There's only data CDs, the audio recorded on CD is not analog, it is digital data, so the concerns are the quality of the encoding, the quality of the burning software, the quality of the CD (Plextor and Verbatim are good). the quality of the CD burner, and burning at a slow speed. I've had some CDs develop CD rot, the whole CD turns a tarnished colour and is unplayable so do some research about that to avoid manufacturers that made disks that developed that problem.
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There's a substantial difference between commercially pressed (aluminum) CDs and CD-Rs. Here's what I learned 20 to 25 years ago:
There were stand-alone CD-R recorders that worked like tape recorders, they had two drives and so could make CD copies. It checked the blank CD-R in the write drive to make sure it was an "Audio CD" and if it wasn't (if it was a "regular" computer data CD-R), it wouldn't record. "Audio CD-Rs" had a bit set meaning a tax was paid to cover the cost of piracy (like the blank cassette Tape Tax that was passed circa late 1980s), and they cost more to cover the tax. There's no difference (other than the variation in quality that either one can have) between "Data" CD-Rs and "Audio" CD-Rs.
Early CD players were made before CD-Rs were made. CD-Rs never had the higher contrast that the original pressed CDs had, that the early CD players weren't made for and didn't expect, so had a harder time playing them, and that was with the original playing time of 74 minutes. 80-minute and longer playing CD-Rs have the "grooves" closer together, making them even harder to play on early CD players, which were made with the 74 minute standard in mind.
CD-Rs are more vulnerable to (more easily harmed by) light (especially sunlight) and high humidity than pressed CDs.
There's MUCH more, unfortunately much of this no longer applies because there are fewer makers of CD-Rs and drives than decades ago:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cdrom/cd-recordable/part1/
There were stand-alone CD-R recorders that worked like tape recorders, they had two drives and so could make CD copies. It checked the blank CD-R in the write drive to make sure it was an "Audio CD" and if it wasn't (if it was a "regular" computer data CD-R), it wouldn't record. "Audio CD-Rs" had a bit set meaning a tax was paid to cover the cost of piracy (like the blank cassette Tape Tax that was passed circa late 1980s), and they cost more to cover the tax. There's no difference (other than the variation in quality that either one can have) between "Data" CD-Rs and "Audio" CD-Rs.
Early CD players were made before CD-Rs were made. CD-Rs never had the higher contrast that the original pressed CDs had, that the early CD players weren't made for and didn't expect, so had a harder time playing them, and that was with the original playing time of 74 minutes. 80-minute and longer playing CD-Rs have the "grooves" closer together, making them even harder to play on early CD players, which were made with the 74 minute standard in mind.
CD-Rs are more vulnerable to (more easily harmed by) light (especially sunlight) and high humidity than pressed CDs.
There's MUCH more, unfortunately much of this no longer applies because there are fewer makers of CD-Rs and drives than decades ago:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cdrom/cd-recordable/part1/