Advice Please---Should I burn discs at 4x or 8x?

my old computer had errors all over the place at 1x; my new computer is error-free at 48x

times change....

 

I agree with vote for the Japanese Taiyo Yuden's. I've never had a coster since I switched. Mitsui are the ultimate in quality and a bit more expensive. I also use Verbatims and have gotten great results. You can trust anything made in Japan. Stay FAR AWAY from generic brands.

The best software I've found to extract/burn with is also the cheapest Exact Audio Copy (EAC).... it's freeware!

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

 

Ding ding ding! That is correct, sir. Slow 1x and 2x burning was a great thing with my old 4X SCSI Panasonic drive and old slow media. These days, unless you are running a vintage 8-year old system and 8-year-old media, you are probably screwing yourself over real bad if you are intentionally burning at slow speeds.

 

Man oh man, so many different factors and theories! Guess I'd best get my audio tests underway and see for myself what works best for me!

 

Michael is exactly right. I use Plextools too to analyze burns.

Burning at 2X (or whatever) slow speed and claiming audio superiority is like saying "I only drive my Yugo at 65mph because anything faster and the whole car starts to shake, so you should never drive your Ferrari faster than 65mph cause it will shake like crazy too"

Seriously. With a quality burner, and good media, 48X can have fewer errors than an older, poorer performing burner/media that kicked out a disc at 2X. It's all about the tools you use.

 

Correct. The throughput and/or the reading CD-ROM is usually the culprit when trying to rip from CD roto CD-R. One needs a reasonably powerful computer to do that with, especially at higher speeds. I have a powerful PC, and the only way I can rip CD>D-R faster than 4x is if I enable the Burn-Proof feature, which I do not like to use for technical reasons.

This is all why it's a good idea to rip to the drive or make a disc image.. In fact, making a disc image is the best way to go, even on a fast machine.

 

Hey, thanks.....had the 602, so I downloaded and installed the 605.....was set to DMA before and still is now......haven't tried any burning yet, but maybe this'll help.

 

Yes, to hard drive first....and the files are always click/pop free.......so the errors are always in the burn-to-CDR stage.

 

Really? I have a brand new Sony DVD Burner. It burns poorly at 48X and perfectly at 4X with Sony media. Why is this?

 

Sony media sucks?

 

How dare your specific example fly in the face of my generalization.

Based on my experience, I stand by my statement.

I will admit that I mostly only use Japan-made Taiyo Yuden media (under various brand names), and that I don't have a Sony burner. I don't think I've used any Sony media in a good while except for a small package of Sony DVD-R.

 

What about Imation CDR-Music?

 

The only mark against Taiyo Yuden-made CD-R is that the dye they use is more prone to the effects of ultra-violet light, so you have to take care to keep them out of the sun.

 

Oh, and I don't use 48x or 52x, I get lots of errors there. The sweet spot on my Plextor, and the Optorite before that, is down in the 16x-24x range.

(I'm talking the easily correctable C1 errors)

I'm aware of the UV issues with Cyanine and Azo, but I've had no issues and I keep buying TY media intentionally, I love these discs and the price is great. But I keep all of my burned discs in opaque binders regardless.

DVD+R also has a UV degradation issue.

The worst discs I ever owned were some Imations from about 6 years ago. Within two years they were all dead (both the ones that I burned, and also some that I had never used and were still sealed). The substrate actually turned brown, from the edges, indicating some kind of oxidation problem I guess.

I can't imagine that they sell discs like this today, I probably got some from a bad batch.

 

I don't download music, so most of my CDR-burning projects are sourced from my own CD collection (making comps, custom editions, etc.). Some are analog transfers using Soundforge, either from live cassettes or LP's.

My HP Burner has speed settings for burning, but seems to have a mind of it's own. I have set it for 4X (assumed that would be a better burn) but it seems to burn at 8x regardless and with music discs it always finishes at about 65% through the estimated time (regardless of the duration of the music). With Data discs they go the full 100% of the estimated timeframe.

I have encountered speed problems with uploading music on Audiograbber. If I use the default setting the speed exceeds 16x and I get a lot of "possible speed errors." I usually set it to 8X "Buffered Burst" (have no idea what that is) and that's usually good for 90% of the tracks. But when I check the results, there's often one or two tracks that have some number of "possible speed errors" and I have to copy those at 4X (never encountered a problem at that speed).

The only time I've ever had CD's that skipped or clicked was when I bypassed Audiograbber and went through the straight HP "Copy" program, which probably uploads the music at very high speed. I never do that anymore.

When I first got the burner I was making good progress on my personal landfill of coasters, but when I selected the "Always check speed" option, that ended.

Note to self: Always check speed, always check speed, always...

 

When I used to try to burn at max. speed (48X) the following would happen (lite on drive in Dell computer): 1)it would make a crappy coaster, 2) the music would be totally screwed up and unlistenable, 3) would play but skip often in my car, or 4) actually work!

I now burn at 8x and don't have any problems. 12X works fine too but 8X is fast enough for me. Anyway, todays drives and media are optimized for faster speeds. They are actually worse (higher error rates) at slower speeds <4X. BTW, I talking exlusively about burning. I rip using EAC in secure mode so I know what errors I'm getting with the rip.

I do believe that the optimum speed is dependent on the drive and what discs you are using. I would certainly feel quite comfortable burning at 8X. BTW, my drive (and i think most do) optimizes the laser power by looking at the type of disc (dye type) you are using and the chossen burn speed.

Also, i don't hear any difference in sound quality between different burns except when it has uncorrectable errors, but i have cheap (not crappy) equipment and tin ears (but i also happen to be a scientist and think audiophiles are half nuts).

 

That's because you have tin ears and are probably used to listening with your eyes. If you did A/B comparisons, i'll bet you would hear differences, and would no longer thingkwe are half nuts. We are just able to hear stuff you guys need tests for.

 

Wow, was that necessary?

So, are you still advocating burning at slow speeds across-the-board?

 

Someone mentioned earlier something to the effect there was no evidence that there was any difference between burning fast and burning slow. That's not true. There are tests that can measure the amount of errors that accumulate on burned CD-Rs. In general, burning at very high speeds introduces more errors.

But that doesn't mean one should burn at the slowest possible speed, either. Steve is right, in that most modern media with max speeds up to 48x and 52x are designed and optimised with the expectation that most people will take advantage of the highest possible speed, after all faster must be better. So, these ultra fast medias do not perform their best when burned at 1 or 2 or even 4X. You need to go up to 8 or 12X to hit their "sweet spot". I always burn at 8X with my media. however, this sweet spot varies from media to media, but in general, 8x is fast and safe bet.

Best media short of the extremely expensive Mitsui Golds is Taiyo Yuden. These are somewhat hard to find as Taiyo does not release product under its own name, but the easiest way is to look for media branded Fuji "made In Japan". The Taiwanese stuff is NOT Taiyo. Taiyos also can be further identified by its frosted hub and aqua (blue-green) underside. Not all Taiyos are created equal. Beware of cheap ebay dealers-- they are carrying Taiyo's budget line which is not as good.

Another good brand is Verbatim DataLifePlus, with the SuperAZO dye. These also perform well under tests. Must be DataLifePLUS with Super AZO dye. Verbatim make a lot of different CD-Rs from different suppliers, only the Plus is any good.

I also recommend downloading an ATIP reader. An ATIP reader is software that can identify the true maker of the media in your hard drive. It may say "Maxell", "Memorex", "Verbatim", "Sony", "HP" etc etc, but most branded media is made by others. ATIP reader is easiest way to find out who made the media you just bought.

For further info (top CD-burning geek sites):

www.cdrinfo.com

www.cdmediaworld.com

www.cdfreaks.com

 

More likely the machine. Most computers have crappy sound cards with crappy audio inputs.

By the way, if you're using a computer to burn audio CDs, the rule of thumb is to divide the maximum rated speed of a given media by 4, and then use the next lower setting from the result. For 48x-rated media, this magic number turns out to be 12x; for 52x-rated media, 13x. If your computer burner has no provision for those given settings, then use the next-lower setting. The use of even lower settings is not recommended for modern high-speed media, since that significantly increases the number and frequency of C2 errors.

 

I don't know how old my burner is, but if I burn a disc at 1x with EasyCD Creator, it sounds "muddy", too much bass. If I burn at 2x it sounds fine. I believe my burner is a Samsung.

Also, this may be an iTunes thing, but when I burn at 4x (fastest speed of my burner), the indexes are all messed up.

This all may have to do with my "old" burner.

 

Hi Brian,

It may be "muddy" to you, but burning at 1x accurate! You'll have a CD with a lot of errors, but the music should sound right. OTOH, when you record your CD-R at 1x it should NOT run through the soundcard. Maybe that is what is happening. Hmmmm...

It is due to the sloppy way the person at the record company or at the mastering service chopped up the files. iTunes just gets what the record companies give them and puts them up on the website. There is no QC in that respect. I have many times had to go back and fix these sloppy masterings in Audition. The record companies are lazy and cheap as hell! The worst offender in my experience is Warner. The person in charge of the files probably fed the file in some automated software, and they aren't accurate at all. The reason it's getting worse is thet no one complains. But I do. But, i'm only one voice.

Nope.

 

Hey Grant

I don't know, but there is a definite difference between the original and 1x copy. I can't hear the difference between the original and the 2x copy.

Are you talking downloaded MP3s? I was talking about MP3s I ripped myself then burned. I don't use iTunes much. I don't like the way it sounds. I don't have any errors when I burn at a slower speed. iTunes is the only program that gives me any errors.

 

I had the recent misfortune of being asked to burn some tracks downloaded from the iTunes store to a CDR. The problem was, these were disco tracks that were supposed to segue together. If I simply set the gaps to 0, the segues were off by a split second -- just enough to throw the beat off.

I opened the tracks in Pro Tools and found a curious thing. Each track was longer than it should have been by a couple of hundred samples or so. Weird thing was, the extraneous bit at the end of each track was a tiny bit of the beginning of the next track, but distorted. Snipping these little bits off solved the problem.