14 DAY TRIAL // One would think that CD players would be a thing of the past at this point, but that is not so. There are still home stereo CD players on sale, even unusual ones like the CD 1 from Parasound.
CD 1 is a standalone CD player that reads a disk multiple times during playback in order to find and eliminate errors.
That way, there won't be any stutter or unfortunate buzzing or other sound imperfections while a tune is playing.
Parasound either took the concept from the EAC (Exact Audio Copy) software or came up with something similar by coincidence.
EAC was very popular back when converting CD-quality tracks to MP3 was common: the CD 1 spins the disk four times as fast as normal, comparing the extra readings for discrepancies.
If the readings match, it means that no problems were found. If they don't, the readings will keep happening until they do.
To prevent the song being played from skipping, the CD Player has a 30-second RAM buffer.
In the rare cases where the CD 1 can't find a perfect match, the device will go one step further and perform a detailed sample-by-sample analysis.
When the bad section is found, the player uses built-in software to correct it. Somehow. Needless to say, no one can accuse Parasound of not being thorough.
Unfortunately, the price of $4,500 is bound to put people off. Had this been a Blu-ray or DVD drive, the idea may have been sold easier, but it is not.
Not all is lost though. While Parasound is unlikely to score many sales, the technology should be possible to adapt to larger-capacity disks. Perhaps the company will even unveil a version that can correct videos at some point. It would certainly make the price seem less ludicrous, though not by much.