Would you have asked the same question if you would have auditioned it instead of me ?
The conversation has moved on since I was last here, but, just for the record (or CD) ---
indeed I would. Taking part in threads like this has led me to explore and learn further about sound than I ever did before. I guess that even a few of my own myths (and that means things I was really certain about) have been exploded in that process. They have been replaced, after both learning and observations, with new certainties, like being certain that I hear differences that cannot be there. Equally, I feel disapointed in not being able to hear differences that should be there!
I spent several hours, yesterday, trying to determine if my new phono stage is worth it.
For a start, it is tricky to set up the test with multitrack playback in which one can solo any tack, so change quickly from one to another. One has to normalise the tracks so that there is
no difference in level (louder always sounds better, brighter, deeper fuller, unless it is already too loud).
I have two possible external phono-preamps, a new stand-alone Musical Fidelity V-LPS II, and the pre-amps bult into a small Soundcraft mixer. The mixer is from a "real" mixer company, but is an entry-level. With its array of mic preamps and controls, it probably cost about the same as the single phono-preamp (but should this influence me?) Actually, experience up to now has shown me that Audacity's built in RIAA curve, applied in software, sounds better to me than the Soundcraft's pre-amped output.
All this stuff is childsplay to a studio engineer, but it took me ages to get three tracks, close enough that they sounded to be the same volume, confirmed as far a I knew how with readings, and even longer to get the tracks lined up in time, which is very hard to do accurately, as the three wave forms all look different (a "measurable difference"). How I wished I'd chosen a track with a single prominent scratch! Granted, I laboured at this mostly for fun. A bit of a jump in the audio when changing samples probably wouldn't have mattered.
Then I spent time looking at the tracks as spectrographs (yes, they look different! A measurable difference) and trying, to correlate, from a standpoint of complete prior ignorance, what I was seeing with what I was hearing.
By the end of all this, I had reached no satisfactory conclusion, except that I was fed up and bored with my test track. I took the headphones out of the audio interface, plugged them into analogue out from the mixer (phono-amp in), listened to another track and it blew me away!
Long time ago, a friend and I extended a hobby into a small (so small you'd hardy notice: still more fun than money) business making perfumed cosmetic creams. One of early lessons: you
must label each jar of each batch as you go along, because after an hour of smelling them, you cannot tell the difference between rose and lavender ... and mothballs!
BTW, the question still remains, does the laser read less number of bytes when the CD was not treated with this anti-static box ?
No it doesn't. There's probably a technical term for it among those who know all the [il-]logical arguments, but the question does not even arise. You do not have any data whatsoever about the number of bits read before or after, or whether they included any errors. Certainly ears do not count bits ...although they may notice a missing byte or two!
If you want to do this experiment, you should read the data into a file, before and after, and then compare and analyse the file contents. Does "digital" mean you get the same results from every read? Off a properly functioning HDD,
yes: Off a CD, perhaps not; perhaps a speck of dust could make the difference.
There are many parameters which exists in music but cannot be measured scientifically,
It's reproduction can be measured. Differences between reproductions can be observed by more than ear.
...for example PRAT, timbral accuracy, coherence. Any of this lacking can make music sound unnatural. You ask me to prove it, I cannot.
I think we should all ask ourselves how much time we spend in the concert hall, or in the studio. Unless the answer is, "a lot," then I think that our very definition of "natural music" is moulded more by
hifi systems than it is by musicians. Remember my remark about the string quartet in your living room?
I remember my first live ballet performance. It was a great dispointment. It looks so graceful and ethereal on the television. The reality is that they are jumping up and down on wooden boards: plenty of thuds and bumps! My view of what ballet, and its music, was supposed to be like, had been formed by TV and recordings: not by the thing itself.
I used to run a 4 Ohm 87 db speaker with that...the sound was enough to mesmerize, but what i missed was resolution 
