Common Sense Strikes
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: freeze, audio, discs | Themes: Digital Entertainment
5. Common Sense Strikes
There are many reasons to believe that this freezing business is bogus, but let’s think it through. First off, we have the causal statement given in that first Web page: “The technique relaxes the lattice structure of the polycarbonate substrate distorted by heat and pressure during the pressing process.” Fine. How exactly would freezing a solid, thereby making it even harder than in a room temperature state, “relax” its structure? If anything, you would have to heat the disc in order to relax anything.
But let’s say the polycarbonate actually is relaxed. What would that do? You might already know that data is encoded into CDs using a series of raised and lowered areas, called lands and pits, that flow in a spiral along the disc. A laser beams into the disc and bounces off these pits and lands. A reflection back to the laser sensor signals a value of 1 while a sensor miss signals a 0. In this way, the binary data represents what will become, after processing and analog conversion, an audio signal. The process is very precise, though. If that laser doesn’t bounce just the right way, it will miss the sensor and generate errors. This is why scratches so often impair CD playback. It’s not so much that the pits and lands get damaged, but a scratch in the protective layer guarding them will refract the laser, potentially causing it to reflect improperly.
Given that, doesn’t it follow that a “relaxed” substrate would also cause the laser to bounce at faulty angles? This isn’t analog radio. You don’t “tune in” a laser to a sensor. It’s digital, either on or off. The bounce either hits the laser sensor or it doesn’t. You can get 0s and 1.1s or 1.2s that somehow sound better than plain old 1s. If the disc pressing resulted in “substrate distortions,” then the disc would either not play or it would fail QA testing, or probably both. The thought that there’s hidden data lurking on CDs, additional 0 and 1 values mysteriously not being read by the laser when all of the other data bits are, is absurd. At a time when the music companies are desperate to preserve eroding CD sales, representing millions upon millions of dollars, don’t you suppose they would offer pre-frozen CDs as a way to add value to a declining product if they possibly could?
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Pink Floyd was enhanced not by putting it in the freezer. It sounded better because of the ice cubes you took out to add to your alcoholic beverage.
Well i worked in a hospital as an anesthesia tech over the summer. Although the hospital did have a no cell phone policy, this was consistently ignored. In fact, there was a cell phone in each room for the anesthesiologists. I asked the head tech about this and he said that once upon a time, cell phones could cause interference in things like an EGK. However, they would never render a machine unusable. Furthermore, modern machines are shielded and are not significantly affected by a cell phone.
CDs are stored digitally. The data is encoded with redundancy that allows for error detection and correction.
Again if all the errors are correctable then the music stored on the disc is 100% identical to the original.
If you want to measure disc quality you can run a utility that will graph the number and types of errors found on the disc.
So Willy Winkle, Third Stage is among your oldest albums, but Boston's debut is not. Was it lost in the sands of time or did you actually own Third Stage and not Boston? If the latter, then, I really don't know what to say. :|
If you really think there's a difference, rip ta piece of both CDs to uncompressed .wav files, and compare the digital data...
A quick point... cellular phones were moderately dangerous to medical equipment and certain navigational computers on aircraft. When i say cellular phones, i mean the analog bricks we carried around in 1991 when the law was made. The phones we're using now are technically all digital PCS phones, not the analog cell phones those laws were written for.
Jitter. Also, your headphones are crap.
0 and 1, but timing: jitter. Also, your headphones are crap.
I remember trying to burn a backup of data on my Computer before sending it in for repairs. I was using CompUSA branded CD-Rs (really really cheap stuff). I saw pinpricks in the CD media before I even burned it. The reflective layer on the CDs was actually the backside of the label on the top surface, which was actually brittle and cracked with too much pressure (the reason they tell you to use a felt-tipped pen when writing on them). Oddly enough, the disks burned just fine and could be read back a few months later. I don't care about them anymore, but I still have them, and it would be interesting to see if they aren't just completely dead by now.
The part of the story I dont understand is how you made it through high school listening to Prince. I am suprised you didnt get beat up on a daily basis.
So Willy Winkle, Third Stage is among your oldest albums, but Boston's debut is not. Was it lost in the sands of time or did you actually own Third Stage and not Boston? If the latter, then, I really don't know what to say. :|
I went back for the prior two releases on CD later because I already had them on LP. ;-)
The part of the story I dont understand is how you made it through high school listening to Prince. I am suprised you didnt get beat up on a daily basis.
It pays to be taller than the other kids. Moreover, Prince was cool in the '80s. If I'd gone around listening to Air Supply and
Manhatten Transfer, yeah, it could've gotten ugly.
Back in 93 they had leaking gas fridges, that could add to the reason why pink floyd sounded so much better after sticking your head in there.
I am a pilot and cellphones on planes are not allowed to be used NOT because they interfere with instrucments (because they dont) they interfere with Cell network/carriers coverage range thats the ONLY reason!
hmmmm, so if i were to freeze a dvd would i get bluray quality? =P
You know, you gotta wonder where there stuff comes from. I mean, at some point, someone had to have come up with the idea, "Hey, I wonder if putting my CD in the freezer would make it sound better?"
You know, you gotta wonder where there stuff comes from. I mean, at some point, someone had to have come up with the idea, "Hey, I wonder if putting my CD in the freezer would make it sound better?"
I've thought that about many things. Look at escargot. How hungry did that first guy have to be, huh?
It pays to be taller than the other kids. Moreover, Prince was cool in the '80s. If I'd gone around listening to Air Supply and Manhatten Transfer, yeah, it could've gotten ugly.
ACDC, Metallica, Iron Madien, White Lion, Poison, those were cool, I do remember people listening to him. I just never could get over how much of a dousche he was. And I liked metal better.
They did the phone on the plane one on mythbusters. The solution they came up with is that it does have the potential to screw with things, but really that would only happen if wires/equipment were not shielded properly. Realistically this isn't an issue, but we are still taking the "better safe then sorry" route.
cell phones in a hospital are the same as on an airplane, "better safe than sorry" ... that being said, my wife is an ER nurse and she and her coworkers use their cells at work regularly, given they have any bars.
The part of the story I dont understand is how you made it through high school listening to Prince. I am suprised you didnt get beat up on a daily basis.
Prince rocks!