I'll start:

Mike Oldfield --- Music of the Spheres (nothing new but nice to listen to)
Grayson Capps --- Songbones
Lizz Wright --- The Orchard
Jazz Vocalists:Here and Now --- compilation

I'm still trying to figure out how he kept a straight face while telling us about it.

• CD pen
  
• Other super-duper audiophile gadgets

a) Clean the disk
b) Wonder what was wrong with my CD player

Not all players are made the same, and it is possible to test them. The idea is that by controlling the media, errors can be introduced until at some point they are a) noticeable and b) cause the player to loose sync. Here is a commercial version I did find.

http://www.digital-recordings.com/cdcheck/cdcheck.html

Something that should concern everyone is that apparently a fair number of CD-R's are degrading with time. This is usually not noticed when 'data' is saved because of a much deeper level of error correction. On the other hand, audio tracks have far less error correction.

Original CD's will also age. Look carefully at a favorite CD that has been baked in the car for a few summers. It probably has a lot of extra and sometimes quite big holes in the metal. Hold it up to the light...

Keith Larson