Greg Davis's answer pretty well sums up the potential reasons why a given CD original may sound worse than a CD-R copy: (1) inherent time based error in the data stream, (2) angle deviation causing the reflected laser beam to deviate from its return path through the objective lens, (3) disc eccentricity, in terms of both deviation from circularity of the pit track and and positioning of the center hole, and (4) variation in pit depth, form, or volume.
Burned CDs can sound better than the original?
I recently heard a rumor that some CD burners can actually produce a CD copy that sounds slighlty better than the original. As an Electrical Enginner, I was very skeptical about this claim, so I called some of my reviewer friends, along with some other "well informed" audiophiles, to verify this crazy claim. Guess what, they all said : "With some particilar burners, the copies do sound slightly better!" I did some investigation to why, after all, how can the copy sound better than the original? So far I've heard everything from "burned CD's are easier to read", to "the jitter is reduced during the buring process". Has anyone else experienced this unbeleivable situation? I'm also interested in other possible explanations to how this slight sonic improvement could be happening.