop or on a all-in-one-stereo-set, but if you're pretty serious into audio, you will indeed hear the difference.
Using this philosophy, I once coloured the edges of a damaged Windows 2000 installation CD. And there you go, the PC could read the file.
Same goes with scratched CD's. It can just make that little bit of difference :).
If that doesn't work; Toothpaste.

Sounds like a good method. All CD's wear out over time. I've found that if I load a CD into itunes, and then re-burn it onto a new CD-- it fixes most of the skips, or at least it lets the CD play through without getting caught up.

Usually that means your CD player in your computer reads a bit better than the one you're using to play music.
Eitherway, you might want to try EAC (Exact Audio Copy).
I've never tried this, but I've heard it provides you with the possibility to read CD's reaaaalllyyy sllooowwwwlllyyy and rip them at the same time. This may help to prevent errors whilst reading.
Again: Haven't tried it out yet. I just heard it is possible

Yes, all cds do wear out in time. I have replaced my share of extra copies. I have occasionally been known to rip a copy of a cd to save 'wear-and-tear' from the original. I might as well face it, digital is the future for music if I agree with it or not, until something else replaces it. Digital I don't have to worry about scatches or skips. I'll still purchase cds for the liner notes that you don't get with digital.

Sounds kinda weird. This site has that down as a false urban legend.

link : Urban Legends Reference Pages: Music (Bewaring of the Green)

One of the easiest ways to rectify the problem is to import the data on the onto your computer's hard drive and simply burn it onto another CD.

I remember downloading a stereolab album and most of the tracks on it had this underlying "tch-tch-tch-tch-tch" noise. It bugged the hell out of me, but I looked around for another copy and it never had that problem. Well anyway, the point I was trying to make is if a disk is damaged I would rather just get a new copy as you can still hear the skipping even if you import the data to your HD and burn it to another CD.

I know. There's so much truth and untruth in audio.
I just don't care what others say, when I hear the difference, it's there.
Fortunately others hear the difference too, so I don't seem like a total idiot amongst people who know what they're talking about :D.
There will always be people who will say that it's non-sense, but there's also people who claim mp3 sounds better than vinyl. And there's also people who claim there's no audible difference between loudspeaker cables. I've given up trying to convince them.
I did put the bit about the Windows CD in for a reason. This proves the CD becomes more readable from painting it green. It works with other colours too, by the way. I've just been told green works best, I've never tried how big the difference is. First time I tried it it was a CD-R and a red marker. Still audible difference :).

I'm not sure why this works. I do understand that, the less "autocorrection" a CD player uses, the better it sounds. That's a fact. And it's also a fact that the CD becomes more readable with the green line.
The only thing I can't prove is the audible difference. I know what I hear. The first time I tested it I was sceptical, so I took a CD-R and started doing the dishes :D. Even then I could hear the difference. It's actually pretty big.
Doesn't mean I colour all my CD's green. CD's are just there for me as a 'backup' or when I can't get the vinyl. I usually don't play CD's that much :)

On issues like this, I don't really believe in people's subjective experiences. I'm sure you've had the experience that painting a CD with a green marker made the sound quality better, but I don't believe that what you experienced was objective truth. I think you imagined the better quality, perhaps because of a want/willingness to believe. You had already read or heard that it worked and so a suggestion was already implanted in you, swaying your experience when you listened to the marked CD.

Appearantly, people have checked to see if it makes a difference and found out that it didn't.

I myself can't think of any reason why green markers should help, but I do believe in people fooling themselves and so that's my preferred explanation.

That doesn't sound like it has scientific merit. Colour is not an object, it's a perception in our brain of frequencies of light. A laser is not a human eye. A laser is not going to perceive colour the same as a person, cow, dog, owl, what have you. "Colour" is a product of our brain.

Haha, feel free to believe that. If you don't mind I believe what I heard, allright? I know I'm not wrong. But there's no way of proving that to you. As a matter of fact, if the above is the way you think about it, you'll probably hear no difference whatsoever simply because you don't want to. Same theory, other way around. I know what I heard and I know it's a big difference. Hard to ignore.
But whichever is true, the only thing that matters for the topic starter is the fact that it does indeed make cd's more readable. So it might help

Yeah, could be. Our senses get fooled all the time. That's why one shouldn't always trust anecdotal evidence (which forms the basis of your opinion) and rely on other things, like what can be tested. If you read my post up there, you'll see marking CDs have been tested for data errors and with oscilloscopes and those tests found no differences.

Here's some more stuff I found with a simple google search. The first here is a link to another guy who did various tests with marked vs. unmarked CDs without finding anything.

Black magic marker around the edge of a disk - Club MyCE

Here's an archived post by someone who tried to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The Green Pen Tweak - High-End-Audio - Audio

Here's a snippet :

Finally, here's another appeal to your common sense (if you have any). If it's that simple to significantly improve on a technology which cost millions and millions of dollahs to develop, don't you think the CD people would've caught on and sold CDs with the edges coloured?

Tore, It's useless mate.
The only thing I trust are my ears. I've heard the differences, I was able to describe them and others describe them the same way without knowing what I've heard.
It's a fact to me. I don't need numbers to explain to me I'm wrong because I know I'm not.

All I know is that the people who I know that are serious about audio, all hear the difference and have no problem hearing the difference.
And all that matters in this case is that it will make the CD (unless the data is completely gone, of course) more readable.

I'm an Audiophile, and as I've mentioned before I work for an AV retailer. I need to know as part of my job why equipment sounds better or worse so that I can advise customers effectively. I'm also a musician and I've recorded and mixed using some excellent equipment over time.

Green marker on CDs is bull****, plain and simple. I don't give a **** about any other possible rationale for it. It does not do anything.

Most AV retailers here sell Bose and mid-end B&W. So I'm not sure if that's a reference ;).
I obviously disagree with the quality of your ears :D

You are a fail troll, kill yourself.

His name already is kind of suspicious :D

Guys, I'm quitting this discussion right now.
It'll only end in me telling you guys you haven't got the ears I've got and you'll be telling me that I'm fooling myself. Let's just not do that, right?

It DOES work to regain readability, for a fact. So that's of use for the topic starter.

Actually I'm just going to tell you you're a condescending ass and that nothing you're saying addresses in any way the claims others have been making.

Why don't you stop hiding behind this bull**** and start actually engaging in a debate instead of trying to reduce everything down to semantics about personal experience that isn't relevant because your findings aren't reproducible by any trustworthy third party without a vested interest?

For every musician or recording engineer you can find who says green marker works, I can find you at least as many who think its bull****. For every test we can find where equipment has tested the medium and found it to make no difference, you have thus far not managed to even recognise the EXISTENCE of those forms of testing, instead you've glossed over them and come forth with a torrent of utter, utter crap in the hopes people will try and counter that argument rather than insisting upon their own.

Its simple misdirection and it doesn't lend you any credibility.

Tests and simple logic say that green marker doesn't work. Logic also states that if it did work, audiophile formats such as SACD and DVD-A would have them integrated as part of the marketing, as their limited production numbers would make the subsequent addition of an extra manufacturing step more feasible and less contentious, especially when attempting to appeal to an audiophile market.

Obviously this hasn't happened, because its patently obvious that it doesn't actually work. Confirmation bias in action ladies and gentlemen.

Back to the OP, surely you would engage in dialogue with the buyer before purchasing a disc or have a description of the CD's quality and then make your own mind up whether to buy it?

No matter how rare an album is, if it's scratched to buggery then it is not worth it in the first place.

The discussion about CD deterioration is an interesting one. There is no doubt that CD-R's do deteriorate after a while but I have a couple of CD'S that are now 20 years old and still play absolutely fine. It does help if you look after them. I always put the CD back into it's case after use and I won't even leave a disc in a player overnight. Sad? Maybe but then I have paid money for something so I want to protect it and make it last.

Finally it truly does make a difference on what sort of AV equipment you use when it comes to scratches and I am not even talking about high end equipment either. Just like DVD players (even more picky when it comes to discs) the more you pay, the more chance you will have of it playing played with nary a hiccup. Put a scratched disc in a sub £100 player and invariably it struggles, the same for DVD too.

The toothpaste trick I have never even heard of but again I wouldn't buy a scratched disc in the first place or would certainly send it back if I got one.

I'd rather buy a new CD, then sit there a draw on an old one with a marker. The sight of the green ring every time I pulled out the cd would ruin it for me.

There's a product called "Skip Fixer" that's a thick liquid that you apply on the scratch and let it dry, then buff it off with a lint free cloth. This minimizes the scratch to the point where the cd will play fine. If you want the scratch to disappear completely or if you have too many to buff down by hand, find a used cd store that has a machine that uses a similar liquid and mechanical buffers which will completely refinish the surface, making it look brand new. It's the same concept as buffing scratches out of glass or wood furniture. Before going through all this trouble, take the cd and place in front of a light make sure they're no "holes", or light showing through. If you do, the cd is damaged beyond repair.

Could you get a grip of yourself? That really wasn't neccesary.

It's really simple; I'm not trying to CONVINCE anyone it's audible. I just say: I hear it, so it's there. I cannot even begin to think otherwise because it's been proven to me so many times.
I don't care about the theory behind it, I don't care if it's measureable and most of all I don't care if others agree.

A big deal is made out of it altough all I want to say is; It does for a fact improve readability with a data CD, so it might be useful for the topic starter.
I was stupid enough to add that it actually makes CD's sound better. Obviously I've had this discussion (and the same with cables, record clamps and so on) so many times...
I should have known better.

Now, can we PLEASE get back ontopic?

Yeah well, I suppose this topic is about stuff that's not easy to lay your hands on. I by the way don't mind. It looks pathetic, but the biggest visual downside of a CD player is also the upside; You usually can't see the disc when it's playing :)

S_K, why should anyone believe your personal bias over several scientific studies on the matter? It's not a fact. Cut that out, it's nonsense. I really don't care if you personally think it makes a difference, but it frustrates me to see you state your opinion as gospel and refuse any evidence to the contrary. It's hard to be respectful when discussing a topic with someone who keeps that kind of attitude.

Of course I refuse the contrary. I've heard the difference, how can I deny it?
Can't we just agree to disagree and move on please?

You could deny it by submitting to ABX testing, providing studies that show there is a noticable effect on sound quality beyond confirmation bias, etc etc.

Rather than what you are doing which is acting like a petulant child who won't address any of the criticism being levelled at him in a meaningful way. Reiterating over and over that you have heard a difference doesn't make any more logical sense than me claiming repeatedly to be the queen of france. I'm sure some lunatic out there fervently believes he IS the queen of france, it doesn't mean thats the truth!

I mean good lord, if I took people at their word like you're expecting, I'd be convinced of all sorts of bull****!

Please guys. Stop it. You're really giving me a hard time here.
It's been quite enough now, okay?

Of course we're giving you a hard time. You're making a claim, expecting everyone to take it as read, then refusing to substantiate it. We've asked you multiple times to provide some sort of evidence that you are not suffering from confirmation bias, and every single time you have dodged the question and tried to get us to stop taking the conversation in a direction you don't want it to go - A direction where you have to make some sort of relevant, substantiated argument as to why you aren't talking total ****.

Alternatively, you could just leave like you said you were going to about 5 or 6 posts ago. Either is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking you the awkward questions, because I know you can't answer them and your refusal to try to answer them is as damning of your argument as anything else.

I don't know how to give you that evidence. I already said so.
I hear the difference, that's all I know.
But what good is that to this topic anyway?
I'm not trying to convince anyone I'm right. That's something others make up.
But I'm not going to tell you you're right, because I know you're not.

Again, and this is really my final posting because we're saying the same thing over and over again and it makes no sense whatsoever; Readability will improve when using a green marker. This might be of use for the topicstarter and if we hadn't made such a mess of this topic he probably even would have read that.

You're not trying to convince anyone you're right, except for the part where you repeat in every post "it's a fact", yeah?

It's a fact that I hear the difference and it's a fact that it improves readability with data CD's, yes.

Fucking hell man.

I don't know what you want to hear from me. I really haven't got a clue what else I should say.
Sorry mate, I can't help you anymore.

Then maybe you should stop posting about it, like you've said you would.

Yeah. I don't like not solving problems, not ending discussions.
I think it's disrespectful to do so.

Can I just point out that it is reasonable to assume that, if a data CD is easier readable with a green line around it, it'll probably be easier to rip when damaged.
Can we all agree on that, so we at least see the point of this awful discussion?

You don't like to not resolve problems, but every time you're confronted with a disagreeable post, you disregard it and claim you're ending the discussion?

I'll end it then.