TAS Recommended CD Tweak….

Racamuti...Error correcting codes are really interesting, and much more widespread than you might think. IMHO the most dramatic example is in the transmission of data from distant space probes using tiny transmitter power. For example, transmissions from a probe in orbit around Saturn can "drop out" for about a minute, and still all the data can be recovered intact. Of course, to do this a great deal of bandwidth is devoted to the redundancy needed for error recovery.

As I have said before, error correction is not a band aid for transmission errors. It is an integral part of the Hardware/Software data transmission system. Error correction makes it possible to operate the hardware much faster than if it had to be error free, and even though some bandwidth is used up for the error correction capability, the overall result is higher bandwidth.

I suggest you read up on error correcting encoding.

Yes it is based on Reed-Solomon Interleave.

However, contrary to what Eldartford mentions, if the error correction fails (a really badly damaged CD) then most players will "interpolate" between data points. On a bad CD with "CD Rot" it can actually sound exactly like Vinyl surface noise (pops and clicks).

If error correction did not work to way more than 99.9999% accuracy then your PC that you are using to view this thread would crash constantly (perhaps it does and you need a new hard drive...).

Despite the fears propagated by analog users about CD accuracy, all the science suggests that CD discs and readers are generally orders of magnitude (10's and 100's of times) more accurate than any analog reproduction. Digital is the only way to preserve data such that it can be copied thousands and thousands of times without error - this is because errors do not accumulate as they do in any analog chain.

All this makes computing, satellites and other amazing things possible, stuff that purely Analog systems are incapable of.

Of course A to D and D to A conversion is a crucial step and it is fair for analog users to criticise the quality of this process, however, this step occurs after the data has been read, decoded and error corrected from the disc.

Does George offer a trial sample?

It seems that if one were to send him identical burned CDs of the same recording, one labeled "A" and one labeled "B", and asked him to treat one but not the other without saying which was treated, then the effectiveness could be tested. Even better would be to do this to two or three recordings.

Then, after listening, if one believes they heard a difference between the discs, a call to George to learn which disc, "A" or "B" was treated, would confirm the listening test (or not).

Shadorne...Yes. If the error correction can't hack it data is interpolated. Not the greatest, but preferable to aborting the disc if it happens once or twice. I didn't mention that because it clouds the issue, and it ain't supposed to happen unless the CD disc is badly damaged. The RS code is configured to reliably correct errors to the extent they are expected from the hardware, and to handle most kinds of disc damage.

So why do people bother with EAC and CD Paranoia and whatnot? Is there any reason to use those products over ripping via iTunes, for example?

Shadorne, there are many audiophiles, even some with credibility, who claim that copies of CDs actually sound better than the originals. How can this be?