Remember the controversy over painting the edges of CDs with green felt-tip pens? The aim was to improve sound quality by absorbing stray red laser reflections that might cause jitter in the data read from the disc. Sony’s audio division in Japan is now backing an intriguing project which tests the theory.
A batch of new SACDs from Sony Music has green labels. This is not "green" to help the environment; it’s to help audio quality by lightening the burden on the servo mechanism for the player’s tracking head and to introduce fewer errors for the player’s error correction to handle.
Sony UK’s audio guru, Eric Kingdon, was demonstrating a high-end Sony system at IFA in Berlin, using a green label SACD version of the L.A. Allstars (Birdland: XSCL-10004).
Other green label SACDs include the L.A. Allstars "Afro Blue" (XSCL-10005); Sacred Rhythm of Bali (XSCL-10007); Masayoshi Takanaka "The Man With The Guitar" (XSCL-10006); Allan Holdsworth "All night wrong" (XSCP-1000); and Emi Fujita "Camomile Best Audio" (PCCA-60019 from Pony Canyon).
The project was inspired by Sony’s Japanese audio engineers Takashi Kanai and Motoyuki Sugiura.
Sugiura has compared the new green label SACDs with the original SACDs of around five years ago and finds the difference "amazing."
Sony plans public demonstrations at audio shows so that interested consumers can judge for themselves.







