Best way to clean my old CD’s

@buellrider97 

Personally, I would not touch the CDs for cleaning unless there is an audible problem.

I found that for problem disks (with heavy fingerprints, etc.) a cheap ultrasonic cleaner made for things like jewelry and glasses can work wonders, if the instructions are followed and it has an adapter for CDs.

For me. the critical instructions are to use warm water and a drop of detergent.  After cleaning ultrasonically for a couple of minutes, rinse under tap water and dry with a microfibre cloth.  Compared with vinyl records, CDs are remarkably forgiving.

Just a reminder that the data layer is just under the label, so that is the side one should be careful not to write on, or to scratch .

I'm with Richard on this , I have never cleaned a CD , unless there was an obvious reason to do so , and they sound no different no matter the number of play. Sit back and listen to the music and don't fret over this. 

@buellrider97 

I agree with those who say leave the CDs alone if they're clean.  If you ever do clean one, it's important that you don't use circular motions, just radial motions with the cleaning cloth.  I have an old Maxell kit that includes a scratch remover, a cleaner and lint-free round cleaning wipes.  You might want to see if you can find one of those.  It actually has worked on audible scratches on a few of my CDs.

I rip my CDs to my NAS with my Melco Optical Device.  I keep the CDs and still play them.  The Melco is very finicky and won’t rip a CD unless it is apparently pristine, even when the same CD will play in all my various players without issue.

Also I have been buying many big box CD reissues.  Many of the individual discs are so tightly enclosed in their sleeves that in order to extracted for their initial playing without destroying the sleeves it’s difficult not to scuff the CD.

  The upshot of this is that I have had to clean a lot of CDs the past few years.  I laid out my preferred cleaners in an earlier post on this thread
 

Detergent based cleaners are bad news.  After applying them both the Melco Optical device and my actual CD players won’t accept the disc until I’ve soaked the disc in warm water for some minutes to remove the gunk.  And detergents are unnecessary when something like isopropyl works so well.  I also find it interesting that some individuals advocate don’t do anything to a CD unless it’s really in bad shape then advocate using an unnecessarily aggressive and potentially deleterious cleaning method.  It’s the proverbial kill a fly with a hand grenade when a fly swatter will do.

I get new CDs that my Esoteric player won't read. One quick clean with Shine Ola.....no issues.