I'm on Fred's side that damping can improve the performance of a CD player. Especially when you consider how a laser in a CDP reads information off a CD.I'd also though that CD being a digital media would have its content read digitally (ie. reading 1's and 0's off the disk). But that's not true at all. The track on a CD consists of pits of various lengths and the laser reads the distance between the lips of each pit, which then is converted into a digital signal. To repeat, it does not COUNT and READ a series of 1's and 0's, but rather a physical distance between markers on a disk.
Considering how cheap the laser and plastic lens are in a typical CDP, it makes you question how accurate CDP reads content on a CD. Any unnecessary vibration has the potential to mess up this reading process to create a playback that is even lower in resolution.
Gar.