The Final Wipe

[Frances_iom]

I saw it for sale in the Pharmacy today.

where ? - might try Maplin when back in UK but didn't see it on shelf at one branch.

[richardfinegold]

where ? - might try Maplin when back in UK but didn't see it on shelf at one branch.

I was at an Osco Pharmacy in Chicago. I asked the clerk to show it to me.
Having just returned from the U.K. And France, I think the U.S. Pharmacies tend to carry more general merchandise. Perhaps items such as these are sold elsewhere in Europe.

[Dave2002]

I was at an Osco Pharmacy in Chicago. I asked the clerk to show it to me.
Having just returned from the U.K. And France, I think the U.S. Pharmacies tend to carry more general merchandise. Perhaps items such as these are sold elsewhere in Europe.

Others have noted that ebay and Maplin in the UK do have isopropyl alcohol.

Re pharmacies in Europe, there isn't always consistency. Some particular creams and medications are not available as OTC products in the UK, while they may be readily available in countries such as Greece or Italy without a prescription. However, the converse is also true for some products which are available without prescription in the UK, which may cause problems for some who travel around Europe who may assume that the same rules apply throughout. They don't!

Knowledgeable travellers stock up in countries they visit.

[umslopogaas]

I have just visited my local hifi man who sells a CD cleaning fluid that contains ethyl alcohol.

I have also found out that the Nespa CD cleaning device I mentioned does not use fluids. Instead it shines an intense blast of light on the disc. The energy is sufficient to soften the lacquer coating, so that any air bubbles are smoothed out. The sound improvement is said to be remarkable. Unfortunately the machines have been withdrawn from sale. The man didnt know why, but thought it might be over health and safety concerns. He was sufficiently impressed by a 'before and after' demonstration to be hunting for a second hand one.

[Gordon]

Intriguing and very curious #34 from usg! Here's what the Russ Andrews site has to say about the Nespa devices [my italics and some of the bold, that is not heading, is mine]:

What is the Nespa Treatment?
Nespa is an optical disc finaliser, recommended to us by customer Gordon Hurden [and who's he anyway? - it's NOT me!!]. The device offers a way of improving the disc by ‘finishing’ the manufacturing process: each newly-made CD and DVD contains gases trapped between the plastic and the reflective metal layer inside the disc. The Nespa is designed to disperse these gases, bonding the metal layer more tightly onto the plastic. [How? If the gas goes away - "disperses" - leaving a void how do the metal and "plastic" get together to bond?]

How does it do it?
The Nespa contains a Xenon lightbulb [why Xenon? - as used in camera flash guns] which flashes a high-intensity broadband light at an inserted disc. [Xenon also emits a lot of heat even though the light is blue-white]. That’s all that’s needed to break up and disperse the gases [where do they go then?] between the reflective layer and the plastic, with the result that your player is able to read the disc more accurately, employing less of its error correction circuitry.

What are the improvements?
We’ve treated very familiar discs and can confirm that the differences are far from subtle – they are huge, like listening to a fresh recording. Detail and soundstage is enhanced, subtle cues are reproduced and the micro-dynamics of recordings emerge from the mix. And the sound is less fatiguing, and more 'vinyl-like'.

[Some of us find vinyl sound fatiguing after a while – all that distortion].

Like the Audio Desk CD sound improver, the Nespa is a must-have device for getting the best from a cherished collection of CDs and DVDs. [If either of these devices is so great why do we need two?]

What are the differences between the two units?
Both Nespa #1 and Nespa Pro offer the same type of treatment – the key difference between the two units are the different intensity of light they output. Nespa #1 outputs 1 million lux - this is 1000 times the illumination [and Heat!] of the sun overhead at noon - so don't ever look at it directly - and this could be a H&S reason why product is withdrawn?; Nespa Pro shines three times that level at the discs. The result is that the Nespa #1 takes longer to treat your CDs than the Nespa Pro (about 2 minutes per disc versus 30 seconds). [IE Although the length of the flashes are not given there are 60 per minute, so once per second. Why flashed and not continuous?]

The second difference is the amount of treatment the different units can offer. Nespa #1 offers a single treatment – 120 flashes over two minutes – while Nespa Pro gives you the option of 30 flashes over 30 seconds, or 60 or 120 flashes. You can repeat the treatment with Nespa #1 if you want to (though we don’t recommend treating a disc more than twice), or simply select a different level of treatment with the Nespa Pro.

We’ve found that the lower level of treatment with both devices is sufficient (and will allow the bulb to last longer).

Can the bulb be replaced?
Yes, when the bulb stops flashing, it can be replaced [£42/bulb].

A mate of mine had one of these but got rid of it because as far as he could hear it made no noticeable difference. However on 2 CDs that were cheap label pop hits bought for 50p at a charity shop one did show a small improvement. The other never played again and the laquer side became slightly discoloured and rough, I suspect heat damage to the metalisation and/or laquer.

If this treatment really is of value you might do just as well by judicious use of a good powerful flashgun and/or an even exposure to soft warmth and bright light? Xenon is a broadband radiator so its light isn't tuned to any feature of the chemistry and physics of a CD. Whatever gas is trapped [several or just one?] it might be better to use a microwave oven effect [a laser] tuned to the molecules of the gas so that only they get heated [how does light shift a molecule except by giving it energy - heat - via quantum effects?] and caused to migrate - but why do they do that - surely heating is involved to generate pressure that will force the pocket out - and where do they go to and how do they get out of the sandwich layers without making holes? If they stay where they are and get "dispersed", thus making a more even distribution, how does this solve the basic problem because some of the adhered metal will be lifted to make room for the dispersed gas? Anyway, why doesn't that gas leech out on its own over time as most gases do? Is CD manufacture that bad? One could envisage variations in production chemistry such that some discs may benefit more than others and some players will be more susceptible to marginal discs than others. So how does one judge the dose? IF heat is involved can one go too far and overdo it?

Given all these unanswered questions and my mate's experience I'd need a much better explanation of what this thing is doing before investing in one, the explanation given is inadequate. I am yet to find anything on the web that exposes these types of defects in CDs. DVDs have much smaller dimensions, and BluRay even more so, with multiple layers as well so, if there is some evidence of gas molecules being trapped then these discs should benefit much more.

BTW the pits of a CD are about 150nM deep tuned to the reading laser at 780nM - a quarter wave so that a round trip will be out of phase for a 1 and in phase for a 0 [or vice versa] - so the gas pockets would have to be quite large to upset this relation especially as the "spot" isn't like a theatre spotlight, as shown in some articles about CD, but is a diffraction pattern.

[Dave2002]

I have just visited my local hifi man who sells a CD cleaning fluid that contains ethyl alcohol.

I have also found out that the Nespa CD cleaning device I mentioned does not use fluids. Instead it shines an intense blast of light on the disc. The energy is sufficient to soften the lacquer coating, so that any air bubbles are smoothed out. The sound improvement is said to be remarkable. Unfortunately the machines have been withdrawn from sale. The man didnt know why, but thought it might be over health and safety concerns. He was sufficiently impressed by a 'before and after' demonstration to be hunting for a second hand one.

Still sounds like "Woo" to me. I can probably sell you some snake oil if you'd like to try that instead!

[umslopogaas]

Who knows? I dont feel that its worth spending money on a machine to clean my CDs, because they look clean enough and play well enough to my ears, but the man I met was very serious that it was worth the money. And if my hifi man is hunting for one, it must be worth having, he knows his stuff. As for your snake oil, exactly from which bit of the snake do you extract it? I've heard bad reports of these products ...

[Gordon]

Who knows? I dont feel that its worth spending money on a machine to clean my CDs, because they look clean enough and play well enough to my ears,

Same here!!

...but the man I met was very serious that it was worth the money.

If he thinks it works then fine, let him buy one!! I have no quarrel with that. IF it works I'd just like to know How and to what extent - as I said up above at some length.

....And if my hifi man is hunting for one, it must be worth having, he knows his stuff.

If he's still business then I'm sure he does know his stuff. But then his business is selling what people [think] they want so of course he'll look for one!!

As for your snake oil, exactly from which bit of the snake do you extract it? I've heard bad reports of these products ...

Well I'm with you there! As long as no snakes are harmed in the process of course....

[richardfinegold]

Others have noted that ebay and Maplin in the UK do have isopropyl alcohol.

Re pharmacies in Europe, there isn't always consistency. Some particular creams and medications are not available as OTC products in the UK, while they may be readily available in countries such as Greece or Italy without a prescription. However, the converse is also true for some products which are available without prescription in the UK, which may cause problems for some who travel around Europe who may assume that the same rules apply throughout. They don't!

Knowledgeable travellers stock up in countries they visit.

It seemed to me that the Pharmacies in London and Paris were tiny by U.S. Standards, because our pharmacies seem to carry a lot of products that are unrelated to Pharmaceuticals. I am sure that these products are routinely available in Europe in other venues.
I remember looking for an ulcer medicine while vacationing in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The "farmacia" was enormous and probably sold every thing that one could possibly buy in Mexico.