Tips for a Better Music Experience

CD’s or Compact Discs is the darling of the new digital age.You can hear better, more clearer audio than old cassette technology.But are CD’s really that good, despite all the digital hip hop surrounding them?

CD’s are digital, they work on 1 and 0’s, unlike older analog technologies, such as audio cassettes.

CD’s mortal enemy number 1 — Reliability.

How many times have you bought an audio cd, or dvd, and you have scratched it and it doesn’t work? For me, a lot of times.Have you heard of audio cassettes having scratches, or not working after a few days or months because of this annoying problem?

The Audio Cassette Advantage — Reliability

According to Wikipedia, CD’s gained ground over cassettes, but slowly in the car market as “Cassettes and their players were typically more rugged and resistant to dust, heat and shocks than the main digital competitor (the CD)”(source:Wikipedia)

Inside the Audio Cassette. Unlike a CD where it’s exposed to the elements and mishandling, the film in cassettes is inside so it’s more protected against damage.

Think about it

A scratched Disc that doesn’t work, means that:

• You lose money

The whole disc is worthless.You bought the latest disc to find a few months later it doesn’t work due to scratches, and the money you spent is thrown in the bin.

Compare this to older audio cassettes that are still working after years.I know of audio cassettes that still work after decades collecting dust on shelves.

• You end up spending more money.

Yes, you end up throwing your audio disc or dvd and have to buy another one to make up for ‘lost’ property due to scratches.

Scratched Cd.The nightmare of the digital age.(Source:technobuzz)

• You wonder why aren’t manufacturers or cd producers doing nothing about scratches on cd’s

If it’s well known that if cd or dvd’s suffer from a high scratch rate rendering them unusable, why aren’t the people making them doing nothing about the problem and keep making them so consumers like us get the same problem over and over again?

• Why should we left with the burden of not scratching our dics?

Think about it.You see those warning signs on cd’s saying not to touch the reading side of the disc with your hands, and not only that, you have to be CAREFUL, of which surface the CD is put on as it might scratch from anything. Why should we, as consumers of this unreliable technology put with this EXTREME duty of care? Shouldn’t the inventors of the cd’s lift their game and make CD’s non-scratchable? You would think so.

Ways of Improving Reliability on CD’s and DVD’s.

• Technological improvements

In the area of car audio, shock proof cd players, have been produced which feature cd protection, that prevents the shock experienced by cars on the road affecting cd playing, called ‘electronic skip protection’(source wikipedia). You might also seen walkmans or personal cd players used for jogging which feature ’skip free’ protection for cd’s as well.

• Prevention is better than the cure.

Couldn’t agree more.

1. BACKUP.Make sure you backup your cd, just in case it doesn’t work, you can burn another with the same content.
2. Quality. Go for well known, trusted named brands.Gold cd’s are supposed to be better than silver ones, as gold doesn’t oxidise or affected by the elements.

• Get a MP3 player. Instead of cd’s which let you down with their unreliabilty mp3 players play your music without fear of your music tracks being damaged in the future.Make sure you backup mp3 files on your computer.A milestone of the digital age, if you listen to music, a mp3 player saves you the hassle of not having a cd to store music, but in a flash or hard disc storage, like a IPod, or related players.Unlike CD’s these player can store a lot of music files and are easily updated if you want to change your music collection. A must.

MP3 Player. Ipod nano 4th generation. No CD’s, more reliability.

There’s good articles below on how to fix scratched Cd’s.

• How to fix a scratched CD.

• How to Recover scratched Cd’s.