Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Bad Recordings, or bad CDs???

It has to be an underground/bootleg store. If the noise is happening on various CD players in your home and car, it HAS to be the media. Scratches are not the only thing that can effect playback, smudges and fingerprints may also be the culprit.

Okay....found an example.

It is from the Eagles "Hotel California" CD, on the asylum label.

It is track 9 "The Last Resort".

I have placed a small portion of this track in my webserver here at the house.

I don't know all the lyrics, but listen closely affter the word "Rhode Island" and see what you think.

I pulled the track from the CD with my Plextor drive. I left it in .wav format to keep the audio as untouched as I could.

CD condition is good; not mint, but nothing to write home about.

File size is about 6megs.

It is here:

http://warez.msmcs.net/MyHost/clicks.wav

-Alan

I hear some clicks when he says "old world" after "Rhode Island". If you hear the clicks / pops from more than one player, it seems to me that it is either on the recording, or a defect from an unseen blemish / scratch on your cd. Perhaps someone else has their own copy to verify this.

I am listening to it on some cheap computer speakers, yes I can hear something, but it is very minor, at least with these speakers.

During recordings, especially live performances, your going to hear some artifacts picked up by the recording process. In addition, as mentioned above the condition of the CD's (scratches, smudges, fingerprints, etc.) can have an effect.

I can't figure if your just to picky, , or what, but the main thing you've said is that the noises your hearing can be replicated on various CD, DVD, and car players. So whether it is a flaw in the recording or scratches, it is the CD itself.

Another thing you'll notice with the Axiom's, since they are so detailed and efficient, is that you'll hear guitar strings plucked, percussion brushes scratching the drums, etc...

Not sure what else to add.....anybody else...

Just looked at it, took a close look at the waveform and found two anomalies (at roughly 17.640 and 17.967 s) between the words "old" and "world" in "...where the old world shadows hang..."

They sound and look just like jitter errors. Since they happen on all the players you tried - congratulations - with your Axiom speakers, you can now hear CD scratches.

I've got a few similar sounds on my oldest CDs (most specifically from the Pogues CD (IISFFGWG) I bought in 1987)... I'm anal about their care, but occasionally you smear or scratch one.

If this is a brand new CD, chances are there was a very small flaw in the original master (if it appears on all CDs of the same run) or just in the pressing of YOUR disc (if it only appears on yours). Large runs are done with metal masters (think Madonna) while small runs are done with glass masters usually (think that band selling them out of the back of their Pinto) so problems do occur.

It may be annoying to you, but let's face it... that's a lot less annoying than the pop and clicks of damaged vinyl, the slow loss of signal to noise ratio of cassettes and even data held on hard drives can eventually develop occasional errors.

Bren R.

p.s. I'm going to go against Alan's advice on polishing CDs unless it's a one time thing to just get a single copy of an irreplaceable master. Most of the polishing compounds will either fill scratches or cut and polish them out for short periods of time. Almost all of these are similar to automotive paint compounds and are made up of waxes and solvents mixed with diatomaceous (sp!?!) earth or a crystalline substance like tripoli. What do these do long term to CDs? Probably the same thing as they do to motorcycle visors - they fog and make the plastic gooey or brittle. Two of my buddies used to work for PPG, does it show?

LOL; okay maybe I'm being nitpicky!

Seriously, I didn't say that it bothers me, its just something I noticed rather recently, and this isn't the only disc I have that has little clicks or pops like that.

As far as with detailed speakers being able to hear guitar plucks and things like that, I can only think that is a good thing, and it does sound as if the additional "detail" they bring out is synonomous with the higher "resolution" a HDTV brings.

All in all, I look forward to getting my speakers, and am not put off by these anomolies. Its just something I noticed and I was curious as if they were in the mix, or if I was one of the few unlucky folks who got a bad disc. I will really only know if someone has this exact CD, so if you do, please chime in.

This particular disk is in good (not great) shape. Maybe some VERY light scuffing from normal wear and tear (being placed in the tray and back out). Its not flawless, but it doesn't have any real scratches. I always thought they error correction could take care of minor blemishes?

Now, I do have some CDs in bad shape from being dropped or whatever, and those, I hear the "tick tick tick" as the disk spins around and passes the scratch. That sound, I am all too familiar with, and is DIRECTLY related to the physical condition of the disc.

But again, back to that Elton John CD; that was a BRAND NEW just opened disc and had similar anomolies.

-Alan

In reply to:

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Now, I do have some CDs in bad shape from being dropped or whatever, and those, I hear the "tick tick tick" as the disk spins around and passes the scratch. That sound, I am all too familiar with, and is DIRECTLY related to the physical condition of the disc.

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You shouldn't be hearing this, the disc and the pickup lens should NEVER come in contact with each other. If your player was damaged (maybe from a severely damaged disc or otherwise), it may now be causing damage to every CD you play in it. If the lens is touching the spinning disc, it could be creating very minor scratches in the same uniform ring of the disc that you aren't seeing like common scratches that are linear. I don't know that this is the case, but if it is you will want to find the cause before any more damage is done to your collection.

I suspect this just because of wide variety of CDs you are experiencing this with and in multiple players. These discs are not coming to you this way, something you have is affecting them. In my opinion.

In reply to:

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You shouldn't be hearing this, the disc and the pickup lens should NEVER come in contact with each other. If your player was damaged (maybe from a severely damaged disc or otherwise), it may now be causing damage to every CD you play in it.

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I don't think he means a physical contact-type tick, but the sound of the dropout being misread.

Bren R.

BrenR is correct; that particular noise is because of deep scratches as the scratch passes the pickup.

But these poor quality CDs aren't what this thread was about, but the GOOD to MINT quality CDs I have with slight audible imperfections.

-Alan

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But again, back to that Elton John CD; that was a BRAND NEW just opened disc and had similar anomolies.

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Where on this disc do you hear the imperfections?