Hi chaps.

I'm with mndavenport on this, CD treatments do seem to work. Don't know anything about his 'magic fluid', but mine is called RainX. I think it was an article by Doug Blackburn from Soundstage about six years ago that put me onto it.

RainX is an automotive product, designed to be applied to the windscreen. It fills in the tiny imperfections in the glass, making it very slippery. At speeds over 40 mph you no longer need to use the wipers; the water just flows off due to air pressure. The automotive application is not contentious; we know both how it works and that it works.

The audio applications are of course mostly debatable. I maintain it has an audible effect, reducing digital 'glare'. It certainly does make the CD more shiny and reflective, so intuitively since the read mechanism is optical this could have an effect. And doubtless the surface of a CD is at least as irregular as that of a glass windscreen. So I have treated all my dics with this stuff. Last bottle I bought smelt rather of solvents and had 'New Formula' written on it which scared me a bit, but it was still okay for CDs and I've not had any ill-effects.

But, it has another application, as a repair medium. Those of you who rent DVDs will know the process is a lottery, one out of three discs skip because of scratches. This is a drag, back to the shop for another. But RainX cures 90% of such skipping problems, two minutes and the disc is okay, only the very worst scratches cannot be treated. It also protects CDs against scratches, I've 'skidded' a CD face down over a stone floor without damage after treatment.

One note of warning though, if you do rub CDs for any reason make sure you use cotton wool. The pads women use for removing makeup are ideal. Do not use any kind of cloth otherwise you'll cover the disc with very fine scratches and do more harm than good.

As mndavenport says, it costs peanuts so why not try? You can even use RainX on the car if you don't think it works on the CDs wink

Jeremy