Sharpies are at least useful; Tice, not so much.
I was just smack-talking when I referenced the "
Sharpies"; only because
@Sal1950 made the [valid] point about:
Another famous scam that was around for at least as long was CD Stoplight. The green marker pen you colored the edge of you optical discs with and made the waters part in sound quality.
During the early days of CD-Recordables; there were two different formulations for them. In bulk spindles (25/50/100 each), the cheap variety cost about $1.00USD and the 'gold' versions were going for about $2.50/ea.
A very early HP CD-burner ($850USD@1X speed) for PCs had issues playing back recordings it made when using the cheaper CDRs.
I don't know what kind of Kool-Aid we were drinking in that era but we certainly noticed that the cheaper-CDRs played better when we used
Sharpies to block 'scattering light from the edge of the CDs.
We had even done a test -- where we burned music on 3 of the same cheap-CDRs -- I think it was FleetwodMac/Rumors album.
Using 3 different color (Red/Blue/Black)
Sharpies, our testing [for some reason] showed us that the color BLUE
Sharpie'd edge of one CDR had less problems tracking and being able to read the disc.
We shrugged it off (as to why and as inconclusive) since within the next 6 months the CD recordable/burner markets had matured enough that the HP burner was replaced by a SCSI version at 8X-speed and for under $300.
NO! We never bought that "CD Spotlight" solution but we may still have been tightwad-audiophools thinking BLUE
Sharpies as our temporary savior.