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  #1   Report Post  
Rick Ruskin
 
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Default CD Burner questions

A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?

Thanks in advance.


Rick Ruskin
Lion Dog Music - Seattle WA
http://liondogmusic.com
  #2   Report Post  
Geoff Wood
 
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"Rick Ruskin" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


Considering you can't buy a burner lower than 48x thexe days....

I have greatest success with Plextor Premium and PlexWriter 12/4/32 on most
'real' media types at 12x and 8x respectively.

Burning faster reduces trackability in my particular 'test bed' - Sony car
CD.

geoff


  #3   Report Post  
RD Jones
 
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Geoff Wood wrote:

"Rick Ruskin" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


Considering you can't buy a burner lower than 48x thexe days....

I have greatest success with Plextor Premium and PlexWriter 12/4/32 on most
'real' media types at 12x and 8x respectively.

Burning faster reduces trackability in my particular 'test bed' - Sony car
CD.

geoff


Even my Plextor PX-W4824 seems to produce unreliable
discs at 24x and above. This is with generic unbranded
blanks with the printable surface. So I burn most copies
at 8x or 12x also. The better quality HHB blanks seem
to work OK at higher burn speeds but are overkill for
typical demo (etc.) copies. Any of the recent Plex
48x or 52x burners are what I would recommend.

good luck
rd

  #4   Report Post  
 
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Plextor is the brand most relied on by established studio professionals.

  #5   Report Post  
Alan Rutlidge
 
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wrote in message
ps.com...
Plextor is the brand most relied on by established studio professionals.


Buy reasonable quality media and burn at x 24 or less. The slower the
better without getting ridiculously slow of course. Slower burning
apparently results in better defined pits and lands on the disc surface
which are more easily read by most CD players capable of reading CD-Rs.
This has certainly been my experience when playing CD-Rs in a variety of
players from DVD home players to car CD players and portable players.

Do a Google search on the subject, which I'm sure will reveal a lot more
information.

Cheers,
Alan





  #6   Report Post  
Adrian Tuddenham
 
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Rick Ruskin wrote:

[...]
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


It is very important to get the right media too. Many types of CDRs are
fine in a computer drive but will not play on every audio player - and
some of those that work well on audio players do not last long in
sunlight. It's all down to the dye technology.

In the UK recently there have been a lot of dud CDRs on the market, even
under respected brand names. Hope you don't find the same situation in
the US.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk
  #7   Report Post  
Neon Sound
 
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The previous posters have touched on it, but the most important decision may
actually be what media you buy. It's actually pretty hard to buy a bad CDRW
these days (although still easy to buy a bad DVDRW).

I have often found that some media is far more problematic for consumer CD
players than other media, regardless of the CDRW it is used with.

NS.

"Alan Rutlidge" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ps.com...
Plextor is the brand most relied on by established studio professionals.


Buy reasonable quality media and burn at x 24 or less. The slower the
better without getting ridiculously slow of course. Slower burning
apparently results in better defined pits and lands on the disc surface
which are more easily read by most CD players capable of reading CD-Rs.
This has certainly been my experience when playing CD-Rs in a variety of
players from DVD home players to car CD players and portable players.

Do a Google search on the subject, which I'm sure will reveal a lot more
information.

Cheers,
Alan





  #8   Report Post  
Mike Rivers
 
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Rick Ruskin wrote:
A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


If it's who I think it is for what I think it is, I'd look into one of
the duplicating "towers" that are sold by folks like Diskmakers or
Microboards. They're getting pretty cheap now. While more expensive
than a CD drive for a computer, because you duplicate several disks at
once, they can run at slower speed and still have a pretty good
throughput. Also, it doesn't tie up a computer.

I don't have any specific recommendations, but I've not heard anything
bad about any of the current crop.

  #9   Report Post  
Sune T. B. Nielsen
 
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"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
oups.com...

Rick Ruskin wrote:
A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


If it's who I think it is for what I think it is, I'd look into one of
the duplicating "towers" that are sold by folks like Diskmakers or
Microboards. They're getting pretty cheap now. While more expensive
than a CD drive for a computer, because you duplicate several disks at
once, they can run at slower speed and still have a pretty good
throughput. Also, it doesn't tie up a computer.

I don't have any specific recommendations, but I've not heard anything
bad about any of the current crop.



How do you decide what is good og bad media?
(Before buying and trying them of course)


  #10   Report Post  
Mike Rivers
 
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Sune T. B. Nielsen wrote:

How do you decide what is good og bad media?
(Before buying and trying them of course)


That's how. But if your time is worth anything, you'll start with a
known manufacturer and they'll probably work fine. I use Taiyo Yuden
silver blanks and have never had a failure. They're about $35/hundred
on a spindle. I don't think that's too much to pay for not having to
worry about reliability.

If your volume is in hundreds a week and you insist on keeping your
prices low, you might want to look further to save a few bucks on a
lot. For the rest of us, an extra dime a disk doesn't matter.



  #11   Report Post  
Adrian Tuddenham
 
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Mike Rivers wrote:

Sune T. B. Nielsen wrote:

How do you decide what is good og bad media?
(Before buying and trying them of course)


That's how. But if your time is worth anything, you'll start with a
known manufacturer and they'll probably work fine. I use Taiyo Yuden
silver blanks and have never had a failure. They're about $35/hundred
on a spindle. I don't think that's too much to pay for not having to
worry about reliability.

If your volume is in hundreds a week and you insist on keeping your
prices low, you might want to look further to save a few bucks on a
lot. For the rest of us, an extra dime a disk doesn't matter.


I've found that blanks with a faint greeny-blue dye seem to give less
trouble on audio players than plain silver ones. You can actually see
the recorded track area by looking at it under a good light.

The darker 'azo' dyes give the player a much stronger signal still -
but they deteriorate rapidly in strong light.

If you have the electronics knowledge, hook an oscilloscope up to the
detector electronics of a CD player and have a look at the signal as it
comes off the laser head. The variations in amplitude between makes of
disc are quite surprising and all sorts of blemishes show up clearly.

The best blanks I have found so far in the UK are made by HHB.

--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk
  #12   Report Post  
John L Rice
 
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Hi Rick,

Like a lot of people I use the Plextor Premium drive and Taiyo Yuden discs
and I've found Poly Line Corp to be a great place to buy media and supplies
from http://www.polylinecorp.com/

If you get the Plextor Premium drive, it has functionality to test discs for
error rates and defects etc. So, if you want to research it you could buy
several brands of blank discs and do your own tests.

Best of luck!
--
John L Rice


"Rick Ruskin" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?

Thanks in advance.


Rick Ruskin
Lion Dog Music - Seattle WA
http://liondogmusic.com


  #13   Report Post  
Laurence Payne
 
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On Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:46:54 -0700, Rick Ruskin
wrote:

A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


The answer used to be Plextor. But I'm not sure there's any point in
paying a premium price these days.

I find 12X a reliable speed.
  #14   Report Post  
James Perrett
 
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Default

On 2 Sep 2005 03:39:54 -0700, Mike Rivers wrote:


Rick Ruskin wrote:
A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


If it's who I think it is for what I think it is, I'd look into one of
the duplicating "towers" that are sold by folks like Diskmakers or
Microboards. They're getting pretty cheap now. While more expensive
than a CD drive for a computer, because you duplicate several disks at
once, they can run at slower speed and still have a pretty good
throughput. Also, it doesn't tie up a computer.


I've gone for a sort of halfway house - using Feurio to burn to more than
one drive at once on one computer. You don't even have to use identical
drives as long as they can be set to burn at the same speed. I'm using a
Plextor Premium and PX716 at 16X with Taiyo Yuden blanks. This combination
seems to work well.

Cheers.

James.

  #15   Report Post  
James Perrett
 
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On Sun, 04 Sep 2005 12:36:57 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:



The answer used to be Plextor. But I'm not sure there's any point in
paying a premium price these days.


If you need to know how good the discs you are burning really are then you
need a drive that supports Plextools' Q-Check functions - that means a
Plextor Premium, PX712 or PX716.

Cheers.

James.


  #16   Report Post  
James Perrett
 
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On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 11:21:24 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:

Rick Ruskin wrote:

[...]
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?



In the UK recently there have been a lot of dud CDRs on the market, even
under respected brand names. Hope you don't find the same situation in
the US.



I tried a few of PC World's own brand discs which were made by CMC - the
error rates were 10 times higher than I would expect with a decent brand.
Fuji and Sony have also gone downhill over the last couple of years.

Cheers.

James.
  #17   Report Post  
Adrian Tuddenham
 
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James Perrett wrote:

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 11:21:24 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:

Rick Ruskin wrote:

[...]
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?



In the UK recently there have been a lot of dud CDRs on the market, even
under respected brand names. Hope you don't find the same situation in
the US.



I tried a few of PC World's own brand discs which were made by CMC - the
error rates were 10 times higher than I would expect with a decent brand.
Fuji and Sony have also gone downhill over the last couple of years.


PC World seem to pick up whatever they can from wherever they can. I've
noticed a colour change half way down a stack of 100. The first 50
discs gave a signal around 80% of that a pressing, the other half of the
stack gave less than 45% with a once-per-revolution dip in output[1].

Beware the ones branded "Packard-Bell", they are the same as thePCWs on
a stick but just labelled with a brand name and far more expensive.

Many well-respected brand names were giving low output about six months
ago and caused problems when they reached my customers. I switched to
HHB audio archival-quality blanks and have only had one dud in many
hundreds (and that was visibly dud, before I even recorded it).




[1] I made a meter to show signal strength from a cheap player and set
it up so that a pressing reads 100%.

HHBs read around 75-85%.
Many of the 'high street' brands were around 65-70% until last year,
then they dropped to 45-55%
Some PC World discs swung violently up and down around 30-45%

As a guide, I reject anything which drops below 50%.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk
  #18   Report Post  
Ashley
 
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Hello Friend,

We just released new wave (CD Burner)on my website.Feel free to download it
in audio
and mp3 format.maybe some will like it..anyway thanks for reading and until
my next one.
http://www.fleximusic.com/waveditor/audioeditor.htm

Thanks,
Ashley



  #19   Report Post  
Miss_Me
 
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Default

Rick Ruskin wrote:
A friend of mine needs to do a considerable amount of short run CD
releases and asked the following:

Most reliable burner for high-speed (24X or higher) burning of audio?
Fastest recommended burning speed for reliable playback on most CD
players?


Rick,

I noticed that someone mentioned my company, Microboards, as a source
for CD towers. If you'd like to take a look at our tower duplicators
please see http://www.microboards.com/new/index.php?topic=Towers.

One of our 10 drive CD towers can duplicate 250 full cd's per hour at
52X speed. I'll be happy to put you in contact with a reseller in your
area if you are interested.

With regard to recording speed, digital is digital. A lot of people who
used to record analog are stuck on the slow recording speed because it
used to make a difference. We've done thorough testing on this subject
and bit for bit the master and duplicated product are identical.

  #20   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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Miss_Me wrote:
I noticed that someone mentioned my company, Microboards, as a source
for CD towers. If you'd like to take a look at our tower duplicators
please see http://www.microboards.com/new/index.php?topic=Towers.

One of our 10 drive CD towers can duplicate 250 full cd's per hour at
52X speed. I'll be happy to put you in contact with a reseller in your
area if you are interested.


I will strongly recommend the Microboards duplicators, which have become
pretty much the standard for folks doing small run duplication. Very handy
in a large studio where you may want to make a dozen copies of a rough
mix for the label guys. Very handy in a small studio where you may want
to make a dozen copies of a demo for a customer.

With regard to recording speed, digital is digital. A lot of people who
used to record analog are stuck on the slow recording speed because it
used to make a difference. We've done thorough testing on this subject
and bit for bit the master and duplicated product are identical.


I have never seen a CD play with a zero error rate. Now, a CD-ROM should
always have a zero error rate, in part because the CD-ROM can go back and
reread if there is a transient media error. But if you measure the error
rate on a CD, you will see lots of errors, and if you measure it on a
CD-R, you'll see even more. The interpolation is always kicking in... the
point is to make a CD-R duplicate where it kicks in as little as possible.
The Plextor drives will allow you to measure error rate, or you can
instrument a standard CD player for the job.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


  #21   Report Post  
Lars Farm
 
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We've done thorough testing on this subject
and bit for bit the master and duplicated product are identical.


This is the pretty much same reply I got from Plextor on the subject of
recording speed.

Scott Dorsey wrote:

I have never seen a CD play with a zero error rate. Now, a CD-ROM should
always have a zero error rate, in part because the CD-ROM can go back and
reread if there is a transient media error. But if you measure the error
rate on a CD, you will see lots of errors, and if you measure it on a
CD-R, you'll see even more. The interpolation is always kicking in... the
point is to make a CD-R duplicate where it kicks in as little as possible.
The Plextor drives will allow you to measure error rate, or you can
instrument a standard CD player for the job.
--scott


But isn't there error correction also in audio CD's? That will make it
bit for bit accurate as long as the read errors are within reason?
Shouldn't any CD player make use of this mechanism? What is the
capability of the CD (red book) error correction mechanism?

L


--
lars farm // http://www.farm.se
lars is also a mail-account on the server farm.se
aim:
  #22   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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Lars Farm wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

I have never seen a CD play with a zero error rate. Now, a CD-ROM should
always have a zero error rate, in part because the CD-ROM can go back and
reread if there is a transient media error. But if you measure the error
rate on a CD, you will see lots of errors, and if you measure it on a
CD-R, you'll see even more. The interpolation is always kicking in... the
point is to make a CD-R duplicate where it kicks in as little as possible.
The Plextor drives will allow you to measure error rate, or you can
instrument a standard CD player for the job.


But isn't there error correction also in audio CD's? That will make it
bit for bit accurate as long as the read errors are within reason?


Right, but the read errors are NEVER within reason. That is why the
interpolation circuits are in place.

Shouldn't any CD player make use of this mechanism? What is the
capability of the CD (red book) error correction mechanism?


There is extensive error correction, within each block, and the blocks
are staggered so if there is a scratch, it doesn't clobber a single block
but small pieces of several.

On top of this, there is error concealment, in which interpolation is
used to deal with uncorrectable errors.

An instrumented player will have a counter for the number of correctable
errors found, and another one for the number of uncorrectable errors.

You will very seldom see a disc play with zero uncorrectable errors... and
the next time you play the same disc, you'll get a different number.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
  #23   Report Post  
Geoff Wood
 
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"Lars Farm" wrote in message

But isn't there error correction also in audio CD's? That will make it
bit for bit accurate as long as the read errors are within reason?
Shouldn't any CD player make use of this mechanism? What is the
capability of the CD (red book) error correction mechanism?



The error correction in CD Audio is *much* weaker than CD-ROM.

Microboard may be a great brand, but claiming bit-for-bit on CD Audio at any
speed makes me wonder.

geoff


  #24   Report Post  
Miss_Me
 
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I have been around the office today asking people about this subject
and this is what I have found:

To answer this question, there are several factors that need to be
addressed.

First, is the CD burner you are using of professional standard? There
are many brands of CD burners on the market, but there are a limited
few that would be considered a quality recorder. These professional
standard recorders include Plextor, Teac, and Sanyo to name a few.

The next factor to look at is what is the quality of the CD-R media you
are using? As with recorders, there are some good manufacturers and
there are some bad manufacturers. We recommend Taiyo Yuden as the best
quality piece of media on the market.

Assuming you are using a professional recorder with professional media,
there should not be a noticeable difference in your audio quality. Some
have claimed to hear audible differences between discs burned at lower
speeds and those burned. Many times, this is due to poor quality media,
a low-end recorder, or both. For all practical purposes, there will be
no audible difference between 16X and 52X recorded CD-Rs.

  #25   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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Miss_Me wrote:

First, is the CD burner you are using of professional standard? There
are many brands of CD burners on the market, but there are a limited
few that would be considered a quality recorder. These professional
standard recorders include Plextor, Teac, and Sanyo to name a few.


This can affect the error rate, but sometimes you'll be surprised.
One given machine might have a lower error rate than some other machine,
and it's not always predictable.

The next factor to look at is what is the quality of the CD-R media you
are using? As with recorders, there are some good manufacturers and
there are some bad manufacturers. We recommend Taiyo Yuden as the best
quality piece of media on the market.


This is currently true, but it might not be true next week. And you
might find that some other media give lower error rates WITH YOUR
PARTICULAR RECORDER than the TYs. Now that the Mitsuis have changed,
this is less likely to be the case, but it can be.

Assuming you are using a professional recorder with professional media,
there should not be a noticeable difference in your audio quality. Some
have claimed to hear audible differences between discs burned at lower
speeds and those burned. Many times, this is due to poor quality media,
a low-end recorder, or both. For all practical purposes, there will be
no audible difference between 16X and 52X recorded CD-Rs.


Maybe. Maybe not. You need to measure error rates before doing
anything else, and that means Plextools, or an instrumented player
like the Meridian box.

Until you actually measure the error rates, you are just shooting in
the dark.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


  #26   Report Post  
Miss_Me
 
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Scott Dorsey wrote:
This is currently true, but it might not be true next week. And you
might find that some other media give lower error rates WITH YOUR
PARTICULAR RECORDER than the TYs. Now that the Mitsuis have changed,
this is less likely to be the case, but it can be.


This has been the case with all of our recorders, and they have changed
a number of times in the 15 years we've been making these machines. TY
has always had the best consistency, highest playback compatibility and
lowest error rate.

Maybe. Maybe not. You need to measure error rates before doing
anything else, and that means Plextools, or an instrumented player
like the Meridian box.

Until you actually measure the error rates, you are just shooting in
the dark.


We pay people good money to keep us up to date on all these things and
they do their jobs well. The extensive testing we've done on this
subject shows quality media + quality recorders = no audible difference
between digital recording speeds.

  #27   Report Post  
James Perrett
 
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On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 16:55:20 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:


Many well-respected brand names were giving low output about six months
ago and caused problems when they reached my customers. I switched to
HHB audio archival-quality blanks and have only had one dud in many
hundreds (and that was visibly dud, before I even recorded it).


Do you know who really makes the HHB discs? They used to be made by Mitsui
but the recent European Mitsui (MAM-E) discs that I've used have had
really poor error rates.

Where do you connect the meter on your CD player? I'd be interested in
measuring output levels.

Cheers.

James.
  #28   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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Miss_Me wrote:

We pay people good money to keep us up to date on all these things and
they do their jobs well. The extensive testing we've done on this
subject shows quality media + quality recorders = no audible difference
between digital recording speeds.


You may want to look at Bob Katz's study.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
  #29   Report Post  
James Perrett
 
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On 7 Sep 2005 06:09:39 -0700, Miss_Me wrote:



Maybe. Maybe not. You need to measure error rates before doing
anything else, and that means Plextools, or an instrumented player
like the Meridian box.

Until you actually measure the error rates, you are just shooting in
the dark.


We pay people good money to keep us up to date on all these things and
they do their jobs well. The extensive testing we've done on this
subject shows quality media + quality recorders = no audible difference
between digital recording speeds.


In an ideal world this is true - but this world is far from ideal and
there is a huge variety of players out there. Many of those players will
sound different with discs recorded at different speeds due to the
different levels of jitter on the disc. I have an old Philips player that
is very susceptible to these differences. I know that Microboards is a big
player in the duplication market but I would have hoped that they would
have been more clued up on this subject and what happens in the real
world. With many real world players there is a real audible difference
with discs recorded at different speeds.

Cheers.

James.
  #30   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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James Perrett wrote:
On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 16:55:20 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:

Many well-respected brand names were giving low output about six months
ago and caused problems when they reached my customers. I switched to
HHB audio archival-quality blanks and have only had one dud in many
hundreds (and that was visibly dud, before I even recorded it).


Do you know who really makes the HHB discs? They used to be made by Mitsui
but the recent European Mitsui (MAM-E) discs that I've used have had
really poor error rates.

Where do you connect the meter on your CD player? I'd be interested in
measuring output levels.


On the first generation Philips players (the 14-bit ones), there are
two pins on the FILTER-B chip that go high with correctable and
uncorrectable errors. You can tag off of these into a counter.

I don't know if this is the case with the newer machines... the second
generation got all the audio onto two chips, and most of the current
players have everything on one chip, even the transport control.
This makes it harder to tag into internal signals.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


  #31   Report Post  
Adrian Tuddenham
 
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James Perrett wrote:

On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 16:55:20 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:


Many well-respected brand names were giving low output about six months
ago and caused problems when they reached my customers. I switched to
HHB audio archival-quality blanks and have only had one dud in many
hundreds (and that was visibly dud, before I even recorded it).


Do you know who really makes the HHB discs? They used to be made by Mitsui ...


I have heard tell that they have one factory in the US and another in
the Far East. I would imagine it would be possible to tell which
factory made the disc if you could crack the code printed in the centre
void.

Where do you connect the meter on your CD player? I'd be interested in
measuring output levels.


I used a high-impedance oscilloscope probe and went around the pins on
the chips until I found a sinusoidal analogue signal which was the
output of the laser head. The connecting point will be shown as the
'signal in' pin in the decoder chip manufacturer's data sheet.

I have posted a circuit of the meter I built at:
http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/other/CDtestcircuit.gif
I do not recommend it as a beginner's project, it was just knocked
together from components in the junk box to give me an idea what was
going on when CDRs gave trouble.

The player was mounted on top of a metal instrument case. I drilled
holes in the top of the case and the player's underside so as to bring
out the shortest possible signal connection to a high input impedance
buffer amplifier mounted in the case immediately underneath the player.

The instrument case contained a 300 degree analogue meter and a
potentiometer with similar appearance and calibration to the meter (it
had been used for an industrial furnace control system). The signal was
amplified, full-wave rectified and applied to the meter, the system
gain being adjusted to give a 100% reading on a pressed CD.

A drop-out detector was arranged using the potentiometer. The
potentiometer was connected to a fixed voltage which corresponded to the
voltage needed to give 100% FSD on the meter. By setting the pot to
the minimum signal level required, and comparing its output voltage with
that on the meter, drop-outs would cause the output of the comparator to
change state. The drop-out pulse was used to produce an audible click
and blank the audio from the loudspeaker.

I can't pretend this is an accurate instrument, its sensitivity probably
depends on the temperature of the reading head in the player and a whole
host of other factors; but it was good enough to give me a clear idea of
why my CDs were causing trouble and which types to avoid.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk
  #32   Report Post  
Miss_Me
 
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James Perrett wrote:
In an ideal world this is true - but this world is far from ideal and
there is a huge variety of players out there. Many of those players will
sound different with discs recorded at different speeds due to the
different levels of jitter on the disc. I have an old Philips player that
is very susceptible to these differences. I know that Microboards is a big
player in the duplication market but I would have hoped that they would
have been more clued up on this subject and what happens in the real
world. With many real world players there is a real audible difference
with discs recorded at different speeds.

Cheers.

James.


James, I meant no disrespect to you or any other readers/posters. We
are aware of the many variables involved in audio recording, playback,
compatibility, etc. We hear things like this everyday in the support
department.

I just really mean to say that my momma always told me "You get what
you pay for" and using poor quality media, poor quality burners and out
of date players will make for poor quality audio, no matter what speed
you use to burn the disc.

  #33   Report Post  
James Perrett
 
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On Wed, 7 Sep 2005 16:39:07 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:

James Perrett wrote:


Do you know who really makes the HHB discs? They used to be made by
Mitsui ...


I have heard tell that they have one factory in the US and another in
the Far East. I would imagine it would be possible to tell which
factory made the disc if you could crack the code printed in the centre
void.


There's actually a code recorded on the disc that will tell you who made
the disc (or more accurately, who made the stamper). You can use various
software programs to read the code and decode it into something
understandable. Older HHB's came up as Mitsui's but I've not had any of
the newer ones to test since Mitsui re-structured their operations.

Thanks also for the circuit description - I might just try hooking an
oscilloscope up to an old CD player to start with but your circuit gives
me a few ideas if I want to build something more self contained.

Cheers.

James.

  #34   Report Post  
Adrian Tuddenham
 
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James Perrett wrote:

On Wed, 7 Sep 2005 16:39:07 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:

James Perrett wrote:


Do you know who really makes the HHB discs? They used to be made by
Mitsui ...


I have heard tell that they have one factory in the US and another in
the Far East. I would imagine it would be possible to tell which
factory made the disc if you could crack the code printed in the centre
void.


There's actually a code recorded on the disc that will tell you who made
the disc (or more accurately, who made the stamper). You can use various
software programs to read the code and decode it into something
understandable.


That's interesting. Do you happen to know if there is a version of the
program for 'Classic' Mac OS (OS 8.6)? I've also been trying to find
Mac software that will read the ISRCs off a disc, to check if my
duplicator is faithfully copying them.


Thanks also for the circuit description - I might just try hooking an
oscilloscope up to an old CD player to start with but your circuit gives
me a few ideas if I want to build something more self contained.


At those signal frequencies, if you design it with 082 op-amps, don't
try to get a voltage gain of more than 3 per device, or a signal of more
than 5v pk. (The limits are imposed by the gain-bandwidth product and
the slew-rate). You will also find problems with the delay per device,
hence my use of that rather strange symmetrical inverter configuration
followed by discrete transistors for rectification.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk
  #35   Report Post  
James Perrett
 
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On Thu, 8 Sep 2005 18:05:47 +0100, Adrian Tuddenham
wrote:

James Perrett wrote:


There's actually a code recorded on the disc that will tell you who made
the disc (or more accurately, who made the stamper). You can use various
software programs to read the code and decode it into something
understandable.


That's interesting. Do you happen to know if there is a version of the
program for 'Classic' Mac OS (OS 8.6)? I've also been trying to find
Mac software that will read the ISRCs off a disc, to check if my
duplicator is faithfully copying them.


I can't find anything from the usual sources. I use Plextools on a PC to
accomplish both tasks. It doesn't need a powerful PC to run it.

Cheers.

James.
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