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CD Burning: What Route Should I Go?

I have no experience with CD burning and don't have a burner. I've gathered that some people feel you get best results from a dedicated outboard CD burner than from doing it on your computer. Pardon my computer illiteracy, but I have a Mac from 1998 with only CD-ROM. What would be the easiest route with the best sonic results for me to invest in a burner to make copies?

Are the sonics better from a direct burn than from storing the data on hard drive first?

My other concern would be the durability of the burner. A friend had excellent sonic results with a Philips burner, but the Philips didn't seem very durable, becoming sensitive to which blanks were used, and it finally died out after 3 years. Thanks for all opinions.
kevziek

Showing 1 response by vvrinc

vvrinc
323 posts
 
I have burned CDs using a computer burner with my G4 Mac. The burner is an external EZ Quest 48X. This uses the regular CDR media. I also use a HK CDR2 (uses only CDR “music” media) connected through my Enkianthus DAC and being fed by my transport.

I’ve found that duplicating with a computer burner, at high speed, tends to degrade the sound slightly from the original. I have heard extra brightness and lack of bass focus on the duplicated disc in comparison to the original. Even at the lowest speeds the results are similar. The HK transfers (done at 1-to-1 speed) sound much closer to the original. With some CDs there is hardly any difference at all.

I have experimented with various brands of CDR and CDR “music” software and the results are the same as described above.

I hope this is of some assistance to you.
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