Why does the copy sound better than the original

Yes, that phenomenon has been reported by many people, and is readily explainable IMO. See this thread and this one.

Regards,
-- Al

Al, what's your readily explainable explanation? Just curious.

Hi Geoff,

There's lots of discussion of that in the threads I linked to above, but I think that a good summary is contained in the following post I made in one of them, in which I quoted some of our particularly knowlegeable members:

10-24-11: Almarg
It does seem to me to be technically plausible that many of these reports could be true (and I would certainly expect Learsfool's perceptions to be accurate), although I would expect the magnitude and character of the differences to be highly dependent on the design of the particular player that is being used (and probably also on the particular media, burner, and burn speed that are used).

From this paper by Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio:

3. Jitter from the pits on a CD:
These are the pits in the CD media that represent the recorded data. Variation in the spacing of these pits result in jitter when reading the data. Commercial CD's created from a glass-master generally have more variation in the locations of the pits than a CD-R written at 1X speed on a good CD-R writer. Even though most modern CD players have buffering of the data to create some tolerance to this jitter, there is usually a PLL (Phase-locked-loop) involved, which is still somewhat susceptible to jitter. To determine if your player is susceptible, it is a simple experiment to re-write or "clone" a CD and then listen for playback differences from the commercial version. For newer players that completely buffer the data at high-speed from a CDROM reader to a memory buffer, this jitter is not an issue.

And some excerpts from this thread:

07-19-11: Shadorne
If a disc wobbles while it spins then this may cause cyclical adjustments to the pick up laser servo and these repetitive draws on power may induce variations in the clock through the power supply.

07-20-11: Kirkus
CD players, transports, and DACs are a menagerie of true mixed-signal design problems, and there are a lot of different noises sources living in close proximity with suceptible circuit nodes. One oft-overlooked source is crosstalk from the disc servomechanism into other parts of the machine . . . analog circuitry, S/PDIF transmitters, PLL clock, etc., which can be dependent on the condition of the disc.... One would be suprised at some of the nasty things that sometimes come up out of the noise floor when the focus and tracking servos suddenly have to work really hard to read the disc.

Also, while I would expect it to generally be a less significant factor than the noise and jitter issues described above, in the case of discs that may have significant scratches or other imperfections, real-time playback in a conventional (non-memory type) CD player may result at times in error interpolation that is not bit perfect. While if that same disc is read by a computer for copying purposes the computer will be able to make multiple attempts to read any data in which errors are detected.

Regards,
-- Al

From my limited experimentation with CD copies, the original CD sounds better than the copy.

Jim, try CD-R's made by Taiyo Yuden (now part of JVC). Also, if you haven't, burn them at a much slower rate than the burn speed they are rated for.

The particular burner you are using could be a factor as well, especially if it is an older generation or has seen a lot of use.

Best regards,
-- Al

Thanks, Jim. Will do, probably tomorrow.

Best regards,
-- Al

Jim (Jea48), I've done my comparison. Consistent with your suggestions as to what kinds of material should be used I've duplicated the following CD's, and compared the particular selections on them that are indicated below:

1)Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3, Hyperion Knight, Pianist; on "Music of Chopin," Wilson Audio WCD-9129.

This is the best sounding CD of solo piano music I have ever heard.

2)"O Mio Babbino Caro," from the opera "Gianni Schicchi," Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Lyric Soprano; on "Puccini's Greatest Hits," RCA MLK 45809.

3)"All The Things You Are," Joan Morris, Mezzo Soprano with William Bolcom, Piano; on "Silver Linings: Songs by Jerome Kern," Arabesque Z6515.

From a musical standpoint, this is IMO the best rendition I have ever heard of this widely recorded old standard. Sonics are excellent, as well.

4)Songs by Rebecca Pidgeon, Sara K., and Ana Caram on "The Ultimate Demonstration Disc," Chesky UD95.

The CD's were duplicated on a home-built Windows-based desktop computer using Asus DRW-2014L1T internal DVD/CD drives, and Nero Burning ROM 7 software. The drives are about 3 years old, and have been used moderately. A verification cycle was performed by the software after burning, and its "ignore read errors" option was deselected. I used Taiyo Yuden CD-R's rated for 52x speed. The drives are rated for 48x speed. Burning was done at 8x speed, which was the slowest available option.

I performed the comparison using both my Daedalus Ulysses speakers, with VAC amplification, and my Stax electrostatic headphones. The CDP is a Bryston BCD-1, and the preamp a Classe CP-60. A lot of the circuitry in the preamp is not in the signal path during headphone listening, because the Stax headphone amp connects to its tape outputs.

I went back and forth between the original and the copy multiple times, to confirm my perceptions. Here's what I heard:

The differences were extremely small, and were perceivable just on certain notes, from time to time. In all cases, however, the original was clearly better than the copy, notwithstanding the subjective nature of "better" Mr. T referred to earlier.

The copies at times added a slight harshness to sibilants. There was also a slight loss of definition in the treble region on piano notes, resulting in a slightly more "tinkly" character. On the Joan Morris recording, her voice sounded very slightly more nasal on the copy.

I did not sense any thinness or loss of body at any time, which you described hearing on copies produced with your equipment.

The bottom line, as I see it: Differences can be expected, and as I said earlier:

I would expect the magnitude and character of the differences to be highly dependent on the design of the particular player that is being used (and probably also on the particular media, burner, and burn speed that are used).

And per the quotes and links I provided earlier, the existence of those differences is technically plausible, and explainable based on concepts that are well recognized in electronic design.

Best regards,
-- Al

12-09-12: Geoffkait
I suppose one might ask, how can you say the differences were "extremely small," just barely perceptible on certain notes, yet in the same breath say the original was "clearly better than the copy." The results do not appear to support such a conclusion at all.

There is no inconsistency there, Geoff. What I was trying to say would have come across more clearly if after the words "clearly better than the copy" I had added the words "upon very careful comparison." And I'll add now that while the differences were small, and a lot of the time there was no difference, ALL of the perceivable differences were in the direction of being better on the original.

Marqmike, thanks very much for the kind compliment.

Regards,
-- Al

One more thing I should add to the description I provided yesterday of the experiment I performed:

While for several reasons I had high confidence that the copies I created contained bit-perfect replicas of the digital data on the original CD's, to be completely certain of that I put one of the tracks I used in the experiment through some software which computed what are known as MD5 checksums of that data.

As expected, the MD5 checksums of the original and the copy matched perfectly, which confirms that all of the approximately 300,000,000 bits of that track were identical on the original and the copy.

Regards,
-- Al

Perhaps you can think of a scientific reason(s) why you heard differences when there were no differences between the data.....

Geoff, I (and also Neil, Nsgarch) already presented exactly those reasons. All of the effects that are discussed in my post in this thread dated 12-2-12, with the exception of the last paragraph, and in the post by Neil dated 12-3-12, have nothing to do with bit errors.

Basically, differences in the physical characteristics of the pits on the disc, and in their spacing, ultimately result in differences in jitter and electrical noise issues. To a greater or lesser extent depending on the design of the particular player, as well as on the particular discs and how they were created.

Regards,
-- Al

12-11-12: Geoffkait
Al, also wanted to confirm you were using the same player for the comparison, since you just mentioned that the design of the player was a variable. I thought it would be nice if we could eliminate that particular variable.

Yes, of course. As I indicated earlier, the CD player was a Bryston BCD-1. No other player was used. Everything else involved in the comparison was absolutely identical throughout the process, also. That includes the rest of the system, as described earlier, the volume setting, and the warmup state of the equipment. Every component in the system that was used had been turned on for upwards of 24 hours, except for the VAC amplifier which was turned on for about 3 hours. I listened to both the originals and the copies several times each, going back and forth between the two. I did that using my Daedalus speakers, and again using my Stax headphones.

Al, but I thought you used one of those fancy CD-Rs for the copy, one with superior jitter characteristics. See, that's what's so puzzling - why you say the copy sounded worse than the original even though a superior low jitter CD-R was used for the copy and the data streams were bit for bit identical. Do you see I mean? Am I missing something?

Yes, I see what you mean, and I too was not anticipating that result. But if the explanations presented or quoted earlier by me, Nsgarch, AudioEngr, Kirkus, and Shadorne are correct, it simply means that this particular player had, putting it in non-technical terms, an "easier" time reading these particular originals than these particular copies, that were produced with my particular drives. The result being less electrical noise coupled into other parts of the player, and less jitter, when the originals were being played.

The Taiyo-Yuden CD-R's are not "fancy," btw. They are conventional CD-R's that seem to be one of the most reliable and highest quality brands. That is based on many anecdotal reports I have seen, and my own experience using them and other brands for non-audio applications.

Jim -- just saw your post, thanks! In fairness, though, while I didn't say that the copies sounded worse, I did say that the originals sounded better, which amounts to the same thing.

Best regards,
-- Al