Honestly...What's the Best Way to Clean a CD?

I use the dish-soap method with excellent results; no scratches. My problem is that some of my rarely played CD's can start to grow small spots of mold/fungus that need to be removed. How can mold grow on a CD? Must be a digital fungus.
 
Let me simplify this for you, as I consider myself an expert in saving discs others would toss.

Half Price Book Store routinely has extremely desirable discs, but most are beat to hell. Hardest to fix was Queen "A Kind Of Magic" with scratches in circular pattern (hit something on the tray, I guess)

My method is always the same -

1) Wash with a fingertips worth of Dawn, gently passing under the water to lubricate, and spread. Rinse off, dry.

2) Use one of the manually operated disc buffing systems, here's the one I use -

s-l300.jpg


SPRITZ the surface of the non-labeled part of the cd WHILE ON THE SPINDLE, by using distilled water in a cheap spray bottle (any walgreens, etc, about 3 bucks)

Make about 5 passes, which manually DOES take awhile. Once done, remove from spindle, and use the enclosed piece of wooly fabric to buff. Sit back, watch some TV, because the MORE YOU DO THIS BUFFING, the better the results.

For exceptionally difficult discs, I use Meguiar's PlasticX, which is a mildly abrasive polish. Even, smooth motions, just like if you were buffing your car.

FINALLY, I use a spray-on wax like Liquid Ice, which helps the laser get to the data.

This has worked for me countless times. Essentially, you're looking for the laser to pass thru unobstructed.

IF YOU HAVE LABEL MISSING (by holding up to the light) then you're effed. Laser passes right thru. Small tiny holes can be somewhat mitigated with a silver paint pen.

Oh, the Queen cd?? It now plays all the way thru, with minor hiccuping in the 5th track, but not too bad. Was unplayable before.

GOOD LUCK!!!!
 
zebra03 said:
A hot sink full of water with a little soap . I hand wash them and dry with a soft towel .
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So, basically, the method I use for cleaning my vinyl (I do it a bit different, where I lay the record down on a towel beside the sink and wash it on that, using the soapy sponge to wash around the direction of the grooves)...

Like I said, this didn't really seem to get surface blemishes out, but I'll give it another whirl...

Do you clean and wipe from the inner ring outward, as you're supposed to with CD?
 
cpt_paranoia said:
For fingerprints, I use a microfibre glass polishing cloth, and simply breathe on the disc to leave a little misting, and wipe with radial strokes.

If the disc is very dirty, I wet it, use a drop of detergent hand wash, and use my fingers to spread and clean. Then rinse, shake, and finish with the microfibre cloth.

I've done this with hundreds of secondhand discs.

Make sure there is no grit on the cloth...
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Thanks CPT...

Seems this is the preferred method here; it's very similar to how I clean my LPs and singles.
 
mgosdin said:
It probably will work, the thing is that LCD screen cleaner is designed to work with a clear plastic surface ( the LCD ) similar to the playing surface of a CD. There is usually an included cloth with the cleaning kit, use it and no other cloth not even microfiber.

Seemingly clean Soft cloths, Microfiber cloths and even single use Lens cloths all can get "grit" from the CD's surface embedded in them and that can cause additional scratching. The kit cloths are made to avoid that.

Fortunately the CD playback or ripping process is quite tolerant of minor scratching. Out of 600+ Thrift Store CD's I've only had to trash less than a double handful due to scratches / skipping.

Mark Gosdin
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Thanks Mark.

I actually don't have any cloth that came with the screen cleaning fluid; can I use something perhaps like the cloths I dry my vinyl with as a substitute?

As for the scratching causing issues to the point discs can't be played back, that hasn't been a problem; if anything, a couple of discs in my collection do the occasional skip or "hang up," but I'm not sure this was due to old damage from neglect on my part (I used to take CDs EVERYWHERE...the car, home, other people's houses and cars, as I suspect everyone did "back in the day," but now I listen at home almost exclusively, trying to really sit down with some old music/discs and rediscover them in my home hi fi system) or from new scratches put in from my subpar cleaning methods...:eek::confused::crazy:

Some discs, off the top of my head, that exhibit these skip/hang-up issues include Def Leppard: Rock Of Ages: The Definitive Collection, Pet Shop Boys: Discography and Madonna: The Immaculate Collection...
 
transmaster said:
The one thing you need to.understand is the quality of State side recorded CD disc's have gone way down over the years. I purchase a fair number of CD's from Japan and the difference is striking. Jspanese pressed CD's are thicker and much stiffer than domestic ones. Japanese CD are like the earliest State side CD's I have from the late 1980's.

I use the soap and water technique Using a natural bristle super soft tooth brush to lightly scrub them.. Very important it must be natural bristle, anything else can scratch the protective layer on a CD. Here is the trick for drying, first rinse the CD in tap water to get the soap off finally rinse them in distilled water and them air dry. Make sure the distilled water you get is distilled and not D-ionized.
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Thanks Trans.

I'm mostly referring to discs in my collection that are older; and, as I have been saying, I'm not sure if the damages I'm experiencing are from mishandling over the years or from damages I put in recently from attempting to clean them a certain way...

But I appreciate the breakdown you provided about the quality of CDs and such.

As for your soap and water cleaning method, do you really recommend they air dry? Wouldn't this leave spots on the disc? I don't air dry my vinyl when I clean it, instead rubbing gently in the direction of the grooves with a cloth until the grooves are pretty much dry...
 
JoeESP9 said:
I have one of those although I rarely use it. Perhaps I should sell it on my local CL.

IME most dirty CD's and DVD/Blu-Ray disks respond well to just about any non abrasive household cleaner and a Micro Fiber cloth.

For really scratched and cloudy CD and DVD/Blu-Ray disks I use Flitz metal polish.
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When you say any non-abrasive household cleaner, would a foaming glass cleaner or eyeglass cleaning solution count?
 
AnzacSonata said:
When you say any non-abrasive household cleaner, would a foaming glass cleaner or eyeglass cleaning solution count?
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I think you should be very careful what solution you clean your cd with. Many years ago, before I learned better, I used windex, or something similar, to help remove fingerprints, or something, from the printed side of the disc. It removed the coating from the disc.
 
Donal64 said:
I think you should be very careful what solution you clean your cd with. Many years ago, before I learned better, I used windex, or something similar, to help remove fingerprints, or something, from the printed side of the disc. It removed the coating from the disc.
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I've bought almost 2000 used CDs in the past year. I shop thrifts, but I get my best deals from a used CD/book store in town. The badly scratched CDs can go for 5 cents.

I reject very few discs when I inspect before buying. I don't mind scratched surfaces, provided they are not circular. Circular scratches typically cover too much of the track to allow an error free read. Circular pits or spots are also problematic. I love buying discs that an owner with hygiene issues. The surface gunk cleans off easily.

I rip all CDs, typically 40 to 60 at a time. I don't have the time to wash CDs in the sink.

If the CD is not too bad, I use a large microfiber cloth. This is the smooth microfiber, such as you get with optics, not the terri cloth-like clothes. I place the cloth flat in one palm and the disc in the other palm. I rub my hands together with an orbital motion while using a lot of pressure. I do this for about 10 to 15 seconds, long enough to feel the disc get warm. If the disk is very scratched, I may rub for twice as long. The orbital motion with the microfiber cloth polishes the disc surface. If the surface is dirty, I apply a light spritz of LCD/LED display cleaner first, and then polish the surface.

Using this technique, about 1% of my discs have read errors that impact ripping. It is rare that a second cleaning/polishing helps.
 
AnzacSonata said:
So, basically, the method I use for cleaning my vinyl (I do it a bit different, where I lay the record down on a towel beside the sink and wash it on that, using the soapy sponge to wash around the direction of the grooves)...

Like I said, this didn't really seem to get surface blemishes out, but I'll give it another whirl...

Do you clean and wipe from the inner ring outward, as you're supposed to with CD?
Click to expand...
I get it sudsy and just use my fingers any ol way .
 
zebra03 said:
I get it sudsy and just use my fingers any ol way .
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You don't think this is dangerous in that, first of all, you're possibly adding to the oils you're trying to get OFF, and secondly that you're not supposed to clean a disc, from my understanding, in the way you would an LP (that is, with a CD you're supposed to wipe/clean from the INNER ring OUTWARDS towards the edge)?
 
mgosdin said:
I've bought a fairly large number of Thrift Store CD's over the past 5 years, some 600+, and while I examine the disk's playing surface while in the store, rejecting those with obvious excessive damage, there are still many that need cleaning of dirt, dust and grime / fingerprints.

At first, like you, I was stymied as to how to get the playing surface clear of contaminants. Then as an experiment I tried a bottle of LCD Screen cleaner that I had ( ahem, Monster branded ). Followed their instructions and sprayed the cleaning cloth it came with, then used the Center Out in Straight Lines method on the disk. It worked, removed all the junk and did not leave any additional scratches.

So, I'm into my third bottle of the stuff. I do wash out the cleaning cloth every so often and am satisfied with the results.

Mark Gosdin
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Mark,

As a little bit of an update: I tried using the screen cleaner I have from Office Depot on my CD of The Very Best Pat Benetar Album Ever, and again I noticed tiny surface abrasions/scratches on the disc when I was done, no matter how many times I cleaned it...

I haven't taken the disc out of my Marantz changer yet to see if there are any residual smudges or anything, but in general, is it possible that all CDs that have been used at some point will have minor surface abrasions/scratches, even if they're not deep or interrupting playback? Is this just scratching on a sort of "surface layer" of the discs?
 
RTally said:
I've bought almost 2000 used CDs in the past year. I shop thrifts, but I get my best deals from a used CD/book store in town. The badly scratched CDs can go for 5 cents.

I reject very few discs when I inspect before buying. I don't mind scratched surfaces, provided they are not circular. Circular scratches typically cover too much of the track to allow an error free read. Circular pits or spots are also problematic. I love buying discs that an owner with hygiene issues. The surface gunk cleans off easily.

I rip all CDs, typically 40 to 60 at a time. I don't have the time to wash CDs in the sink.

If the CD is not too bad, I use a large microfiber cloth. This is the smooth microfiber, such as you get with optics, not the terri cloth-like clothes. I place the cloth flat in one palm and the disc in the other palm. I rub my hands together with an orbital motion while using a lot of pressure. I do this for about 10 to 15 seconds, long enough to feel the disc get warm. If the disk is very scratched, I may rub for twice as long. The orbital motion with the microfiber cloth polishes the disc surface. If the surface is dirty, I apply a light spritz of LCD/LED display cleaner first, and then polish the surface.

Using this technique, about 1% of my discs have read errors that impact ripping. It is rare that a second cleaning/polishing helps.
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Thanks Tally.

Interesting that you brought up the LCD cleaner, as that's what Mark and I have been talking about, and what I tried last night on a Pat Benetar disc of mine. It seemed to get the CD clean, but there were still some almost microscopic-level scratches on the surface level, though these did not hamper playback at all...

That brings me to a question I just posed in my previous post: You mentioned that you don't mind "scratched surfaces" so long as they are not "circular" -- most of my discs (mainly from personal mishandling, I'd say, unless they were used) exhibit these light surface marks, but for the most part don't impact playback. Should I just assume that many played CDs are just going to have some scratch marks like this, and that cleaning them with these chemicals we're talking about here (even soap) won't necessarily remove them? So long as they're not deep and circular, as you mention, should it just be assumed that CDs are going to have these surface abrasions (well, I mean those that aren't brand new)?
 
AnzacSonata said:
Thanks Tally.

Interesting that you brought up the LCD cleaner, as that's what Mark and I have been talking about, and what I tried last night on a Pat Benetar disc of mine. It seemed to get the CD clean, but there were still some almost microscopic-level scratches on the surface level, though these did not hamper playback at all...
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That is only half of it. What are you using as a cloth? Using a magnifying glass, I do not see any new scratches from my cleaning method. After I polish the surface, it is typically like a mirror with some scratches that are too deep to polish out.

AnzacSonata said:
That brings me to a question I just posed in my previous post: You mentioned that you don't mind "scratched surfaces" so long as they are not "circular" -- most of my discs (mainly from personal mishandling, I'd say, unless they were used) exhibit these light surface marks, but for the most part don't impact playback. Should I just assume that many played CDs are just going to have some scratch marks like this, and that cleaning them with these chemicals we're talking about here (even soap) won't necessarily remove them? So long as they're not deep and circular, as you mention, should it just be assumed that CDs are going to have these surface abrasions (well, I mean those that aren't brand new)?
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Light surface scratches and scratches that go between the center and the outside rim rarely cause me problems. A robust CD drive has error correction that accommodates most scratches. But circular scratches that are centered on the CD are almost always fatal, if they are on the part of the CD where music is stored. If they are close to the rim, unless the CD holds 70 minutes of music, they are fine. A typical album only uses the part of the CD that extends about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way from the center of the disc. You can sometimes see where the music stops if you look carefully.

The easiest way to not be bothered with CD scratches is to rip the CD and then store it.

The real test is does your player play them? I rip my CDs so I get a report of errors detected by the driver. For many of the tracks that have reported errors, I cannot detect any audible defect. When my CD drive encounters a fatal error, ripping grinds to a halt. Based on the log file from my ripping software, I can pinpoint where on the disk the problem lies. Typically it is a circular scratch, a hole in the label side, or some other major, visible defect.

Cleaning will not remove scratches. Cleaning removes surface dirt and debris. If you handle your discs properly, they should rarely, if ever, need cleaning. You need to polish the surface to remove scratches. That is not easy to do because most scratches are deeper than polishing can remove. I have CDs that I bought when CDs first came out in the 80's. I have never cleaned them. I am careful not to let the disc slide across the drawer when inserting and removing it. I move it vertically, not horizontally.

If your disc plays without skipping, I would ignore what the disc looks like. The more you handle a disc, even to clean it, the more likely you are to cause problems.
 
AnzacSonata said:
You don't think this is dangerous in that, first of all, you're possibly adding to the oils you're trying to get OFF, and secondly that you're not supposed to clean a disc, from my understanding, in the way you would an LP (that is, with a CD you're supposed to wipe/clean from the INNER ring OUTWARDS towards the edge)?
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No, it really isn't 'dangerous'. Your fingers cannot excrete body oil faster than the detergent will remove it. The disc will come out beautifully clean.

Unless your fingers are incredibly calloused, or embedded with grit or swarf, really, it doesn't matter how you rub the disc whilst washing. Just be gentle, and let the detergent and warm water do their job.

CDs and LPs are very different. A cd does not have a groove that you need to flush out. What it does have is an error protection system that is vulnerable to circumferential scratches. So, if you are polishing or wiping, you need to wipe radially, from centre to circumference. But if you use a clean microfibre cloth (as mentioned above, the suede finish type, not the terry towel type), you really shouldn't add any scratches. If you do, you have grit or other hard contaminant on the cloth.

Don't muck about too much with the label side; that doesn't need to be clean, and it's actually the side that has the fragile lacquer coating; the playing side is moulded polycarbonate.
 
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