( 22 reviews )
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Posted: Jun 19 2009
I previously rated this product "4 stars" after I received a defective unit and could only rate its repair functions. The main reason I purchased this repair kit was for cleaning irreplaceable audiophile CDs. I just received a replacement unit and eagerly tested out its "clean" function on a CD I did not care about. I was horrified to find that the machine put a great many tiny scratches in the CD. I listened to the disc to see if I could detect the player's error correction kicking in and I believe it was. There was a noticeable decrease in bass definition in the track I had previewed before cleaning the CD. Note that this CD had quite a few fingerprints and other contaminants on the surface when I first previewed it. It still sounded better before it ran through a cleaning cycle. I next ran the CD through a repair cycle. Most of the scratches came out and I believe the audio quality returned to normal. Needless to say I won't be using this device to clean CDs. I was unable to change my previous rating of "4 stars", but I am rating the product "2 stars" here. That may be more than it deserves. I thought I read that this product has won some awards a few years back. I must be mistaken. I do not recommend this to any audiophiles out there. If you want to clean up some scratched DVDs, this might work for you. See my other review below. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I found it very difficult to decide which cleaner/repair kit to purchase. Each kit seems to have people who love it and hate it. Also, most reviews were from people who were trying to repair discs rather than clean them. I want mainly to clean CDs to improve sound quality. I hope this review will help you decide whether or not to purchase this device. I have several irreplaceable CDs that I don't want to have chewed up by a machine. I don't have many damaged discs, but I do have several that I wanted to clean thoroughly. Most of the damaged discs I do have only have minor scratches, so the main reason for repairing them would be to prevent my CD player from using error correction when playing them. Several of the reviews I read about this device indicated that the instructions were terrible and that it was difficult to figure out which pads to use for which purpose. The instructions must have been corrected with the latest shipments because I found them to be exceptionally easy to understand. It was very clear what each pad is to be used for. After reading through the instructions, I chose my first CD to clean. "Where You Been" by Dinosaur Jr. seemed a good choice. I purchased that CD with minor scratches on it from a used record store in the early `90s. A few more scratches appeared somehow over the years. Dinosaur Jr. is one of the most under-appreciated bands of the `90s. Well, it's not really a band. It is J. Mascis and a variety of musicians he has recruited at any given time. Anyway, "Where You Been" is a truly excellent album with not a bad song on it. I need to mention that I recently purchased an Oppo DV-980H to replace both my DVD player and my reference CD player. The DV-980H is an excellent player all around - audio quality, picture, and error correction. OPPO DV-980H 1080p Up-Converting Universal DVD Player with HDMI and 7.1CH Audio For the purposes of this review, I have used my old CD player and DVD player that leave something to be desired in the error correction department. Before cleaning my first CD, I listened to it to attempt an A-B comparison of before and after cleaning. There were quite a few skips. I inserted the CD in the cleaner, pushed the "Clean" button, and ... nothing happened. The thing was broken. I pushed the "Repair" button and it started working, but it would not clean. A quick call to Amazon and a new device was on the way. Disappointing, but I decided to proceed with testing the repair functions. As I mentioned, "Where You Been" was pretty scratched up. The audio quality should have improved if I could get rid of the scratches. I initially followed the directions and was less than impressed with the results. The instructions say to run one cycle using the buffing discs and then switch to the repair discs. I followed these directions, but did not like the look of the CD after a single use of the buffing discs. Following the directions also did not adequately repair some skips. The buffing pads make criss-cross arcs between the center of the CD and the outside edge. After some experimentation, I found that three cycles with the buffing pads worked well. I also found that two cycles of the repair pads with three drops of fluid each time worked very nicely to get rid of the criss-cross arcs. I found that it was harder to get rid of the arcs if the buffing pads were used only once. Using them three times seemed to blend the arcs together and smooth them. I should also mention here that this CD had a significant scratch in the first track that this machine could not repair. Because of that, I did quite a bit of experimenting without testing the rest of the CD during the process. It is important to note that this kit will only remove minor surface scratches. Also important is that the inside 1/8" of the disc is not touched at all and the outside 1/4" is touched lightly. Unfortunately for me, one section of my Dinosaur Jr. CD was damaged too badly for this kit to repair. The kit did a nice job of cleaning up the rest of the disc though. Without all the extra scratches, my CD player did not need to use error correction. This was evident by a more clearly defined bass track. This CD will play in my Oppo without any problems. Error correction is only needed at one point in the first track on that player. Now that I had figured out how to use the kit, it was time for another test. As I mentioned, I don't have many scratched CDs. I did have another Dinosaur Jr. CD that I bought used - "Green Mind". This is a sonically poor CD. It was digitally mastered and I suspect that is what caused the problem. It has an MP3 sound to it. It's a shame because it has some decent material on it. (The link is to a remastered version which apparently corrected the audio problems.) In any case, the CD had several surface scratches that I wanted to take out even though they were not causing the CD to skip. This time, I did not follow the directions for the repair kit. I started off by using the buffing pads for three cycles. I played the CD after each cycle and it played fine. (Don't forget to clean off the pads every cycle or two with the included brush.) After three cycles, the CD looked sufficiently buffed, so I followed with two cycles of the repair pads with three drops of fluid each cycle. All the surface scratches were gone. Only one slightly heavier scratch remained. I think the sound was slightly improved, but that is the problem with A-B comparisons. You can't put the scratches and dirt back on to compare again. I did have one DVD that was scratched and wouldn't play right on my old player. It was an irreplaceable copy of "The Fellowship of the Ring". There were two places on the first disc within a minute of each other that were bad. One section was worse than the other. I repeated the same technique as before with three passes of the buffing pads (cleaning between cycles). I tested the DVD after each cycle. After the first cycle the section that was worse got better, but the section that was not as bad became slightly worse. After the second pass the section that was worse was even better, and the problem was completely gone after the third cycle. The section that was not as bad was still bad, however. Next came two cycles of the repair pads as before. The criss-cross arcs did not go away as expected after two cycles on the repair pads. I played the DVD and both problems were completely gone, however. I did one more cycle with the repair pads to try to get rid of the criss-cross arcs, but they still remain. That was a little disappointing, but I guess the important thing is that the problem is fixed. I look forward to testing the cleaning cycle since that is why I bought this thing to begin with, but here are my conclusions so far. This device seems to work. I am sure there are better devices out there, but this one is probably adequate. Good luck with your search. I will either update this or write another review after I receive the replacement unit and have tested the cleaning process. I hoped this helped.
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Posted: Apr 10 2009
After much homework, I decided to purchase the Aleratec 240131 disk repair kit. As recommeded in the owners manual, I progressively moved from cleaning, to light repair, to heavy repair. Although the DVD I was attempting to repair did not appear to be very scratched, it would not play on several DVD players. Once the disk was repaired using the heavy repair, I found it to play perfectly. I am very pleased with the Aleratec kit.
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Posted: Mar 8 2009
I bought this product and followed the instructions. The product did absolutely nothing to repair any scratch on any disk. The buffer does leave marks on the disks, but this too did not repair any scratch. I totally agree with the others who have said this product does not work. I can't imagine how some people claim that it does.
