2. misc-audio
  3. 187988-162884

Burning CDs of downloaded music

Is there a way to purchase/download individual songs and burn them to a CD while maintaining CD quality (16 bit, 44.1 kHz)?

I currently use a home theater subwoofer in my stereo.  I am considering upgrading my subwoofer.  Since my only recent reference is my stereo, I am not really sure what high quality bass should sound like.  I looked at subwoofer reviews on YouTube and unfortunately, I only own 2 songs from their playlists.  My thought was that I would like to get to know those songs from the reviews on my system so when I visit stereo shops I would have a better idea if I was hearing improvements.  I am not set up for streaming.  CDs are my only digital source and my DAC only has one SPDIF input.  If I could create my own compilation of those test songs on CD, I could understand their performance on my system and use the same CD in a stereo shop.  

If I can’t make such a CD, is there a less complicated way to figure this out?  I’m sure the stereo stores will have streaming.  But that doesn’t help me get to know these songs on my current system.  

 

sealegs

Showing 6 responses by sealegs

sealegs OP
17 posts
 

@sandstone I recently switched to MacBook.  I’m not sure I can even get the old PC running and it does not have virus protection any longer.  I decided against adding streaming to my system because I already own a lot of music between 600 records and 1200 CDs.  

sealegs OP
17 posts
 

@dunring007 ​@ketchup   I did a test run.  I downloaded a song from Qobuz in .wav format to my MacBook.  I burned a copy of the song onto a fresh CD.  I can see the track and it plays on the CD drive of the MacBook.  I have two stereo systems and neither CD player will play the song.  One player indicates that it is using playing time with nothing coming out.  The other player indicates that this is a data file.  Any thoughts on what I am not doing correctly?

sealegs OP
17 posts
 

@ellajeanelle  Thanks for responding.  I have already solved my problem.  
 

I own a CD recorder and they are nice to have.  Years ago, I recorded about 200 of my vinyl albums to digital so I could load the music onto my iPod.  It worked really well.  

sealegs OP
17 posts
 

If I download a FLAC file and burn that file to CD, will a CD player play the song?  I thought CDs stored music as .cda files.  

sealegs OP
17 posts
 

@ketchup  @designsfx ​@sandstone  You guys were spot on.  While Apple doesn’t support iTunes any longer on the MacOS platform, they provide similar capabilities in Apple Music.  I burned the .wav file as a playlist in Apple Music and the transferred music file plays on both of my stereos’ CD players.  The song sounds great as I was hoping using CD as my medium.  Thanks for your help.  

In case someone else has a similar interest, these steps worked for me on my MacBook.  

 

  1. Insert blank CD-R into the attached CD drive
  2. A pop-up menu asks what action to take. The default is Open Finder.  Change that default to Music.  
  3. Music will open its own pop-up with instructions telling what to do next.  
  4. If you haven’t already included the music file into a playlist, do that first. There is a pull-down to create a new playlist.  After that, File > Burn Playlist.  
  5. After burning is complete, go play your CD.  If the CD doesn’t play, maybe your player doesn’t play .wav files.   Not all players do.  

 

sealegs OP
17 posts
 

@mahler123 Yes, I was sure that the dealer would be able to access music I wanted to to hear.  My problem was that I wasn’t sure what deep bass should sound like on my current set-up.  So, I downloaded songs mentioned by reviewers who were testing subwoofers.  It worked out pretty well.  I downloaded and burned about 15 songs and they sounded good on my stereo.  I may have talked myself out of the need for the subwoofer upgrade.  

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