Best Clarity CD-R for burning music

[FSHZ:42]

Hi,
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, but anyways here's the question:
What brand of cd-r would be best choice, as for as sound quality, for burning music?

Thanks

[Peter Daniel]

http://www.mofi.com/productcart/pc/v...0&idproduct=29

[TerryO]

Originally posted by FSHZ:42
Hi,
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, but anyways here's the question:
What brand of cd-r would be best choice, as for as sound quality, for burning music?

Thanks,
Gammaray

G-ray,
I'm going to give you an answer that you're probably not going to like.

The people that I know that are "really" into this sort of thing seem to think that MAM-R Audio Master 1x-12x discs are the best.
The problem is that they're sold in minimum quantities of 1000. Broken down from that quantity, the price is about $25 each, or $25,000 for the minimum order.

The Grand Prize for "The Puget Sound! DIY Speaker Contest" held this last summer was a CD created by Winston Ma of FIM, Gary Leonard Koh of Genesis Advanced Technologies and Bruce Brown of Puget Sound Studios. They used the MAM-R brand CD-R and then prepared it by giving it an Ultrasonic bath in De-Ionized Water, followed by an application of a proprietary damping compound, before it was trued on a lathe and dynamically balanced. The burning process was a multi-step process to insure the production of the best CD in the World, outside of JVC's high security R&D laboratory in Japan.

The previous best CD had been the Mercedes/AMG's "Passion" CD that is not for sale to the public, but is included with the purchase of a new AMG. This disc had a documented Block Error Rate (BLER) of ten, while the Audiophile CD usually have between 20 to 50 BLER.

"The Puget Sound!" CD has a BLER of between .3 to .5 (!!!) and sounds fantastic. There is only one copy of this disc and it was awarded to John Nail for his Best in Show entry, the "Purple Puppies."

Best Regards,
TerryO

[FSHZ:42]

Hi guys!

Maybe I should have been a little more specific! Here is what I am trying to accomplish: I want to burn some tracks from a few cd's I had purchased from a local audio store. They are of good quality like original master recordings. I was told that the Tayio Yuden (TY) brand was an excellent choice for burning music to. Now for the set up that I have: I am using an older program, CDEX, to rip the tracks off these master recorded disc as a wav file. I then use Sound Blaster Audigy program to convert to wav file @ 24bit/96khz. Using an older Sony burner(CRX210E1) that I have for my PC, I then burn to cd-r disk. I am not a 100% sure that this is the right format to burn using these two programs! All I am trying to do is to make the burned discs sound as good as the original! I also cannot afford a $25,000.00 order for blank cd-r discs, but thanks guys for the info!

Thanks Again!

[TerryO]

Originally posted by FSHZ:42
Hi guys!

Maybe I should have been a little more specific! Here is what I am trying to accomplish: I want to burn some tracks from a few cd's I had purchased from a local audio store. They are of good quality like original master recordings. I was told that the Tayio Yuden (TY) brand was an excellent choice for burning music to. Now for the set up that I have: I am using an older program, CDEX, to rip the tracks off these master recorded disc as a wav file. I then use Sound Blaster Audigy program to convert to wav file @ 24bit/96khz. Using an older Sony burner(CRX210E1) that I have for my PC, I then burn to cd-r disk. I am not a 100% sure that this is the right format to burn using these two programs! All I am trying to do is to make the burned discs sound as good as the original! I also cannot afford a $25,000.00 order for blank cd-r discs, but thanks guys for the info!

Thanks Again!

Hi Again,

I've heard from people I respect that the Tayio Yuden discs are very good. I think that they would be just fine for what you're attempting to do. I've had pretty good luck with the "imation" brand discs. They're sold everywhere and have been consistantly good quality, especially for the price.
Buy a small quanity of both and then compare them yourself.

Best Regards,
TerryO

[sandyK]

FSHZ:42
I get great results by using Exact Audio Copy to extract the tracks to the HDD, then burn them at 4 X to a Kodak Gold Preservation CD-R. (52x 700MB 80min.) It boasts a 24 KARAT GOLD Reflective Layer, and up to 300 years archival. Surprisingly, with good quality material, the copy sounds better than the original , with a larger soundstage, as well as sounding cleaner. Best of all, you can buy them here in Woolworths Supermarkets for around AU$6.99 each. I have seen them advertised much cheaper in the U.S.A.
At that price, why not try one ?


SandyK

[fredex]

Hi all
The brand of disc is important but there some are other things that affect the copy. A friend and I did lots of tests on copying. We hooked up a counter to the test point in the player that indicated loss of Guard Frame Sync. We found that the CD burner produced disks with less errors when burnt at high speed (x12) and more errors when using slow speeds. This was not expected but I would say that it would depend on the individual burner, other burners maybe different. We were using a Plextor burner and x12 was the highest speed available.

Now the interesting part of this story is that we found that a lot of 'audiophiles' preferred the sound of the copies with more errors. The error free disks sounded dull and lifeless by comparison to them.
Any thoughts ?

[sandyK]

fredex

I have seen similar reports to yours before. I have a Pioneer
DVR 111D, and a Pioneer DVR 212 (SATA) and although I normally burn at 4 x, I feel sure that some discs may very well benefit from being burned at higher speeds. I haven't bothered with higher speeds with the Kodak 24K discs.
I imagine that it is the superior reflectivity of the Mobile Fidelity and Kodak 24K discs that is the reason for their superior performance. Let's face it, Mobile Fidelity doesn't just use Gold discs for their good looks !

SandyK

[FSHZ:42]

Originally posted by sandyK
FSHZ:42
I get great results by using Exact Audio Copy to extract the tracks to the HDD, then burn them at 4 X to a Kodak Gold Preservation CD-R. (52x 700MB 80min.) It boasts a 24 KARAT GOLD Reflective Layer, and up to 300 years archival. Surprisingly, with good quality material, the copy sounds better than the original , with a larger soundstage, as well as sounding cleaner. Best of all, you can buy them here in Woolworths Supermarkets for around AU$6.99 each. I have seen them advertised much cheaper in the U.S.A.
At that price, why not try one ?


SandyK

Hi SandyK, Couple of questions: Do you know if these discs:http://www.mofi.com/productcart/pc/...=0&idproduct=29 are the same quality as the ones you mentioned? If so, where in the USA could I find them? Also, have you tried the Tayio Yuden brand for comparison? One last Q: If I used the Exact Audio Copy program, would my Sony burner have any effect on the quality?

Thanks

[fredex]

Hi SandyK
A lesson I learnt was that when cd burners first came available I and others always preferred the copies to the originals. Theories abounded, maybe the original cd was the last one pressed before they replaced the stamper and the pits were ill defined whereas the copy is re-timed and has better defined edges. Or the different color of the CDR was affecting the laser etc etc. However after our measurements I have concluded that what we were hearing was the effects of error concealment and / or error correction, this adds an edge to the sound which we mistook for more detail.

Some of the people who preferred the sound of disks with lots of errors were horrified to think we were actually measuring something as "measurements are meaningless when it comes to audio", they preferred to trust their ears.