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

Kind of a multiple part thread, so here goes...

I still don't have my speakers yet (custom M60s), but I expect with the recent price increase there was probably quite a jump in demand on the last couple weeks before the increase.

But, with my current setup, sometimes I hear "clicks" when listening to CDs. I have found myself doing more "critical" listening lately than casual listening when tweaking my setup. When I hear one, first thing that pops into my mind "crap, my avr is popping", or "maybe the fridgerator came on", etc. But when I rewind the song and listen again, there it is; same pop, in the same spot.

I hear almost everyone reguard Axiom speakers as "unforviging of poor recordings", but can't really find any specifics as to what that means. I guess I anticipate it meaning more "detailed" in the sense that a HD TV with its higher resolution will be more unforgiving of SD source material as compared to SD source material viewed on a SDTV.
In that reguard, I am a little nervous, as I have seen it more than once, someone spends big bucks on a fancy new HiDef TV, only to be severely dissapointed in the picture quality when viewing lesser than HD sources.

But, back to the reason for my post...Since I can't find an exact definition to how the Axiom speakers are unforgiving of bad source material, I am left to wonder, are these pops I am hearing what is meant, or is it just more along the lines of more detailed (more "resolution" if you will)? I am not audiophile, but have seen reference to being able to hear "hiss", whereas will lesser revealing speakers, you don't. This doesn't bother me AT ALL. I grew up with the cassette, so I am all too familiar with tape hiss, which was exaserbated by my tendacy to boost the high freqs. with EQ in days gone by. But my personal preference is to have a strong detailed high end, even if it reveals source limitations, that have a laid back high end which masks them.

And lastly, working in radio, I am all TOO familiar with how wildly different the levels and mix can be from one CD to another, but...

I am starting to wonder...Is there such a thing as a defective CD?

On those disc I hear "pops" in, its not my setup, as I tried in both my CD and DVD player, the car, etc, and I can always hear them, always in the same spot in the recording.

So I guess I am left wondering, are these "in the mix", or is the CD defective?

-Alan

Are the CDs copy protected? I've experienced clicking with these types of CDs. Not since I upgraded my CD player, but definitely on the old one.

I don't think so, but could be wrong.

Most of my CDs are of classic rock, and are several years old. But as I said, I doesn't matter if I listen to them in the DVD player (digital connection to AVR), CD player (analog connection to AVR), or completely different system (in the car, etc), they are there. Not every CD of mine, but quite a few for sure.

-Alan

Are these regular CD's that you've purchased in retail stores or through CD clubs? Or, are these copies you've made form originals? Does this happen to all of the CD's you have, your just certain CD's. I have some older CD's from the 80's that obviously were not recorded as good as some of my newer CD's. With those I do hear that it is not as clear, but I never hear popping.

Hi FirebirdTN,

SirQuack's question is pertinent. Speaking generally, it's rare to find a pressing defect in a commercial CD, but it does happen. Over 25 years of buying CDs and getting review copies that number in the thousands, I've encountered three or four. The defects do not cause "popping" sounds. The disc either skips, refuses to advance to any other track, or issues occasional "clicks" which are drop-outs that the CD player's redundancy or data correction cannot cover up.

Some very early CD players had very poor error correction for tracking damaged or scratched CDs and it did not correlate with CD player price. But if you are hearing these "pops" in all your players from the same disc, I suspect it may be a defect or damage. The upper label area is much more sensitive to any scratch than the actual playing (underside) surface of a CD.

Tape hiss from early analog recordings may vary in audibility depending on the mastering process and whether or not various digital noise-reduction programs were invoked during the remastering. Some mastering engineers do not use these for fear of removing high-frequency nuances--the sustained ring of a brushed cymbal, for example.

It really varies with every recording. Axiom speakers are very linear through the midrange and treble, where our hearing is especially acute, so if there is analog tape hiss present from an old Ray Charles track (I cite this because I was just listening to some older stuff and noted the tape hiss) then you'll hear it.

On the other hand, some transfers to CD of old master tapes are done extremely well and are remarkably noise-free. But there are many kinds of analog distortion that are readily audible if you choose to focus on them rather than on the music. To cite two, I can easily hear flutter on early piano recordings that resulted from the analog tape machines of the era, and tape-modulation distortion during loud passages (it's a kind of background "fuzz" that rides up and down with transient musical peaks). And there is no digital way of removing these types of distortion in remastered CDs.

Regards,

Regular audio CDs purchased in retail stores. No copys.

They are old (several YEARS old). Doesn't happen to all audio CDs I have, but quite a few.

I remember my wife bought an Elton John "best of" compliation (can't remember the exact title), but it was white, and had three CDs, and that was the very first time I noticed it. At the time, I happend to notice it in the car. Put it on the system in the house, and sure enough....it was there. This was a brand new CD, but most of what I am hearing them on are in the neighborhood of 5-7 years old, maybe more.

-Alan

I have this cd, Elton John Greatest Hits 1970 to 2002 (a white folder with 2 cds) and I hear no defects what so ever.

To add to this....Since its a rarity to have a defective pressed CD, I wonder if pressed CDs can suffer from "CD Rot"?

I have experienced CD Rot first hand with SEVERAL of my CDRs, but wondering if commercial CDs can suffer from it as well...

Hmmmmm.....when I get home tonight I will rip a very small portion of a song, and put it in my FTP server at home and see what you guys think.

-Alan

WID- The one my wife bought had THREE discs...

Ditto - just fired it up over the weekend, actually.

Firebird,

As to CD rot, no, not with commercial CDs. CD-R and CD-RWs use quite different technical schemes to encode the discs and may be subject to deterioration with exposure to sunlight, temperature extremes, etc.

My early CDs go back to 1982-83, and they play perfectly. How scratched are your discs? Light scratches that may cause some players to hiccup can be removed with a liquid auto wax, buffed across the disc (not in circles).

Regards,