seriously, whats the difference in cdr quality?

[Welly Wu]

Sovkiller: that PDF file you posted was a tremendous help to me! It was so informative from an audiophile's point of view. I am very thankful that you dredged that one up from the Internet.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to start buying black CD-Rs from now on.

 

[JazzJackRabbit]

You guys should really read some CDR forums, there may not be a difference between how CDR sound initially, but there will be years later. Memorex and imation for example are among the worst CDRs you can buy. And as Whit said brand does not matter, only manufacturer does. Imation for example used to sell Taiyo Yuden CDrs, which are the best of the best, but couple of years ago switched to crappy CMCs - I have several unreadable CMCs from only 2-3 years ago.

Anyway, Taiyo Yuden is the only choice for me. Even Kodak and Mitsui IMHO can't compare to TY.

 

[Trawlerman]

I use whatever I can get my hands on at the time. I've used quite a few Maxell and like them. Other brands that i've had are Memorex, BASF, TDK, Sony, Philips, Pioneer being the main ones.

Right now i'm on Imations as I can get 30 x 700MB (80Min) for £10 ($16) complete with jewel cases.

I don't however, use unbranded discs as they are invariably of a poor quality and the slight saving on price is not worth the hassle.



I use mine in my laptop (4x), my linux boxen (4x), main machine (20x) and also in my modified Pioneer PDR-04 CD-R with no problems at all.

I think I can probably count on both hands the number of discs that I've thrown away over the past five years of having cd writers. Can't argue with that!

 

[Thump]

Important point-Fujis are no longer TY, they switched to CMC manufacture recently. If you find some Fujis in the store marked "Made In Japan" that's old TY stock-buy it. Made in Singapore are CMCs. I won't buy those-based on past experience, its a big step down.

I've been burning CDRs ever since my 2x burner was cutting edge. I'm inherently cheap and have used just about every low cost brand out there. A really horrible brand may give you bad burns, clicks, etc.-but that's not so likely anymore. What can and does happen with cheapie CDRs is they flake or otherwise become unreadible in a couple of years. For music CDs, which I intend to keep for my lifetime (at least) I make an effort to archive them on quality discs.

 

[Mr.PD]

I have a bunch of low cost TDK that I won't use for music. They have a hard time playing in my old portable and they will flake if the dog chews on them.

I use Memorex black for audio work, and my new Verbatim Vinyl CD-rs. The Vinyl ones have a dark blue dye like the old high quality TDK and Fuji used to have. Plus they look really cool like a little 45rpm record

The only thing wrong with them is there is no speed listed on the package. I went to Verbatim's site and found out that these are only 16x dics, which is fine for music recording. The time I tried, I couldn't get one to overburn to 82 minutes, but I did get 81 minutes on one. I don't remember what they cost me at Best Buy, but it was no higher than regular priced CD-Rs.

I always thought the black ones sounded just a tad better than the others I used to use. The vinyls seem to sound just as good.

When I say audio or music I don't mean MP3, I'll put MP3's on anything cheap, since I usually end up tossing them ( I won't let the dog chew on them anymore) after a while anyway.

 

[GirgleMirt]

Fuji:
01010110111010100001010110100101000101010101001010 00010101010100100100101010100001010100101010000101 01010110101010010101001010101010010101001010100101 01001010101010101001010101010100101010101001010101 01001010101001010100101010010111010101010101010110 10110100101011010101001011001101010010110101011010 1101010011011011011010110101101101101101011011011. ..

Home depot:
01010110111010100001010110100101000101010101001010 00010101010100100100101010100001010100101010000101 01010110101010010101001010101010010101001010100101 01001010101010101001010101010100101010101001010101 01001010101001010100101010010111010101010101010110 10110100101011010101001011001101010010110101011010 1101010011011011011010110101101101101101011011011. ..

The same! heh

Seriously, the only thing I see is that cheaper will go bad before good cd's... Some of my old have turned yellow, but they're still reading fine. Also you may scrap a more cheap cd's than good ones.

 

[JiPi]

Quote:

Originally posted by Whit The most reliable and error free cdrs are made or were made by Kodak (no longer manufacturing) , Mitsui, and Taiyo Yuden. The cheap cdrs usually burn fine but often are unreadable in a few months or years. The cheap cdrs are usually manufactured by either Ritek or CMC Magnetics and then rebranded as Memorex, Maxell, etc. These usually generate a high number of C2 errors. The Fuji you mentioned are actually very good because they are manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. As long as you buy the Fuji cases that say Made in Japan you're ok. If it says Made in Taiwan its either Ritek or CMC Magnetics. As far as I know the Made in Japan Fuji is only available in 50 packs. Whit

So you're saying Memorex is crap? Damnit. I can't really afford to lose like, a thousand CD's worth of backed up data.
Please tell me they are good..!

 

[warubozu]

When I first started burning music CDs I used to use those cheap Compusa CDs. Then I started to find out that some of the discs I had burned would work in certain players and won't work in others. I also had some of those Compusa CDs go bad after a year and a half, where it wouldn't work any of the players I had put them in, including the one in my pc.
From that point on I have switched to Mitsui CD-R Digital Audio CDs base on a recommedation of a friend and haven't had a problem since. Besides the Mitsui Digital Audio CDs I also use HHB Professional Audio CDs, which have also been bullet proof for me so far.
Some people say there is a noticeable difference between Silver, Gold, and Platinum CDs. But personally I can't tell the difference.

 

[hadron]

I primarily use Imation, haven't had any problem with audio disks, but I have noticed that SVCDs exposed to only brief sunrise light have discolored significantly within a month or so. They still play ok, but I worry about long-term degradation... I now store all CDRs in dark locations.