It's very easy to prove to yourself that the copy you made is identical. If you believe that a copy sounds worse than the original and you haven't proven that you're making bit-perfect copies, you owe it to yourself to do so. Then, if you still believe the copies sound worse, at least you know you're comparing apples to apples. It is, however, very easy to believe you're making a "perfect" copy when in fact you're not, in which case I would expect the sound to be significantly worse. I personally find the experience of listening to original vs. copy to be identical, but others believe otherwise. Not trying to convince you one way or the other, just suggesting that if you want to use CDRs but believe you're getting sub-par copies, you might want to investigate the method before abandoning them. -Kirk
CDR Fidelity?
A recent thread about CD's that people use to evaluate changes in their system was interesting because some people are burning their own compilation of songs on CDR to test out new equipment. This would avoid bringing a stack of CD's to the dealers or wherever but...
My question is this: Is the quality of CDR's equal to that of your standard redbook disc? Shouldn't there be some loss of fidelity when copying CD's? I have always thought that my CDRs sounded worse than the store bought original. CDR's always seemed to be more compressed without as good dynamics and detail. This is of course even worse when the CDR is a converted MP3 disc.
What have you A'goners found?
I use a PC running Win XP, sound card is Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy. I use Clone CD to copy discs and Windows Media Player for MP3 ripping. CD burner is a standard Sony 8/4/32 CDRW.
My question is this: Is the quality of CDR's equal to that of your standard redbook disc? Shouldn't there be some loss of fidelity when copying CD's? I have always thought that my CDRs sounded worse than the store bought original. CDR's always seemed to be more compressed without as good dynamics and detail. This is of course even worse when the CDR is a converted MP3 disc.
What have you A'goners found?
I use a PC running Win XP, sound card is Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy. I use Clone CD to copy discs and Windows Media Player for MP3 ripping. CD burner is a standard Sony 8/4/32 CDRW.