CD-R

[Milestones]

For those still burning CDs, what brand of CD-R do you prefer?  I've been finding my discs strangely inconsistent.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I always buy Mitsui (MAM-A) or Taiyo Yuden blanks. I usually order them from American Digital (http://www.american-digital.com/prodsite/catnew.asp?c=2212 ). Choose gold or Aluminum depending on you budget.

[Scott Dolan]

I occasionally have to burn CDs for my wife's car. I've been using Memorex for years with no issues. I never did like their blank cassettes way back when, but the blank CDs have worked out just fine. 

[A Lark Ascending]

Extra Protection?!!!!!! The mind boggles. 

I've used these for many years without problem. Occasionally the disc won't play but running a pen around the hole a few times sorts it out. A trick I learnt from Hyperion records when one of their commercial discs wouldn't play. I was advised that a little bit of friction would remove excess molecules!!!!! Not convinced by the explanation, but it works.

[Dave Garrett]

9 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I always buy Mitsui (MAM-A) or Taiyo Yuden blanks. I usually order them from American Digital (http://www.american-digital.com/prodsite/catnew.asp?c=2212 ). Choose gold or Aluminum depending on you budget.

Taiyo Yuden announced a year ago that they were exiting the recordable media business. I would expect that whatever stock is still available at retailers, if any, is all that's left. 

http://www.yuden.co.jp/eu/cms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/150611Withdrawal-from-the-Recording-Media-Business_HP_E.pdf

[Chuck Nessa]

I have burned thousands of cdrs and have only found a half dozen that would not record and none, so far, that won't play.

 

[A Lark Ascending]

I've always bought mine from the local supermarket when they've had half-price offers. But they've not stocked them for the last few months - had to go to Amazon to replenish.

I wonder, with other storage methods now being relatively inexpensive, whether these may go the way of the cassette tape. A pity as, even though I largely download, I still like having recordings on a disc to play in the house.    

[Milestones]

On a related question, do you find your CD burner wiping out (in whole or in part) in a fairly short time frame?  Mine is three years old, and I have used is rather heavily.  It has now become highly inconsistent.

 

[l p]

i used to have windows xp / nero 8.

after a short while, the only cdr's this setup liked was tdk and philips. 

[A Lark Ascending]

I've never had a burner die on me - the computers I've owned tend to give up the ghost after 4 years but the burners (standard fitting) have been going strong up to the whole machine dying. 

[Tony]

I've found small form factor burners to cause issues.  I copy a lot of DVDs (from a DVD recorder on RW then copy to mp4 on a laptop) Knackered 2 laptop DVD drives and an external small form factor (Which seemed to damage disks after multiple use).  I dug out an old Larger external drive and never had an issue since.

Nowadays I find any brand recordable CDs works okay (but DVDs seem flakey over a long time which is why I copy to mp4)

 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I have had several cheap brands of CD-R fail with time. I have never had a Mitsui or Taiyo Yuden fail, particularly the archival gold discs. Memorex and Verbatim CD-R blanks used to be manufactured by Taiyo Yuden but both switched over to cheaper suppliers a long time ago.

If you use Exact Audio Copy as your burning program, you can find out who makes any blank. It's in the "Tools">"Write CD-R" sub-menu labeled "CD-R".

[romualdo]

On 6/17/2016 at 2:48 AM, A Lark Ascending said:

 

I've used these for many years without problem. Occasionally the disc won't play but running a pen around the hole a few times sorts it out. A trick I learnt from Hyperion records when one of their commercial discs wouldn't play. I was advised that a little bit of friction would remove excess molecules!!!!! Not convinced by the explanation, but it works.

Fascinating!! (at least it's not April 1st) going to try this on some of my discs that don't play (If I can remember which ones they are). So, this works on both CDr's & commercial discs?

[A Lark Ascending]

4 hours ago, romualdo said:

Fascinating!! (at least it's not April 1st) going to try this on some of my discs that don't play (If I can remember which ones they are). So, this works on both CDr's & commercial discs?

Does for me. 

The Naim CD/streamer I bought last autumn is especially sensitive to some Cd-rs I've made - throws up 'check for dirt' or 'no disc'. With every one running a pen around the hole about twenty times (sometimes more) has done the trick. 

As far as I can remember the only problems I've had with commercial discs are from Hyperion (they also had the leaking lacquer problem around 1990!). As they advised me, running the pen around has always done the trick. 

Makes no sense to me but it works. 

[Jazzjet]

3 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Does for me. 

The Naim CD/streamer I bought last autumn is especially sensitive to some Cd-rs I've made - throws up 'check for dirt' or 'no disc'. With every one running a pen around the hole about twenty times (sometimes more) has done the trick. 

As far as I can remember the only problems I've had with commercial discs are from Hyperion (they also had the leaking lacquer problem around 1990!). As they advised me, running the pen around has always done the trick. 

Makes no sense to me but it works. 

I don't know whether the Naim streamer has this facility but with my Oppo streamer I use USB memory sticks a lot of the time. They come in quite high capacities now - I have some 128 Gb ones - so you can easily store a lot of lossless music on them. The sound is great and navigation is easy.

[A Lark Ascending]

9 hours ago, Jazzjet said:

I don't know whether the Naim streamer has this facility but with my Oppo streamer I use USB memory sticks a lot of the time. They come in quite high capacities now - I have some 128 Gb ones - so you can easily store a lot of lossless music on them. The sound is great and navigation is easy.

Thanks, Jazzjet. Never thought of that. 

I've not really used the streaming aspect of the machine apart from the internet radio and Spotify. It happily runs an iPod so I imagine a memory stick would work too.

Trouble is I'm still wedded to the old album on its own disc concept (despite carrying lots on several iPods). Certainly a solution when CD-rs vanish from production.  

[kinuta]

You can't go wrong with Taiyo Yuden.

I seldom burn to CDR, I switched to HDD ages ago.

I have a Buffalo Link Theatre that connects an external HDD or USB memory stick  to my audio amp for music, and to my tv for visual media.

Edited June 21, 2016 by kinuta

[Kevin Bresnahan]

8 hours ago, kinuta said:

You can't go wrong with Taiyo Yuden.

I seldom burn to CDR, I switched to HDD ages ago.

I have a Buffalo Link Theatre that connects an external HDD or USB memory stick  to my audio amp for music, and to my tv for visual media.

HDD is fine as long as you back it up... maybe even multiple times. HDDs fail and when they do, it's almost always catastrophic. I have my HDD music backed up on two separate hard drives. I used to have it backed up on another drive at work too, until my company decided to encrypt any files attached to a work computer. It's always good to have one back-up drive located outside of your house in case of a house fire.

Also, if you use a solid-state hard drive, it still needs to be backed up. There are stories that solid state drives may lose data with time, especially if it's not connected to a power supply. If you do have a solid state hard drive, make sure that you have automatic defragmentation shut off. First off, you don't need to de-frag a SSD. Secondly, the defrag process involves shuffling data around for several hours. Each "bit" in an SSD is rated for hundreds of thousands of flips from 1 to 0 (or vice versa). You don't want to use yhem all up needlessly defragging the drive.

[kinuta]

2 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

HDD is fine as long as you back it up... maybe even multiple times. HDDs fail and when they do, it's almost always catastrophic. I have my HDD music backed up on two separate hard drives. I used to have it backed up on another drive at work too, until my company decided to encrypt any files attached to a work computer. It's always good to have one back-up drive located outside of your house in case of a house fire.

Also, if you use a solid-state hard drive, it still needs to be backed up. There are stories that solid state drives may lose data with time, especially if it's not connected to a power supply. If you do have a solid state hard drive, make sure that you have automatic defragmentation shut off. First off, you don't need to de-frag a SSD. Secondly, the defrag process involves shuffling data around for several hours. Each "bit" in an SSD is rated for hundreds of thousands of flips from 1 to 0 (or vice versa). You don't want to use yhem all up needlessly defragging the drive.

I know, everything is fully backed up. I don't know if I.O. Data drives are available to you butI recommend them.

[Jazzjet]

On 6/20/2016 at 5:12 PM, A Lark Ascending said:

Thanks, Jazzjet. Never thought of that. 

I've not really used the streaming aspect of the machine apart from the internet radio and Spotify. It happily runs an iPod so I imagine a memory stick would work too.

Trouble is I'm still wedded to the old album on its own disc concept (despite carrying lots on several iPods). Certainly a solution when CD-rs vanish from production.  

It probably depends on the navigation capability of your streamer. My Oppo is connected to my home cinema setup so I can easily control and navigate my music via the screen. I have some memory sticks full of favourite tracks where I use the shuffle option. I have others where the integrity of individual albums is maintained and I can navigate and play in exactly the same way as a CD. For example, I have one memory stick dedicated to all my vinyl LPs which I have digitised losslessly and these are maintained in original album format. The approach does provide pretty good flexibility.

[Big Beat Steve]

On 17.6.2016 at 6:48 PM, A Lark Ascending said:

Extra Protection?!!!!!! The mind boggles. 

I've used these for many years without problem. Occasionally the disc won't play but running a pen around the hole a few times sorts it out. A trick I learnt from Hyperion records when one of their commercial discs wouldn't play. I was advised that a little bit of friction would remove excess molecules!!!!! Not convinced by the explanation, but it works.

Same here. I use these mainly because of their availability. No problem, even after years.

 

A few years ago I had issues with SONY CD-Rs (the ones that came in jewel cases with greenish inlay cards): Some just would not want to be recorded and burnt even though brand new and just removed from the box, though others burnt successfully. Unpredictable ...