Soaking in pause mode improves CD transport snd?

Others here may have a more precise explanation, but I have heard that timing errors accumulate when the CD is playing for a while. Using pause allows the program to re-initialize and start over without the accumulated errors. In fact, I don't believe you have to wait even a few minutes...just pause and hit start immediately.

I'd like to hear more about this phenomena from someone who has more complete knowledge.

is it kinda "teaching" dac to digest bits easier?

I remember that Stereophile talked about that issue several years ago. I can't remember what, if any, conclusions or agreements resulted.

Pause keeps the CD spinning at required speed, rather than having to wind up from rest and servo over to where it needs to be. I've noticed that the flexi ribbon wire attached to the read head can sometimes act like a spring, causing the the head to jiggle. Maybe pause let's it reach steady state with less error correction.

It is a real phenomenon, sometimes called "jogging" the laser. You can do it quickly, as Pbowne mentioned. Check the Magnan website, they have a short discussion of this and other tweaks.

Here's the Magnan explanation:

We have found a quick and easy method to instantly tell if your system if fairly time coherent and resolved. While playing a CD quickly select Pause, then Play. This resets the transport mechanism serial digital output circuits and on a good system an instant improvement in smoothness, lack of edge and resolution results. Unfortunately, over a period of 5-10 minutes the serial digital timing drifts off, and the sound slowly reacquires the original slight edginess, hardness and muddiness. As your system improves, the sonic changes in this test become more and more pronounced. This technique is not listed in the tweak list because it has to be periodically repeated, doing insult to the musical continuity each time.

Isn't this where the Digital Lens came into play(Correcting timing errors)?