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Re: [ARSCLIST] CD-R error rates



Tom Fine wrote:
Hi Don:

The way you describe it is how I've always understood it. My personal experience has been, for years, that 16x is a reliable burning speed for almost all CDR media. My Plextor drives have been known to just not burn certain cheapo media so I never buy it. T-Y and MAM-A media burn great at 16x and I too have found very low error rates using Plextor's software. I don't have a client with sophisticated analysis equipment like Richard's client but I did have one tell me that the audio CDR's I sent him play perfectly on his finicky older CD machine, a unit that usually won't play CDR media.

Richard, if you have time, run your tests at 24x, too. I wonder if 24x is perfectly acceptable with modern media and could be a time-saver.

As for Don's comment about 1x, I agree with this in most cases. T-Y blue-dyes seem to work OK at 1x in my Tascam CD recorder, exhibiting low but not zero error rates when checked with Plextor software. I should note that they exhibit lower error rates, in general, than commercial audio CD's tested with Plextor.

-- Tom Fine

My testing was done some years ago when a greater variety of speeds was supported - and the maximum speed was less stratospheric. Over a number of media, C1/C2 rates proved lowest in the range 8-12x with 4-16x quite acceptable thanks to the flatness of the optimum. With my present hardware, nothing is offered between 8x and 16x so my preferred 12x is not on the menu. In my duplicator, I used 8x; in the computer, usually 16x but I master for pressing at 8x.


If one must record at 1x, then media made for the purpose are at least highly recommended; I consider that mandatory. There is a simple if unglamorous approach: discs made for standalone recorders. Commonly referred to as "Music Discs", they are properly called "Digital Music" for the notation included in the CD logo. They pay a royalty to the copyright agglomerators, hence are more expensive than ordinary media and they are not available in premium or archival varieties, but that test much better at low speed (4x and below) than the "Data Discs" on the market today.

Mike
--
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/


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