http://www.plextor.be/English/pdf/PlextorVariRec.pdf

Topic edited...

haha

I've got some more information about that:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news2.php3?ID=3273

it's similar to yamaha's AUDIOMASTER technology which was created to let the home use make audio cds which are as good as cds you buy. but audiomaster writes bigger pits on the cdrs and so you don't have 74mins recording time but something like 64minutes. withvarirec you have 74mins recording time and the advantages of the technologie.

Varirec and Audiomaster are different.
Varirec allows you to change the power of the laser. If we suppose it is wrong, you can set it right after some trial and error. If it is right from the beginning, you can't improve anything.
Yamaha audio master records the CD at a faster speed : 1.4 m/s instead of 1.2, making longer marks on it. It improves the readability of the data even if it was optimal at the beginning.

The "improvement" on audio CD has never been proven.
The problem with this kind of improvements is that they are so little that they can't be measured : no distortion removed, no change in the frequency response... nothing that an oscilloscope can measure (the oscillo pictures showed by Yamaha are not measurments on the sound, but on the pit/land shape on the CD). The human ear is supposed to be the only device in the universe capable of making the difference.

However, any tests comduces in a scientific manner, that is ABX blind test, has failed : people claiming to hear a non measurable difference always failed to hear it once the source is hidden.

The story of the black and the white speaker is famous : a manufacturer made two sets of the same speaker. Not only were they the same model, but the components of the filters and the speakers have been chosen in order to have exactly the same response.
One set was paint in white, the other in black, and people were asked which one sounded better.
Most people answered that the black speaker had a darker sound (some answered they couldn't hear a difference).

These psychological effects disappear in ABX tests, as the sources are hidden.

ABX is the worst thing an audiophile can experience. Lately I again recorded the analog output of my CD Player in my computer. The DAC outside the computer plays CD in direct digital from the souncard. It is supposed to sound better than the CD Player. I had already failed to recognize the wav ripped from the CD from the analog copy in ABX once (the copy of the CD Player must sound even worse than the CD Player itself).

This time, I found a CD on which the difference was clear. I ran the ABX test again. I was SURE I had all responses right. I HEARD the difference. Sometime I had to concentrate for several seconds, but at the end, the difference always came to my ears.

Results : 4/8 = all wrong.

And I know the program works, I've abxed Vinyl from CD several times 16/16.

Now I don't even trust myself when I can hear a difference. The latest test was vinyl turntable on 60 kg stone vs same turntable on empty box. I recorded both... sometimes the recording sound very different, sometimes no difference is audible. Sometimes one sound better sometimes the other... it is only a matter of awareness, there is no correlation between the quality I can hear and the stone under the turntable.

That's why an ABX test is needed for any situation where audible differences are in question : Mp3 vs WAV, 96 kHz vs 44.1, etc... Otherwise, arguing between people hearing the difference and people don't hearing it is just a loss of time.


...and now, how am I going to get this damned stone downstairs ?

I was always under the impression that larger pits and lands would help reduce read errors on home components and mobile CD players. I thought it made sense that Audio Mastering improved the conditions a CD player could read a CD, resulting in less error-correction (artifacts) and skipping.

Is this BS from a technological standpoint?

Its not BS from a technical point of view. However. this does not improve AUDIO QUALITY just READ COMPATIBILITI.

If you cd-drive has no problem reading you cd anyway,then there is no reason that it will improve AUDIO QUALITY itself.

hm but there where more c1 errors when burning with 24x compared to 4x which actually has nothing to do with the varirec feature but if there would be less jitter with varirec it would be nice. i don't think that the sound improves much and actually i don't want that. then i could also apply some eqs or filters. i want to stay original.

btw: is varirec 0 the same as simple4x ?

what would you adivice me to chose ? simple 4x, varirec0 or higher speeds ?

For home components, yes it seems.
I know three tests : Oliver Friedman tested the SPDIF output of a Sony CD Player with a pressed CD against the wav extracte by EAC. One error in 74 minutes. That is 0.0002 errors per second.
Bob Katz (http://www.digido.com ) made listening tests with CDRs vs pressed CDs (he states that there is an audible difference), and checked that the bad sounding copies were completely error free.
I tested the Yamaha CDX860 SPDIF output against ripped wav from 8 minutes of pressed CD and 4 minutes of 24x burned CDR. Zero errors.

So it can't reduce the error rate since it is already null.

However, for players unable to read CDRs, this can help. Mobile players are often very picky on the media, and this can help too. And maybe with these devices, or in bad conditions, there can be some errors. But it is not related to audiophile quality. In these cases, the CD just won't play, or will skip.

Pio - can i quote Your statement every now and then ? or put it in my sig' ?

If a device is capable of reading with Accurate Stream, it means jitter zero; larger pits won't do anything then .

No, there is jitter and jitter.

A jitter error is an error positioning the head, the wrong block is read instead of the good one. It is detected comparing the copy to a reference file.

Jitter reduced by AudioMaster is the variation of the lenght of pits and land around each of the average 9 allowed values. It is measured with an oscilloscope on the RF signal. Most of the time, it doesn't produce any read error, exept when it gets insanely high.

Of course. Have fun.