Comparing CD-R brands
Posted by: Markus on 11 June 2003
I'm interested in hearing others opinions about whether different brands of blank cd-r's exhibit different levels of performance. For example, in your experience do some brands tend to skip more than others? I ask because I *think* so but am not sure.
My 20-year old son, who used to work at Magnolia Hi-Fi in the SEattle area is convinced that the cut-price brands are inferior. A salesman last night at Circuit City shared his experience that Memorex disks skipped on his 3 year old, car cd player, a Sony, but that TDK's did not skip. I do not have enough conclusive data to form a confident opinion but it seems to me that the Maxell's (gold back) I used to use were better than the Memorex (white back) that I later used. Oddly enough I find that there are fewer and fewer options these days. Mostly it is either the Memorex disks or the generic low-priced store-branded units available.
I guess I'm also curious whether others have identified a difference in performance depending on what kind of burner is used to make the disk. I have been using a "Classic" cd burner, the absolutely cheapest machine available at Circuit City. If I had it to do over again I'd probably have gotten a different machine, like a Philips or Sony or Harmon Kardon... What do others think?
Markus
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Posted on: 11 June 2003 by domfjbrown
Memorex CDs are SH1T - I've never had a good experience with them and a third were coasters - about another fifth of the batch won't read now - useless and crap.
Kodak and TDK seem to work the best for me, though I've used the JVC ones from Richer with no ill effects, and the Verbatim ones are fairly good as well. I've also used a fair ammount of Imation discs and they seem to work reliably as well.
To be fair to Memorex, I've not tried the Playstation-style black ones yet, but I probably won't, based on experiences.
Does anyone make coloured CDRs - as in different data layer colours? I know they're mainly either green, purple or silver (or pale gold!), but I'd love to know if there are yellow, orange and red ones out there - death metal on red CDs would be pretty cool...
When the music's over turn out the lights
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by prowla
In another forum, I nearly got flamed for saying that I use computer CD-Rs for music, and can't see what the difference would be.
My logic is that you can't accept any errors on computer data (or you'd lose data!).
However, other people swore that their favourite brands sounded better, warmer, more detailed, etc.
Me, I still don't understand.
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by domfjbrown
Yeah - but note I haven't ever used the black Memorex - by all accounts those are very good.
The problems I had were in 3 PCs (one Win 98, one Win 2000, one Win NT4) - my PC is the slower Athlon 750, 8x Samsung DVD, 4x LG CDRW (all badged as HP as it's an HP PC) - it didn't get on very well at all with the Memorex standards - one in two came out as coasters (asides from that I've only made 4 other coasters on it out of around 100 CDs). The works PC is a Dell with a 16x CDR (it's great on all other types of blanks) and the other one was a mate's.
Based on those experiences I'll stick to Kodak/TDK/Verbatim/Imation in that order of preference, but like I say, I'd like to try out some Memorex blacks. Those mini coloured CDRs sound cool - so that's about 20 minutes on those yeah?
When the music's over turn out the lights
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by Markus
I've never seen for sale:
- Black Memorex or any other brand
- Kodak
Any advice on where they are available?
Also, so far there have been no responses to my question about how much of a difference the cd-burner itself makes. Anyone else out there using a stand alone burner? If so, what kind? Any basis for saying one is better than another? FWIW, the salesman at Circuit City said that the Harmon Kardon uses a 24 bit converter, the Sony (or was it Philips?) a 20 bit and the cheapest machines a 16 bit converter...
Markus
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Posted on: 11 June 2003 by Frizzlefry
To Domfjbrown
Don't know about death metal on red discs, but I have a nice version of Metallica's 'One' from Japan that is on a Red disc - yes a coloured production disc - came with a sweat band too.
' Groovy '
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by Cheese
If you have your preferences, that's OK
But at work we burn hundreds of CD's. 5-6 people burn any kind of data on all different brands of burners, and none of us has ever noticed any difference, even though we always buy el cheapo discs. Coasters are extremely rare, for data that is.
Bear in mind that many brands are actually made in the same kitchen, and that most fabricants help each other out when they're short of material - meaning that you might well buy Memorex discs in, say, a BASF package.
It can happen, though, that some burners hate a particular type - on my Philips music cd recorder for instance, there's no point in trying Sony discs.
BTW Faust was right saying that music and data CD's are the same, the latter ones just have a protection which makes difficult to use in a music recorder. Some time ago I read in a magazine how you could 'outsmart' a music recorder by opening it and fiddling with the interior, I lost the mag though ...
Cheese
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by jpk73
Mitsui
I use Mitsui, they work perfect. Traxdata used to label Kodak, but since they switched to Ritek they are no good any more...
- Jun
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by bjorne
quote:
Originally posted by Cheese:
BTW Faust was right saying that music and data CD's are the same, the latter ones just have a protection which makes difficult to use in a music recorder. Some time ago I read in a magazine how you could 'outsmart' a music recorder by opening it and fiddling with the interior, I lost the mag though ...
Cheese
. I read that the reason is that tax is added to music cd's to cover the loss the artists suffer when people makes a copy instead of buying the original cd. There is a german company that modifies cd recorders to accept data cd's but I cant remember their name. Possibly not to difficult to find if you surf around a bit.
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by Jens
Hi Folks,
Did a head to head between TDK, Kodak and original once when I owned a CDX. TDK was indistinguishable from the original, Kodak sounded a bit less lively for some reason. Been using TDK ever since.
Cheers, Jens
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by Laurie Saunders
I have found small. but repeatable differences between brands. I use TDK Metallic at about 26p each. Sound quality also improves at lower burn speeds (on my PC I use 2x)
Laurie S
Posted on: 12 June 2003 by domfjbrown
quote:
Originally posted by Frizzlefry:
Don't know about death metal on red discs, but I have a nice version of Metallica's 'One' from Japan that is on a Red disc - yes a coloured production disc - came with a sweat band too.
That rules - the weirdest CD package I have is a CD single INSIDE a (filled!) saline drip bag! It's developed a leak so I sealed it again - I have no idea what the music is like - it was the last one in a clearout in Virgin and I LOVED the packaging!
Wish I'd bought that glow in the dark fridge-esque "Spititualized electric mainline" CD when I saw it now
Markus - I use a Pioneer PDR609 - but only as a player (I got it really cheap!). I've made ONE CDR on it - and that was from a MD master, so hardly the best source, but editing CDR is a pain in the butt in my opinion.
In Britain the record companies receive NOTHING from the sale of Audio CDRs (as far as I've heard) - this is yet another case of ripoff Britain.
When the music's over turn out the lights
Posted on: 21 June 2003 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by domfjbrown:
In Britain the record companies receive NOTHING from the sale of Audio CDRs (as far as I've heard) - this is yet another case of ripoff Britain.
Dom,
the higher price for audio CDs is because a levy is paid to the music industry to cover the loist revenue from disc copying.
cheers, Martin
E-mail:- MartinPayne at Dial.Pipex.com
Posted on: 21 June 2003 by prowla
I recall copying a CD to CD-R and thinking that the copy sounded better than the original. After pondering for a while, the only possibility I could think of was that the original had defects that were corrected in the copy...
Posted on: 21 June 2003 by sonofcolin
Verbatim CD-R's are the best ones for music. Sound fine to me and look the business.
Verbatim CD-RBurn at low speed. Make a disc image first. Direct disc copying has higher failure rate. Use decent software (Toast/Mac : Nero/Windoze).
Colin
