Can the copy sound better than the original?


Ridiculous question on the surface, I know. Here are the particulars:
I burned a copy of Mike Patton's "Mondo Cane" to listen to at work. I played the cd-r to verify that it was functional and it seems to sound significantly better than the original manufactured disc. More cohesive performance, better detail in inner voices, a sense of being in the space with the performers, and soundstage depth that is unusual for this system. Nonsense, right? I will state upfront that I have no affiliation with Memorex whatsoever. The cd-r I burned was a Memorex
"Black" cd-r. The only explanations I can come up with are that a) there was some compression in the transfer into i-tunes b) there is something about the way a laser might read a cd that would cause a typical silver cd to reflect garbage light onto the laser, whereas a black cd has less spurious reflective emission. Anybody else care to try this and confirm/de-bunk my perception?
ths364

Showing 1 response by meiwan

I tried playing CD's on my iMac through a DAC. Didn't sound very good. Burned the CD to the iMac hard drive. Played the burned version and it sounded considerably better.

Lesson, clearly the transport makes a huge difference. The copy is hopefully an exact duplicate of the original, so it's tough to focus on that.

Separately, depending on the recording, a lesser copy may actually sound better if it looses some of the digital hash. Doesn't mean its better, just sounds better.