Untitled Document

Tomorrow's World Institute of Rigorous Testing
Tested By: James Snodgrass

RIGHTING CD WRONGS

ONCE WE HAD VINYL LP's-They sounded alright but once they got scratched it was-you get the point. Then CD's came along, all flash and bravado. Needles? Nah! We've got Lasers, mate. But get a CD scratched and it's like a babble of machine gun fire. So now we have Wipe Out!, a fluid which claims to repair damaged CD's without actually filling in the scratches. Too good to be true? We had to find out!

According to the blurb, Wipe Out! contains three secret main ingredients, a chemical which prepares the surface of the CD by melting a micro layer of it's plastic coating, a micro abrasive which polishes the disc and a hard wax to restore the polished appearance. Our first test was carried out at home on a pair of CD's that had, over their natural lives, become scratched. The fluid was applied as suggested in the instructions, in a firm, circular motion along the scratch until all trace of the fluid had gone. The CD's were then washed with normal CD cleaning fluid to remove any waxy deposits.

And, praise be, it worked. A Stone Roses CD that sputtered through I am the Resurrection was resurrected - as was a CD of Bach that had started to sound like a techno remix.