Quote:
Originally Posted by setmenu
I was not aware of the shorter lifespan of CD-R 's compared to pressings..
Does anyone know whether this also applies to the re-writable variety?
Setmenu
|
First, a question - why do people sign their posts? Your name's right beside your post, in its own specially colored section. Everyone here does this, it seems. Baffling.
Secondly, many CD-Rs are engineered to last well beyond 5 years. Without going into needless technical detail, it comes down to the type of dye used, the construction of the foil, and the presence or absence of other deterrants to oxidization. For example, Office Depot's crappy baseline in-house CD-Rs are low-tier, and as such have very inexpensive dye, a poorly protected and poorly constructed foil, and have a lifespan of between 3 and 5 years, on average. By way of comparison, the surprisingly affordable Maxell CD-Rpro series use higher quality dyes, a better foil, and an effective coating. They're considered archival quality because advanced aging tests place their lifespan at close to 100 years. Now, users factor into this, obviously - CDs left out in the sun can warp, causing tears in the foil, and radiation can damage them. However, gold foil CDrs with high quality dye and a good coating are far more resistant to even that sort of abuse than standard stuff, including pressings.
The reason that pressings are preferred (aside from "genuine article" value) is because the process of burning a CD inherently introduces highly marginal errors. Thankfully, all methods of reading and writing CDs include a pretty rigorous error correction that uses spaced, redundant sectors to prevent issue with these sorts of errors. To minimize this hypothetical problem, burn at very low speeds and use a quality burner.
A good scratch will ruin any CD, though, so take care of 'em.
It is absurd to suggest that a copy of the original will sound better - at best, it will be bit-perfect, and any errors from that would produce artifacting that would sound like clipping (if it were audible) or just make the CD skip.
Edit:
Holy thread necromancy, batman!
.
