[Musicfan 97]

Taiyo Yuden vs. Generic Brands vs. Verbatim. If you are making a cd-r audio
disc, and you want maximum audio reproduction quality, and less error rates,
do you buy/use a more expensive cd-r disc ?

And does burning at 8 to 16x (vs. higher speeds) affect sound quality and
error rates as well (especially when cd-r is to be played on a car stereo)
?


I'm confused because I've found little concensus on these matters.

[Dave Platt]

Taiyo Yuden vs. Generic Brands vs. Verbatim. If you are making a cd-r audio
disc, and you want maximum audio reproduction quality, and less error rates,
do you buy/use a more expensive cd-r disc ?

In my own limited experience, it does seem to be worthwhile to buy and
use discs made by the "first-tier" manufacturers, if I'm concerned
about playability and compatibility and longevity of the discs I burn.

Taiyo Yuden, Mitsui, and HHB seem to have a very good reputation among
professionals. I used to strongly favor TDK's "Certified Plus"
metallized-cyanine discs, but they seem to have stopped making these
several years ago and started OEMing their discs from Ritek and other
generic suppliers, alas.

My experience with discs by the second- and third-tier manufacturers
has been mixed. Some of them seem to work fine. Others don't work
out well, with a significant number of CD players having difficulty
tracking the discs or playing them back reliably. Some aren't worth
the powder needed to blow 'em to hell.

Price is not necessarily a good indication of quality. Neither is
brand name (at least, not when it comes to high-visibility consumer
brand names) since many of the brand companies seem to switch
manufacturers and disc types frequently, and it's near-impossible to
predict what you're actually getting without buying and testing.

And does burning at 8 to 16x (vs. higher speeds) affect sound quality and
error rates as well (especially when cd-r is to be played on a car stereo)

Well, I think that the answer is "It depends".

As I understand it, there's a significant physical difference between
discs designed to be burned at low speed (with a relatively long laser
exposure) and those optimized for high-speed burning (where the laser
can't "burn" any given spot on the disc for very long). The
high-speed disc formulas use a dye layer which is more sensitive to
the laser... and I believe that it may therefore be both somewhat
thinner, and more photo-sensitive. I've noticed a tendency for the
high-speed discs to be somewhat more difficult to play back reliably,
especially in older CD players, and I infer that the high-speed-
capable dye layer may not deliver as strongly-modulated a reflection
during playback and thus may be more difficult to track and have a
higher bit-error rate.

So, for greatest playback compatibility, I prefer to use discs which
have a lower maximum-speed rating (say, 1-8x or 1-12x).

I've read opinions that many dye types deliver their best results when
burned at an intermediate speed - not at their maximum rating, but not
at the lowest speeds either.

Disc wobble and vibration may be more of a problem when burning at the
maximum-possible speed... and if the drive doing the burning can't
follow the disc's wobbling and vibrating surface well enough to keep
the beam moving smoothly along the wobble-track, then the resulting
disc is likely to be hard to play back well.

As far as the track goes, there's another issue to be considered: is
the disc a fully-conformant (74-minute) blank, or one which skates
right up against the edge of the Red/Orange Book standards in order to
pack in more capacity (80-minute blanks). I believe that there's
plenty of good reason to want to stick with real 74-minute blanks
unless you really need the additional capacity - they're significantly
easier for many CD players to track, especially at the outer edge.

So, my advice is:

- For casual applications, find a brand of generic discs which works
acceptably in your burner.

- For archiving, or for creating audio CDs that you want to "just
work, first time, every time", buy first-tier 74-minute blanks and
burn them at moderate speeds.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

[Richard Crowley]

"Musicfan 97" wrote ...
Taiyo Yuden vs. Generic Brands vs. Verbatim. If you are making a cd-r
audio
disc, and you want maximum audio reproduction quality, and less error
rates,
do you buy/use a more expensive cd-r disc ?

In the case of CDs, "maximum quality" and "lowerst error rates"
are two names for the same thing. Other than digital errors, there
are NO differenes in "audio quality".

But that is not to say that all discs are created equal. After bad
experiences with both CDR and DVDR discs of various labels,
IMHO, it is easily worth the few extra pennies to get a known top
quality disc like Taiyo-Yuden. Certainly when making discs for
others, minimizing the failure/return rate is worth far more than
the slight extra cost.

Beware that you buy T-Y from a reputable dealer as there are
counterfeit discs out there. Beware also of the "brands" that
just buy OEM discs from the cheapest vendor of the month.
You never know what you are really getting. Recommended:
http://www.digitalfaq.com It says that "Verbatim" label (in
Europe) are OEMed from Taiyo-Yuden. At least when that
web page was last updated.

And does burning at 8 to 16x (vs. higher speeds) affect sound quality and
error rates as well (especially when cd-r is to be played on a car stereo)

Yes. And the writer drive plays a role also. You can get software for
certain brands of drives that will go back and read the discs and
show you the error rate. I stick with Taiyo-Yuden discs for both CDR
and DVDR, and Lite-On (or Sony which are often OEMed by Lite-On)
burner drives. I have a very low failure/return rate. I burn video DVDR
at ~4x and audio CDR at 12~16x. Likely others will have their own
combinations that work well for them.

[Neil Green]

"Richard Crowley" wrote in
message ...
"Musicfan 97" wrote ...
Taiyo Yuden vs. Generic Brands vs. Verbatim. If you
are making a cd-r audio
disc, and you want maximum audio reproduction
quality, and less error rates,
do you buy/use a more expensive cd-r disc ?

In the case of CDs, "maximum quality" and "lowerst
error rates"
are two names for the same thing. Other than digital
errors, there
are NO differenes in "audio quality".

But that is not to say that all discs are created
equal. After bad
experiences with both CDR and DVDR discs of various
labels,
IMHO, it is easily worth the few extra pennies to
get a known top
quality disc like Taiyo-Yuden. Certainly when
making discs for
others, minimizing the failure/return rate is worth
far more than
the slight extra cost.

Beware that you buy T-Y from a reputable dealer as
there are
counterfeit discs out there. Beware also of the
"brands" that
just buy OEM discs from the cheapest vendor of the
month.
You never know what you are really getting.
Recommended:
http://www.digitalfaq.com It says that "Verbatim"
label (in
Europe) are OEMed from Taiyo-Yuden. At least when
that
web page was last updated.

And does burning at 8 to 16x (vs. higher speeds)
affect sound quality and
error rates as well (especially when cd-r is to be
played on a car stereo)

Yes. And the writer drive plays a role also. You can
get software for
certain brands of drives that will go back and read
the discs and
show you the error rate. I stick with Taiyo-Yuden
discs for both CDR
and DVDR, and Lite-On (or Sony which are often OEMed
by Lite-On)
burner drives. I have a very low failure/return
rate. I burn video DVDR
at ~4x and audio CDR at 12~16x. Likely others will
have their own
combinations that work well for them.

Agree about the Taiyo Yuiden discs, but I'm lucky to
get 12 months from a Lite On burner, and the last Lite
On I had wouldn't recognise Fujifilm DVDRW discs.
I'm now using a Pioneer burner and so far the results
are good.
Always burn audio CD's at no more than 12x.

[Musicfan 97]

Awesome, clear, technical responses... much appreciated !