An Introduction to the Topic
When you record a CD, a laser in the recorder burns spots into a layer of dye on the underside of the disc. The resulting dark spots are then read by a different, lower-power laser in the playback unit, which alternately detects the dark spots and bright areas, where the laser reflects off the shiny surface of the disc.
As noted in our feature on CD-R disaster relief, there are really only three different types of dye used on recordable CDs:
All brands of CD-R media use one of these forms of dye, or a hybrid mix (detailed here). These dyes are applied to various types of reflective surfaces to result in one of the following categories of CD-R media: gold/gold, green/gold, silver/blue, or silver/silver.
There are, however, several other factors:
There are, however, certain brands and types of discs that are better than others. Phthalocyanine dye is considered the most stable of the dye types, and cheap green dye CD-R discs are considered the worst. Generally speaking, gold-surface discs with Phthalocyanine dye from an ISO9660-certified major manufacturer are your best bet.
Audio Professionals Speak
There are many resources on the Web where CD recording enthusiasts debate the merits of various recording media. One such location is Cubase.net. (Steinberg Cubase is a professional music program developed in Germany.) Here are some comments and success stories:
TDK Disks
"I [obtained] my best results with TDK 'Reflex' CD-Rs," writes one Tobias Beitzen, WaveLab Product Coordinator at Steinberg Soft- & Hardware GmbH in Hamburg, Germany. He reports good results with these discs on nearly every CD-burner tested. Interestingly, he also claims poor luck with Gold discs in his CD-burner tests. Most other people seem to have better luck with Gold disks, which, unfortuately, have been all but pushed out of the mass market due to their higher cost.
Maxell Disks
Maxell, notes one user, has at least 3 different plants that make 3 different types of CDs.
If you look on the CD box down at the bottom it will say where it was made. The ones that say Taiwan, users report, are the worst.
But the ones that say "Made In Japan" seem to be the best. (But they are harder to find).
Maxell CDs that say "Made In Mexico" are gold CDs. Also hard to find, users report that these generally work fine and are a popular choice for audio disc production.
Gold Disks and Other Considerations
What speed should you burn at? One Cubase.net poster writes: "I use only Gold CD-R media for audio. I have tried them all!
Now I only use 'Quantegy' Professional Media Series Gold CD-Rs (They used to be called AMPEX). I have never had even one bad CD to date."
"I have 2 SCSI CD Burners -- a Yamaha CDR-400 and the new Plextor 12/4/32 -- and they both like these CDs. For consistently good results I always burn audio at 2x for important stuff. I have gone up to 8x with these CDs and even higher with other brands but find that some less expensive or older CD Players may skip when playing back, maybe only in one place on the entire CD and maybe only on 1 out of 10 CDs, but I personally find that it is not worth the time saved by burning at higher speeds even if I get one complaint about skipping CDs that leave my studio."
Plextor Recommends....
Plextor, considered by many to produce the best CD recorders on the market, has published a list of media its recommends:
CD-R at 12 X.
--------------
Taiyo Yuden
Mitsubishi
Ricoh
Kodak
Maxell
TDK
Pioneer
CD-R at 8x, 4x, 2x
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TDK
Taiyo Yuden
Mitsui
Ricoh
Kodak
Fuji
Maxell
Pioneer
Mitsubishi (parent company of Verbatim)
Generic Discs
"Joe C," meanwhile, writes: "I've been going the cheap bulk route of late and buy from www.memorymedia.com . I've had best results with their 99.9% guaranteed silver/silver unbranded discs, about 49 cents a piece. I prefer unbranded discs because the brand logos don't show through the labels. I tried some really bargain CD-Rs at 25 cents but they had a lot of physical defects. You could actually see where the dye was defective.
It is my understanding that the silver/silver type is the most reflective and provide the highest compatibility with audio CD players. You might find that some CD players will not play a CDR because they are less reflective then a commercially manufactured CD. These generally tend to be older units, portable or inexpensive ones, and some car stereo players.
Successful burning is no accident. Even with the better ones, I give the disc a good looking over before putting it in, holding it up to the light to checking for pinholes or inconsistencies. Then after burning I look it over again. You should be able to see the area where data is burned. I look to see that it's consistent and has no blotches. If I see something suspicious, I'll play the disc through in its entirety to make sure or in the case of data, use a file compare program.
Sometimes I suspect, the burner might not get the record calibration quite right or a disc might be defective and the data portion will appear very light, almost invisible. The disc will usually be unusable. That has only happened maybe twice so far. I also do all critical burning at 2x and check all audio CDs in a standard CD player to make sure they are good.
Premium brand name CDs, I assume, are held to higher QC measures and you may feel more comfortable using them.
I'd just like to mention something about "For Audio Use Only" CDRs. As far as I know, there is no difference between the make up of these and data CD-Rs, except they are somehow coded to be used in "consumer" standalone recorders. The reason for this, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, there is a royalty placed on these CDRs that is paid back to recording industry. Stand alone recorders will not recognize a data CDR, but I have used audio CDRs in my data burner with no problems."
Joe notes, "All CD burners seem to behave a little different. Try a little experimentation and you'll find out what works best for you. Good Luck!"
What about CD-RW discs?
Is CD-RW a viable replacement for the venerable floppy disk/Zip disc/video tape, etc.? Not if you plan to write to the same disk more than 40 or 50 times, it seems. Despite manufacturers' claims of 1000+ rewrites, Slashdot posters say most CD-RWs only last about 30-40 rewrites before they start showing significant data dropouts -- almost always at the start of a recording. Our own tests, conducted on CompUSA branded CD-RW media, support these findings.
Long-term Reliability
The most in-depth report on long-term media reliability we've seen is from a Dutch site that took a look at data on thirty different CD-R brands, recorded twenty months ago. The results were quite shocking: a lot of the discs simply couldn't be read anymore.
Roughly translated from Dutch, courtesy of CD Freaks:
"The tests showed that a number of CD-Rs had become completely unreadable while others could only be read back partially. Data that was recorded 20 months ago had become unreadable. These included discs of well known and lesser known manufacturers.
It is presumed that CD-Rs are good for at least 10 years. Some manufacturers even claim that their CD-Rs will last up to a century. From our tests it's concluded however that there is a lot of junk on the market. We came across CD-Rs that should never have been released to the market. It's completely unacceptable that CD-Rs become unusable in less than two years."
There's further discussion of this subject in the CD Freaks Media Forum.
Conclusion
Notably, few CD-R users speak highly of "blue dye" discs. In PC Buyer's Guide's own tests, in fact, blue discs (e.g., BASF brand with silver disc label, etc.) consistently caused more trouble than any other type. In general, we've found that discs with dark dye performed worse than those with lighter dyes. And, although it is true that you cannot judge how well a particular brand of media will work in your recorder by its physical appearance alone, we've found that poor quality discs are usually fairly easy to see, by simple examination. Cheap discs often have visible defects in the dye coating.
Like Joe, we have had good results from silver/silver unbranded discs (based on "advanced phthalocyanine dye", according to the Media section of the CD-R FAQ) and find them an economical and -- so far -- reliable solution. We currently use 80-minute, 32x certified "bulk pack" discs, sold in a 25- or 50-disc spools for about $.50 (Cdn) per disc, with excellent results. We've also had generally good results from silver/green (cyanine) discs. You can use a program called CDR Identifier to find out what kind of dye formulation your discs use.
For Further Reading
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