Hi folks!,
I have a Tascam professional CD-tape combo recording deck. Yesterday, I purchased a brand called Verbatim because the store had no Maxell, TDK, or Memorex products in stock. The problem is that with the Verbatim brand CDs, there is excessive skipping on playback. Heard that there have been lots of complaints about Verbatim CD products. If any of you folks have experienced this problem, please let me know. I’d like to find out which of the other 3 brands I mentioned above fare best besides Verbatim brand CDs. Please help me out on this subject.🙏🏻
I have a Tascam professional CD-tape combo recording deck. Yesterday, I purchased a brand called Verbatim because the store had no Maxell, TDK, or Memorex products in stock. The problem is that with the Verbatim brand CDs, there is excessive skipping on playback. Heard that there have been lots of complaints about Verbatim CD products. If any of you folks have experienced this problem, please let me know. I’d like to find out which of the other 3 brands I mentioned above fare best besides Verbatim brand CDs. Please help me out on this subject.🙏🏻
It can be tricky to establish the actual manufacturer, and country of manufacture, of a recordable CD.
Verbatim was sold in 2019 to CMC Magnetic Corporation which is a Taiwanese company known for optical disc manufacturing.
I have read that one should be wary of discs from CMC Magnetics, although that's not something I can personally substantiate.
As for the other brands you mention, I do know that TDK withdrew from the manufacture of recordable CD & DVD products way back in 2006.
Verbatim was sold in 2019 to CMC Magnetic Corporation which is a Taiwanese company known for optical disc manufacturing.
I have read that one should be wary of discs from CMC Magnetics, although that's not something I can personally substantiate.
As for the other brands you mention, I do know that TDK withdrew from the manufacture of recordable CD & DVD products way back in 2006.
I agree with Galu.
It's my opinion that unfortunately, much of what is produced in recent years is garbage, many times it's not worth the money spent.
So a solution could be to buy NOS or vintage products, but even here there are risks.
Or look at professional products but with a high cost, the problem is that today the CD is disappearing.
My favorites in terms of quality/price ratio are Maxell, they have always been with MC too.
I don't know where Maxell production was.
For higher quality i think there was the BASF brand (maybe German?).
You can also use Verbatim, you just have to put up with throwing some discs in the waste every now and then, and redo the recording.
It takes patience....
It's my opinion that unfortunately, much of what is produced in recent years is garbage, many times it's not worth the money spent.
So a solution could be to buy NOS or vintage products, but even here there are risks.
Or look at professional products but with a high cost, the problem is that today the CD is disappearing.
My favorites in terms of quality/price ratio are Maxell, they have always been with MC too.
I don't know where Maxell production was.
For higher quality i think there was the BASF brand (maybe German?).
You can also use Verbatim, you just have to put up with throwing some discs in the waste every now and then, and redo the recording.
It takes patience....
In the 21st Century it is unusual to use optical discs for recording. These are at the end of their time and not of the quality one got used to 20 years ago. CDR's can unfortunately be unreliable even after a relatively short time. CDRW are just terrible media, even in their prime time they were known as unreliable.
Philips CD-R are good quality brand.
They even have a version for audio and I believe its still available in some webshops.
I have used ordinary data version for audio in my ancient pc CD-burner and never had any problems with them.
They even have a version for audio and I believe its still available in some webshops.
I have used ordinary data version for audio in my ancient pc CD-burner and never had any problems with them.
I concur with the comments on Verbatim. Been using Imation with no problems. I also burn at a low speed, usually 4x.
After I saw the topic and the first name came to my mind was Verbatim, but the last time it was relevant to me was ~2010 or earlier, closer to ~2000.
As I remember those older times there had to be a complete combo to make a good result: recorder - TEAC 24x or 32x speed internal IDE (pre sata) drive, or HP external USB, Verbatim or other name CD-R, and software - the favorite was NERO. Even then it was NOT a guarantee it may work: lasers or mechanic part of the CD recorder could get faulty over time or outright unsuitable from the beginning, CD-R (+-R - I think that was a separate standards then) had to be good, and even if it was from reputable brand, such as Verbatim or BASF or Maxwell or some other well known - it may be from the bad batch, which resulted in CRAZY amounts of bad recordings, it was just that. Simply there could be a bad or counterfeit (!!!) batch of hundreds or thousands CD-R, which were just not good for recordings, then it had to be recorded in pretty low speeds, down to 1x, then you have to fine-tune software settings - they mattered too, Nero was the best for it. Situation was even worse for CD-+RW, and even worse if you had to make CD-RW audioCD, there was no real difference what type of CD you were making. I used the same Verbatim CD-R as for data, because it was really good luck if you had all the setup right and you got the good batch of writable CD on your desk. Overall - the only joy from all of it was to have at least some music on some party because you most likely had more success in getting some rubbish pirated mp3, then played through PC soundcard or "chinese-original" CD from the local street market back then. And I don't even want to talk when some older CD players just refused to play CD-R or CD-RW.
DISCLAIMER: I live in eastern Europe, 20USD for original CD was like ~10-15% of the medium monthly salary back then and I was earning less than that.
Right now... I have just one question: is it some of the very weird masohistic game you are playing? Because this is the thing I really miss least from the audio/hifi hobby. Yes, nostalgia is a thing, but you most likely will have much better results with gear which uses magnetic tapes of some kind.
Wish you luck, because this is a thing with rewritable CDs and all of that "ecosystem".
As I remember those older times there had to be a complete combo to make a good result: recorder - TEAC 24x or 32x speed internal IDE (pre sata) drive, or HP external USB, Verbatim or other name CD-R, and software - the favorite was NERO. Even then it was NOT a guarantee it may work: lasers or mechanic part of the CD recorder could get faulty over time or outright unsuitable from the beginning, CD-R (+-R - I think that was a separate standards then) had to be good, and even if it was from reputable brand, such as Verbatim or BASF or Maxwell or some other well known - it may be from the bad batch, which resulted in CRAZY amounts of bad recordings, it was just that. Simply there could be a bad or counterfeit (!!!) batch of hundreds or thousands CD-R, which were just not good for recordings, then it had to be recorded in pretty low speeds, down to 1x, then you have to fine-tune software settings - they mattered too, Nero was the best for it. Situation was even worse for CD-+RW, and even worse if you had to make CD-RW audioCD, there was no real difference what type of CD you were making. I used the same Verbatim CD-R as for data, because it was really good luck if you had all the setup right and you got the good batch of writable CD on your desk. Overall - the only joy from all of it was to have at least some music on some party because you most likely had more success in getting some rubbish pirated mp3, then played through PC soundcard or "chinese-original" CD from the local street market back then. And I don't even want to talk when some older CD players just refused to play CD-R or CD-RW.
DISCLAIMER: I live in eastern Europe, 20USD for original CD was like ~10-15% of the medium monthly salary back then and I was earning less than that.
Right now... I have just one question: is it some of the very weird masohistic game you are playing? Because this is the thing I really miss least from the audio/hifi hobby. Yes, nostalgia is a thing, but you most likely will have much better results with gear which uses magnetic tapes of some kind.
Wish you luck, because this is a thing with rewritable CDs and all of that "ecosystem".
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Maxell CD-R Music Gold is available at B&H Photo Video. They get good reviews and the same is true for Verbatim brand CD-Rs.
The "good" brand I remember from circa 25 years ago (when I used to burn CD-Rs) is Taiyo Yuden. I burned these on a computer CD-R drive, and I recall that the readability and reliability of the CD-R is also strongly affected by the recording speed. The Tascam likely only has 1x and maybe 2x (with cassette playing back at twice speed) recording speeds, whereas computer CD-R/DVD drives may go to 48x or even higher. As I recall, the fastest speed is NOT the most reliable, but somewhere at a slower speed is some speed that's a 'sweet spot.' I recall the FAQ below gets into this.
This is a really long but very good FAQ from decades ago, based mostly on the Usenet newsgroups active at the time - I don't know how much or if things have changed since then:
https://www.cdrfaq.org/
This is a really long but very good FAQ from decades ago, based mostly on the Usenet newsgroups active at the time - I don't know how much or if things have changed since then:
https://www.cdrfaq.org/
I used TDK and never had an issue, now all I can get is Verbatim and they have all sorts of burning and reading issues
Geoff
Geoff
Maybe you're right, but to follow your own way it has always been necessary to be a bit masochistic, sacrificing more time and money.
I think that if a man follows the current of the market, he's like a leaf in the wind.
For me, it's right that everyone follows their own objectives, within their own limits, even if it may seem wrong.
I also like analog, but these days there is the risk that it is more difficult and expensive than CD, because they are older devices and because of the availability of tapes.
Returning to CD writing, i agree that low speed is important.
I am nothing against your way of hobby, but... there are not much you gain with it: CD-R (or RW) written this way do not store bits (music) long term, RW can be re-written just 3-5 times max, after that they get worse and worse, you cannot read them in all of the CD players, because some of them just refuse to do that, it was headache with such discs in car players and so on.
Yes, @benb mentioned Tayo Yuden - they were THE BEST ones, but they usually were the contract manufacturers, and at some short time even Verbatim ones were manufactured by them.
My advice would be: buy 10-20, that is a box or two of all here mentioned brand discs, burn the same music at 1x speed, play a little with other recording options and then do a test of all of them at different players, different conditions especially car player if you still have such a car - there for sure will be the best or worst performing (most and least skipping, most and least playable etc.) and then buy more of the best ones quickly form the same seller until they have the same batch at hand.
In cars they were a headache but what about USB sticks? These start to have similarity with floppy disks.
Taiyo Yuden was (is?) the best, better recorded at the minimum speed allowed by the cd writer even if I had no problem at all at higher speed. They were also rebranded by other manufacturers (I remember Samsung Optiplex): I still have many of them in my basement...
IME, the most reliable blanks over time were those from Taiyo Yuden. (photo)
After circa 2015, CMC acquired the Taiyo Yuden technology.
https://mediasupply.com/collections....general.manufacturer=CMC+Pro+-+Powered+by+TY
George
After circa 2015, CMC acquired the Taiyo Yuden technology.
https://mediasupply.com/collections....general.manufacturer=CMC+Pro+-+Powered+by+TY
George
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I remember those times and burning discs. For music I used Verbatim AZO and Super AZO (the blue ones) and at low cutting speeds, 2X and 4X. I don't know if they still make them. The regular Verbatim had problems with both low and high cutting speeds, I think the regular ones should be cut with 8X or 16X so they don't cause problems. I haven't burned a disc in years, I don't know what these new ones are like. Probably worse than 15-20 years ago.
I still have a couple of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Ultradisc 24k Gold blank CDs for better times...
Thanks folks! I threw away the Verbatims and went back to Maxell. I also didn’t know that these things have low and high speeds. Thanks fellas, and good luck!
I don't know the Tascam, the speed of computer CD writers is typically 4x to 20x. I never met a x1 speed drive.
The day you bought your first CD writer that burned 4x for a crazy amount of money. Feeling of victory.