[transam]

Has anyone ever heard of putting green marker on the edge of a cd?

[Ferdi]

Yes, it's a long story but unfortunately it has been done to death.

In a nutshell: you color the outside of the CD with green (or black, depending on who tells the story). Some enterprising individuals have even been trying to sell audiophile feltpens.  

The theory is that you cut down on the stray reflection an get a more accurate read from the CD.

I suggest searching at HD or AA to get the full details on this trick. I never tried it myself but am extremely reluctant to try something like this.

One guaranteed result: you'll get a green edge on your CDs.

[droliver]

www.snopes.com/music/media/marker.htm

[ehider]

That last link has NOOOOO validity of being on this or any other high end audio site IMHO. Here's a quote from it:

Snobbery:   Digital audio technology has been denigrated since its introduction by a small but fervent group of audiophiles who insist that the sound it produces is "harsh," unlifelike, and generally inferior to that of analog recordings. The revelation that CD sound is imperfect was undoubtedly an appealing story for some of them to spread.

Now anyone who has half an ear knows that there is absolute validity to the fact that original digital audio was pretty harsh and unlifelike as compared to analog recordings. For this site "snopes" to claim that digital having sonic issues was just "Snobbery" is in itself a complete lack of scientific and groundless basis.    And introduced by a small but fervent group of audiophiles? YEA RIGHT!   Actually most audiophiles realize that the first digital systems were pretty meager sounding, not a fervent few! If digital didn't have problems, why have all the studios spent millions of dollars upgrading their dacs over the years? Is the whole audiophile world crazy to be spending thousands of dollars constantly updating their digital front ends. Is it all hysteria or could it be that digital had some serious issues that needed to be resolved? Is the whole high end reviewer community (over 100 professional high end audio reviewers at last count) crazy too?  

IMHO snopes haven't done their homework here, and obviously think we are all hearing things due to our inflated egos!  

As far as the green ink on CD's goes, it's a veeeeeery minor improvement that I've only heard on an extremely high end system ($15k digital with another $80k+ electronics and speakers). Our test was a true double blind comparison though, with two identical CD's (one marked and one NOT marked) in a five disc high end transport changer. No one but the monitor knew which CD was playing at any time. He kept a tally of correct identifications. The listeners could go back and forth between each CD as much as they wanted not knowing which was which. I managed to get a 85% correct identification, but only after switching between the two CD's back and forth for over an hour. Like I said before, this is an extremely minor tweak that requires a very high resolution system to even notice. Even then it's dubious. As for the prior snopes link I think those guys mean well but need to wake up and smell the tweeters!  

[nathanm]

I painted red veins on the top of a CD once with acrylic paint because I thought it was too boring looking, but it still sounded the same as far as I could tell.

If painting the edges of CDs green was so beneficial to the sound why aren't the record labels doing it for us?  Cripes, we're paying enough for 'em!

[thetruth]

When used on high resolution systems either the CD Stoplight pen or the long discontinued Navcom rings created a more life-like or realistic sound from CD's. And oddly enough the output from the CDP is higher when these tweaks are used.

[tmd]

Although not a green marker, I have heard a before and after of the same CD which had the center of it lightly sanded to take the shine off it and it was a noticeable improvement over the non sanded one. It was on a Norh CD-1 with a fairly basic amp and the baby Oskars.
I haven't tried it myself but now that it has come up, I will now.
The other tweak I have heard about to improve pickup was to put a green (I think) LED into the transport and point it up at the disk near the pickup. I didn't hear this one but it is easy enough to try so I will try it sometime soon too.
Neil.

[Rob Babcock]

I'm not saying you're wrong, Ehider, but you use one pretty silly arguement:  analog and LP fans have spent millions constantly upgrading their 'tables, carts, and front ends, too.  I don't think that makes the format flawed, I think that's pretty much the definition of an audiophile!

[Jig_Anon]

When used on high resolution systems either the CD Stoplight pen or the long discontinued Navcom rings created a more life-like or realistic sound from CD's. And oddly enough the output from the CDP is higher when these tweaks are used.

I think this has to be included in one of those silly museums where we realize later that the idea was crazy.  How will a green marker turn a "1" into a better "1".  I think the improvement is closer to a "0".  While snopes may not have covered the full breadth of digital audio technology over time - he did hit on the major point that the green marker ring is bogus.  While the sampling frequency/timing may have drifted due to poor technology in the past - the times are improving.  I think Snopes hit on a nerve here - he has some very valid points.  Not to throw myself into the flames - just want to offer my input.

[hoxuanduc]

OK. I admit it. I use the $2 black magic marker from OfficeMax originally designed for writing on cartons.  I also $0.50 sand the inner & outer edge of tge CDs with the sandpaper originally designed for removing paint & rust.  I also use the Mapleshade Micromooth & Optrix stuff.

I thought I heard an improvement (subtle, but more there, more life like).  My wife did too.  We have multiple copies of the same CD, and we tried on several CDs.  The bad ones were improved the most.  We sorted of doing a blind test.  I switched, my wife compared.

So once in a while when I'm bored I take out the black magic marker...

[Xi-Trum]

Ok.  We're talking.  I happen to have two original copies of the same CD.  I have some black permanent marker around.  Since the idea is to cut down reflection, black would be the best color (if it can be called a color since black is the absence of color) to use in theory.  (Remember "black body absorption" in HS physics?!  )  I'm up for this test.  Will try it an report back.  

[audioengr]

An acquaintance of mine, Brad Judah showed me a number of tricks, which all have an effect.  The changes are so subtle that it is difficult to say whether it is better or worse.  Here they are (and I would encourage all to try them for kicks and report back):

1) Blue-green marker on inner and outer edges of disk
2) Bevel the outer edge to ~30-45 degrees (they sell tools for this)
3) Use Cleaning/coating agent on the surface - much like multicoating lenses
4) Apply strong fluorescent light to pitted surface for 2 minutes before playing - use 100W equiv. small fluorescent light - this does not last for long, but long enough for one play at least

Have fun!

[JoshK]

I know something that would have a much bigger effect than any of that....

[House de Kris]

I'll admit that I used to think this could have no effect at all.  In an effort to appear open minded, I asked one of the members of my local audiophile society to demo the green pen thing for me.  He was more than happy to show the more technically inclined the real beauty of music.  He has a VERY nice system where one of the primary thrusts is in resolution.  One of the CDs I brought along was a Tori Amos disk.  He happen to have the same one in house, borrowed from a friend.  We decided to keep the friend's copy pristine and modify mine.  This is where we made our first mistake.  We never listened to both of them unadulterated to ensure they sounded identical before starting.  Any way, he green penned my disc and sprayed Optrix on it.  Not only that, we also did the Bedini demag thing to both discs.  We listened to both discs back and for (non-blind) to see if we thought there was any difference between the two.  I could hear a substantial difference with a song called "Baker Baker."  In the first three seconds of that song, I felt I could identify the treated vs non-treated disc before Tori finished with the first 'baker.'  After figuring out what to listen for, I told my friend to randomly put in discs while I stared at the floor.  I was able to identify the green pen/optrix disc EVERY time.

I left shaking my head saying I never expected to be able to hear this so dramatically.  My friend was proud to have helped educate another individual out of the unwashed masses.  What I never told him was that although the treated disc did indeed sound different, different isn't always better.  In fact, the green pen/optrix disc was inferior to the unmodded disc, in my opinion.  Unfortuantely, I don't know if this change of sound was due to green pen or the Optrix or both.  After hearing a green penned disc, I know I would never do that to my music.

When I got home I compared my freshly greened Tori disc to a CDR I had burned earlier of this song, which is part of my system evaluation disc.  I heard the same differences here.  In other words, my penned disc still sounded inferior to the copy leading me to believe the copy was probably pretty close to the original.  Then I burned another CDR of the same song with the green penned disc as the source.  Luckily, the copy did not retain any of the grunge I heard on the green penned disc.  Both copies sounded identical to each other, and different from the mucked up disc with green all over it.

Honestly, I am STILL surprised I was able to hear such a difference, or any difference at all.  I can't explain it, but it is nice to keep an open mind.