[tomra]

Hi

My CDRW is capable of "burning" cd`s at 12X speed. There is also an option to write at slower speeds, but what are the advantages of writing at slower speeds ( like 4X )? Do i get a more reliable/stable CD when writing at a slower speed?

Thanks.
Tom

[Valentine]

I believe it has to do with the capability of the CD. If it can handle it, I go for it. No problems yet.

[murbot]

There is a guy at a local shop here that tells me that when he is burning software to a CD he never goes over 2x to insure a quality burn. I think this is ridiculous, because when I had my 12x FW burner I always burned at 12x. There were never any quality problems, and I very rarely ever made a coaster (if I did it was due to an error I made). Of course I used media rated to 12x.

[tomra]

Hi

Thanks for sharing your experiences!
I`ll go with 12X

Tom

[FD]

Burn it at the fastest speed you can, if the verification is successful then your data is intact. There is, however, an audible difference between disks burned at high speed and disks burned at low speed. I know many of you will disagree with me on this but I have done many blind tests with different program material and different media and the 2x sounds better than the 12x. I will add, however, that the diference is fairly small and unless I want a high quality copy, I do burn audio cds at 12x mainly because I am impatient. One caveat- I make my living as a sound mixer so I may listen with a more critical ear than most people(this is not meant as an elitest comment just a possibility)

[zigzag]

If what FD says is true, does anyone have a technical explanation for it? Or a rebuttal? Just curious.

[nana2]

If the burn was successful, then all the data has been burned successfully onto the disk. How can there be a difference in the sound from the original if it is a perfect copy? Now if the DAE was less than perfect when ripping the CD I can understand how the copy would be of lesser quality than the original

[tomra]

At my work we write images to CD`s on a regular basis and from time to time a CD goes bad on us after a while. Not sure if this is related to a "unreliable" burn or if this is a result of poor handlig. Maybe both. I guess it is clever to do a "rewrite" every second year or so....?

Tom

[Jean-Luc]

Hi!

Just to say that FD is correct: there is an audible difference. However, this is very subtle. It has more to do with the deepness of the music (3D space). I did a test with a friend who have a very high end hi-fi system. We made several copies of a Diana Krall disc (which we both legally own!!!). We choose it because, in our opinion, it is one of the best recording available, both technically and artistically, and it contains voice, acoustic and electric instruments.

We did these copies on G4s, one with Que! FireWire 4x max, the other with a Que! FireWire 8x max. He also have a Tascam single drive audio CD writer.

On the Mac, we did the copies in several ways:
1. Extract the music data with DAE, then burning the CDR with Toast at 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x.

2. Making a disc-to-disc copy with Toast at the same speeds above.

The Tascam writer copy the disc at 1x only and we have to connect it to our CD player via digital interconnect.

We use Sony CD-R and Maxell Audio CD-R. We didn't hear any difference between the 2.

The winner? Tascam CD writer. The worst? 8X burning with DAE extraction. Why? I don't know!!! CD copy at 8X burning lacks the 3D space that you find in the original. It's like all the instruments are on the same line and distance in front of the listener. In the original, you can clearly hear the drum in the back, you can pinpoint the location of the guitar, etc. You can also hear more harmonics, more subtleties, all these little things that make music.

I'm not saying that 8X copies are crap. I'm just saying that something seems to be lost in the copying process. If you just want to hear music or want copies for you car or discman, go for 8X. You'll save a lot of time. But in a true listening experience, EVERYONE will hear the difference.

And like FD said, this is by no mean an elitist point of view. I just wanted to share my experience as an audio (and Macintosh) enthusiast.

Needless to say that we were shocked. After all, a digital copy should be identical to the original. If someone have an explanation, I'll be glad to hear it.

Jean-Luc

The results in our subjective and non-scientific test (Original CD is 10)

Tascam: 8.5
Toast disc-to-disc (1x, 2x): 7.5
Toast disc-to-disc (4x): 7
Toast disc-to-disc (8x): 6.5
Toast with DAE to HD (1x, 2x): 7
Toast with DAE to HD (4x): 6.5
Toast with DAE to HD (8x): 6

G4 500 DP, 768 MB, 40 GB 7200 rpm HD, Mac OS 9.1, VM off, Appletalk off, CP and extensions lean. Toast 4.1.1 and Toast Deluxe 4.1.1 Sorry if my English is bad. French is my mothertongue.

[FD]

CD audio specs(redbook and orangebook) allow for LOTS of error correction and concealment. My assumption of what is happening is that the higher speed burn rate introduces a slightly higher error rate into the recorded sound which forces the player do more error correction and concealment and at some point this becomes audible. The better the player, the less audible the errors. If you have the opportunity take your favorite CD and play it on your newest CD player and then(through the same system)on an older CD player, preferably one that is 10-12 yrs old and you will hear an incredible difference. That difference is due to better D-As and better error correction and concealment algorithms.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

The higher the speed a burn, the more shallow the laser actually pits the CD. Yes, we're talking microns worth of difference, but it makes a difference in audio playback quality. I'm not really sure the exact details why a more shallow burn affects a digital audio signal, it seems logicial that zeros and ones are zeros and ones, but apparently there's a little more to it than that.

A disk burned at a lower speed with deeper pits will also last longer, and be more resistant to data loss. When backing up really important stuff for long term archive, I'd always recommend burning slower. When it doesn't matter all that much, go for the fastest speed.

Also, the faster the media itself is rated for burn, the more shallow the data layer is on the CD. So if you have a CD-RW drive that tops out at 8x speed, don't buy data rated for 16 and 24x speed.

[Composer]

Just a quick note for those of us using USB CD-RW with older computers:

I find it necessary to write at 1-2x on most things because of buffer-underrun errors. FWIW, I'm using a Sony Spressa capable of 6x.

It seems that anytime it encounters files over a certain length, the buffer underruns and you're stuck with a coaster.

I've also encountered this with HP CDRW drives (on PCs, though).

I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the USB speed.

[Valentine]

There is quite a bit of information about CD burning on Roxio's website: www.roxio.com.

Some excerpts:

The readability of a CD may be affected by any combination of:

1. The media type (CD-R vs. CD-RW), its brand, and even the batch in which it was manufactured.
2. The speed at which it was recorded.
3. The CD-ROM drive, audio player, DVD drive, etc. it's read back on.
4. The recorder it was recorded on, and sometimes the recorder's firmware.

And:

The speed at which a disc is recorded can sometimes affect how easily it can be read or played. Recording at a slower speed may produce a more readable disc - though a few users have reported exactly the opposite experience!

When writing at 4x or higher speed, it's important to use media rated for recording at that speed (some recorders wisely refuse to write at a high speeds on media not rated for it). This is especially critical when writing at 4x speed to CD-RW media.