hello,

I'd like to copy (1:1) some of my classical Audio CDs.

My CD-writer is a Cyberdrive CW088D.
My DVD drive is a LiteOn LTD 165-H.

Now I'm looking for CD-Rs that have a high quality and that play on normal HiFi systems without any problem. The copies are for my father, unfortunately I don't know what hifi system he has because he's living in another country ATM.

What CD-Rs can you recommend if price does not matter?

Last time I checked CD-R:s manufactured by Taiyo Yuden was the best quality. You will however not find any CD-R:s with that name on it, they just manufacture the discs they don't sell them. There are certainly lots of brands that use TY discs. I have some Maxell for instance. But not all Maxell are TY. Its a jungle... You should head over to cd-freaks.org and spend some time reading articles and the forum if you really want to now.

This is a good resource to find out what discs are manufactured by what company:
http://www.instantinfo.de/index_cdrohlinge_e.php

Different brand CD-R's tend to have varried results on different brand drives, though some discs might just be crappy altogether. So if you could find some tests results for your CD writer model, that would be best. I found a lengthy review on cdfreaks.com for my drive with very helpful graphs.

Taiyo Yuden's are usually known for being of very high quality, especially for use with Plextor drives, from what I've heard. But they do not test well with all drives, like my Lite-On for instance (to the surprise of the cdfreaks reviewer). Ritek and Prodisc are also seem to test well and be high quality discs, and they can be purchased for near dirt cheap from meritline.com

But I agree that you should look around on cdfreaks.com, read reviews, etc. Also maybe try searching Google for your drive model and see what comes up.

I should also note that, as far as I know, the type of music you are putting on the disc does not matter. Rather, as far as I know, certain brands will not be better suited for classical music.

Also, you may find it helpful to know that its usually not recommended to burn audio at a speed above 16x if you're going for best quality. Just thought I would mention that.

thx a lot for your fast help

[tongue in cheek mode]
Hey, if some brands of power and speaker cables are better for clsssical, why not CDR's?
[/tongue in cheek mode]

Back to the subject.. in my experience most players will play most disks with no problems, with one noteable exception: If your father is using a DVD player to also play CD's.

DVD's use a different color laser than CD's, so they generally won't play CDR's, as CDR's use a colored dye to store the bits rather than a physical pit (as in pressed CD's). You may get lucky by trying different types. My first DVD player will play CDRW fine but not CDR.

Most newer designs have responded to popular demand and are ok with CDR's.. I believe they have a second laser just for CD play.

I'm afraid that you're wrong. Standalone CD-Players have to support the CD norm, they don't have to support CD-R, but most do. There are plenty of examples where e.g. Verbatim CD-R are working perfectly in a car radio, but don't want to play on Sony.
There's a huge difference between audio and data CD, data-CD works on every drive, no matter what blank you have. But with audio CD it's a completely different picture. Some blanks give minor problems like access delay or stops in between play, others cannot be played on the Cd-player at all.

I did say "in my experience" which covers roughly 10 brands of CD player (car, home, and portable) and 6 or 7 brands of CDR. Having never had an incompatability problem I think that's a broad enough sample to cover "most works with most." Also, in the various fora I've read, on the playback side most people are asking about archival qualities rather than compatability.

I have to wonder.. if you "knew" that CDR's have to be chosen for the target player, why did you ask without knowing what the target player is?

Not generally true. Different dye types need different burn strategies depending on the speed. Dyes used today are suitable for high burning speeds. Think of it this way: you allways need roughly the same amount of energy to "burn" one spot in a certain dye type. The faster you go, the less time you have to transport that energy so the output of the laser will be very short pulses of high intensity. Old dyes were not able to react properly to such pulses. Newer dyes have been designed with fast pulses in mind. On the other hand that can (but doesn't have to) mean they have difficulty reacting to slower pulses.

Secondly, the burner manufacturers only focus on high speed burning when developing their burn strategies. There is very little tuning done on the low speeds.

All in all this means that a burn at 48x can likely be better than a burn at 16x because the tuning is done for fast speeds only these days. The burning speed sweet spot varies for every burner/firmware/medium combination.

Furthermore I haven't seen any scientiffically valid tests proving that the CDR type causes audible differences.

For best compatibility with standalones, I would recommend cyanine/AZO dye CD-Rs. Taiyo Yudens and Verbatim Digital CD-Rs are cyanine, Verbatim Datalife Plus are AZO. Depending on the country you are from, you may have different/more options. Riteks and Prodiscs are a bad idea, because they use phthalocyanine dyes that older standalones don't like and their quality is variable, unlike with TYs or Verbatims.

I second the recommendations to not exceed 16x and visit CDFreaks.com. The Cyberdrive may me inadequate for 1:1 audio CD copying, certainly a recent Plextor drive (Premium or later) is more suitable for the purpose.

As said above ty are good,verbatim ritek-ridata and maxel too.Be sure that your father player supports a cdr before you start anything,caule all new drives generally do today,but for example i have a nice rotel cd player 6 years old and doesent work with cdr or cdrw,also my friend nakamichi cd player have a problem too with nonretail disks
About disks last few months im seeing here in canada ritek-ridata disks very cheap.Im bying a 50 pack for 10-12$canadian,they all come perfect after burning @52 speed,they got a orange-silver top and is written arita on them-80 min disks,they also showed good qyality-low errors after i tested it with those bundled nero tools,so check it out if you spot them.
BTW,stories that cds are better to burn at up to 16,or at speed 1x are pure bs-imho

I just checked a disk and it does use that hthalocyanine so i guess you should be right,but genera lly this is now different time,you can always buy a cheapo dvd for 50$ which will play almost everything-at least my apex does-cdr,cdrw,vcd,svcd,dvd,mp3,wma,jpeg.
Btw i had that writer cyberdrive before and it wasnt bad,it is 40 or 48 speed-cant remember but very good to rip with eac-very fast in secure mode,i just think its almost nonsense to buy a plextor drive just to rip a few cds if you allready have a working 40 speed writer-just my opinion

If you live in the U.S., you can probably obtain Taiyo Yuden CD's by buying Fujifilm CD-R media. I've been buying Fugifilm media from Best Buy in California for over a year (30- and 50-packs), and it's always been TY for me. No guarantees, of course!

I agree with Gecko regarding burn speeds. Some reports show that, for a given media and burner, you will see varying levels of (correctable) errors depending on burn speed, and sometimes faster speeds (ex. 32x) will do better than all slower speeds.

Only true if said media is made in Japan.

...but you can be more certain if you order TY discs from newegg.com

NOTE: I have no connection to newegg, other than being a satisfied customer.

Most Fuji 100 spindles are now CMC...

Yes you can, the first Taiyo Yuden disc I bought have their name stated

these are all the words printed on the CDR

That's CDR
CDR-80TY

Taiyo Yuden Co.,Ltd.
Madein Japan/Fabrique au Japon



You want to make 1;1 copy, let me guess, You want
the duplicated CD-R to be used normally and you keep the original in somewhere safe?


I think the best would be Taiyo Yuden
The explanation is prettym simple

Taiyo Yuden is the first to introduce CDR, they make the first CDR
There is no reason why a player cannot support it!

besides that, the longetivity of TY disc is proven good!

Taiyo Yuden makes great CD-Rs, someone here recomended Prodisc, but I've had bad expiriences with them, lots of coasters. Riteks are good too.

Yea, the last pack of Fuji CDRs I bought were Prodisc and made in Taiwan. Should have checked the label first.

I had mixed results with Prodisc. They started burning well but as time went on they started smelling and got a few coasters.

i suggest you
Philips Silver Premium
i used them for precious saves and they are manufactured by Taiyo Yuden

thanks for all the help fellows

I asked this question also at a German forum dedicated to blanks.

A user there says that he has several standalones at hand and that those only like TY and Ritek, sometimes also Prodisc. According to "Diet", Ritek have a good reflexivity, a feature that is of significant importance for standalone playback.
He discourages use of TDK, Mitsui and MCC (Verbatim DL+).

In Europe Verbatim DataLife (NOT PLUS) "Pastel Disc" are actually made by Taiyo Yuden and are available in 20pack slim case (order# 43353), 50pack spindle (order# 43417) and 100pack spindle (order# 43418)

Order number are indicated on the package, so you can't be wrong.

See: this link.

You can tell them from other Verbatim "non-TY" blanks also from the inner "frosted" CD ring and from the fact that they are "Made in Japan"

I use them all of the time with my Plextor burners (PX-W2410A and PX-712A) and I'm *VERY* happy of them.

Sergio

In case anyone is interested... Saturn (at least here in Karlsruhe) is selling Verbatim "Pastel Discs" in a 20 pack for 6.95 € - the same price as for the 20 packs made in India (probably by Moser Baer).
They also offer DVD+R and DVD-R "Pastel Discs" made in Japan in a 5 pack for 5.95 €.

*tosses in $0.02*

I know a few people on this board have had some bad experiences with anything CMC. However, the Memorex Black CD-Rs (that I swear by) are Phthalocyanaine Type 6 manufactured by CMC. I've gone through 2 50-pack spindles of these, and not a single one has ever given me any trouble. None of them have failed, none of them got picky about what CD player they'd play in, and, to the best of my knowledge, they all still play just fine. But then, I never burn faster than 4x, which probably makes a difference (some of the CMC people had trouble when burning at faster speeds).

If you really wanted to get fancy, tacron, you could always look at Mobile Fidelity's new CD-Rs. I've tried them out myself, and they're pretty nice! I've made backup copies of a few of my MFSL and DCC gold CDs using these CD-Rs. According to EAC's CD-R info, the dye is Phthalocyanine Type 5, manufactured by Mitsui. And, of course, MFSL puts all their CD-Rs through a rigorous (and borderline anal retentive) testing process to ensure quality. They are a tad pricey, though: A 5-pack is $15.

not here in canada, they're all TY.

i find that for most purposes, be it data or music, taiyo yuden performs well. bear in mind that every drive and media work differently. if you're a perfectionist do a couple of tests with your burner with different speeds and different media and see what media/speed combination gives you the best result.