[SteeleBlayde]

This interesting article was shown to me today. It claims that when an original music CD is copied to a BLACK CD/R, the result is that the copy sounds BETTER than the original!

I havent tried it, but it is an interesting article nonetheless. Let me know what you guys think.

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/w...lack_CDsII.pdf

 

[zombietycho]

I think this has been touched on before, supposedly they absorb more EMR than the shiney (sp) of the regular CDs.

 

[ampgalore]

Has anyone tried to copy music from a recorded black CD-R disc? I tried once, the result was disastrous, I heard all kinds of noise, artifacts. I gave up on black CDRs after that.

 

[D-EJ915]

That's the reason why Plextor started making it's disc-trays black.

 

[ooheadsoo]

I don't like black cds because my cdplayer has a hard time reading them.

 

[ditto_n]

I think black cd-rs just look awesome, at the moment my ears wouldn't be able to tell the difference if I tried. But if I had the money i would definatly make a small computer ment just for cd burning, with a plextor premium usb with some IsoDiscs to keep everything standing still. It would be nice.

 

[Edwood]

I think Playstation made the whole Black disc popular.

Sony did it for making their discs stand out from the competition and to make copying them more difficult.

-Ed

 

[some1x]

Hypothetically, black cdrs could be superior to silver/gold ones.

I prefer to judge the cdrs by the quality of the burn they produce, and thats why Taiyo Yuden cdrs are my favorite

The memorex black cdrs are not nearly as good as Fuji-branded Taiyo Yudens.

 

[mike_p]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood I think Playstation made the whole Black disc popular. Sony did it for making their discs stand out from the competition and to make copying them more difficult. -Ed

I've heard sony did it because black cdr tend to read more accurately.. something to do with less reflection and cleaner absorption of the laser, as you can see, I have no idea on the details.

 

[halcyon]

Are there sonic differences between bit-perfect cds?

What is a bit-perfect cd?

Bits are encoded as analog waveforms on the disc (pit/land transitions).

Some readers can detect bits accurately with even a higher number of frequency modulation (jitter) on the signal.

However, on most disc that are good quality burns, a small number of random bit errors are perfectly detectable and correctable by the ECC of the reading drive.

So, technically there is very little reason to believe that discs that test bit-perfect on a variety of different drives, would sound different.

However, that doesn't mean they cannot sound different.

The more interesting question is at that point: is the difference still there.

I've personally concluded a blind test with three listeners and 20 different copies vs original.

We couldn't detect any statistically significant differences between the copies and the originals.

However, I'll try testing this further with really bad copies (read error-free on cd-rom drives, but not necessarily so in normal rack cd players) vs very slightly scratched (as in day-to-day use) original discs vs pristine/superb quality burns.

Hopefully after summer, I'll be a bit wiser in this regards.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike_p I've heard sony did it because black cdr tend to read more accurately.. something to do with less reflection and cleaner absorption of the laser, as you can see, I have no idea on the details.

Actually they weren't a recordable disc. They were pressed CD's. But I think it had more to do with marketing, than technology. It may have helped, but we're talking video games here. Sega's Dreamcast had no problems with "normal" surfaced discs. (although, The Dreamcast used proprietary 1GB discs. they looked like normal CD's though.)

-Ed

 

[Welly Wu]

I read that article and I think the guy must spend one too many hours tweaking his audio system than listening to music. I believe that the black CD-Rs are better than other dyes used for other CD-Rs when it comes to reducing coasters and helping to ensure a good burn provided that the computer user is proficient in ripping, encoding, and burning data on blank CD-Rs. Note: my opinion is more of a generalization. MAM-A gold CD-Rs are superior to black CD-Rs because of the careful manufacturing process and attention to detail in design and construction quality. Taiyo Yuden discs manufactured in Japan are superior to black CD-Rs for similar reasons and they are much more affordable than MAM-A. Mobile Fidelisty Sound Labs makes gold blank CD-Rs and they are pretty much the "gold standard" but they cost nearly $3 USD per disc. I have tried combinations of these different manufacturer's blank CD-Rs and have had good success due to careful attention paid to the ripping, encoding, and burning process. There are very very slight and subtle differences between burned CD-Rs from these different manufacturers but virtually zero audible differences when compared to the original music CD. In the end, I think that the time and money required to find the ultimate blank CD-R is not worth it at all because it detracts from the enjoyment of music.

 

[MonkeyMan]

They are available through Music Direct. They're expensive relative to all others, but quality co$t$...

BTW, I do not believe that a copy of a recording can ever sound better than the original recording.

 

[sacd lover]

The black cd-r's give sacd players fits. I discussed this with Matthew Anker because my players stalled and wouldnt load with certain cd-r's. He warned me that black cd-r's have a reflectivity much like a sacd and it confuses the players because they think its a sacd. Sure enough, I checked and every offending cd-r with this issue was black. What is interesting is if I hit a track after track 1 with the remote they will usually play. But if I put them in the player and and hit play the player keeps making noises and cant start. I bought the black cd-r's for their supposedly better sound but I dont hear any difference except the horrible noises the laser mechanism makes trying to read them.

 

[mshan]

Amazon.com sells Memorex Black CD-R's:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...828152?v=glanc

My impression is that these black CDRs seem to very subtly burnish digital edge-iness (i.e. add a very subtle smoothness) and (artifically?) deepen the blackness of the soundstage.

Using a Lite-On LTR52327s at 48x, I get a tremendous number of c1 errors and quite a few c2 errors. Things are better, but not perfect (still quite a few c1 errors, much fewer c2 errors) at 40x. On my Yamaha CRW-F1 (AMQR at 4x), c1 errors are quite acceptable and no c2 errors were noted. I get the impression that my Memorex black CDRs are so-so quality CDR blanks.

Another review:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/cdr/cdr.html