Your experiences do not coincide with mine at all. I use both a 12" Powerbook and an iMac and I have both Toast and iTunes. I've also got a LaCie external burner to use. Using either Mac and either software, I get excellent burned cd-r's with both the internal (Superdrives) drives and the LaCie. The LaCie might be slightly better, but I wouldn't want to take the "Pepsi Challenge" on that one. One difference, I never use Lossless. Many insist that it is supposed to sound identical to WAV files. I don't store music on my hard drives and don't care about file sizes, so I always burn WAV files. In import preferences, I use error correction and import in WAV. Burn speed is 2x. I also use either Taiyo Yuden or Mitsui cd-r's. If anything, I'd say burned cd's often sound better than the original discs.
Burning better CD-Rs from Mac/rec eternal burner
Before you jump on me about searching the archives, let me say that I have done so exhaustively and have not found what I need.
I want to burn a compilation CD for taking to audio shows and meetings, but I am always disappointed with the sound quality of CDs I burn from iTunes on my MacBook Pro. I rip with Apple Lossless, burn at slowest possible speeds, and have all the settings where they should be as far as I know, but the quality is still inferior. Good enough for the car, good enough to give to non-audiophiles, but sufficiently inferior to the original CD that I would not want to use them on a really good system. (Short story: a guy came to my house a few months ago to listen to some speakers I was selling. He brought a compilation CD he had made. The sound was really mediocre. Over his mild objection, I put on an original CD and he was stunned at the improvement.)
I know many of you do make compilation CDs and then there is the whole copies-sound-better-than-originals camp, so there must be a better way. Is the secret to get an external CD burner? If so, which? Plextor was a favorite, but they are out of that business.
Dan
I want to burn a compilation CD for taking to audio shows and meetings, but I am always disappointed with the sound quality of CDs I burn from iTunes on my MacBook Pro. I rip with Apple Lossless, burn at slowest possible speeds, and have all the settings where they should be as far as I know, but the quality is still inferior. Good enough for the car, good enough to give to non-audiophiles, but sufficiently inferior to the original CD that I would not want to use them on a really good system. (Short story: a guy came to my house a few months ago to listen to some speakers I was selling. He brought a compilation CD he had made. The sound was really mediocre. Over his mild objection, I put on an original CD and he was stunned at the improvement.)
I know many of you do make compilation CDs and then there is the whole copies-sound-better-than-originals camp, so there must be a better way. Is the secret to get an external CD burner? If so, which? Plextor was a favorite, but they are out of that business.
Dan