CDR Longevity? Brand X vs. Brand Z

Thanks, Ive seen the silver CDs listed at eBay. And now Im wondering about the black ones that look like playstation
discs? Oh well, another hit & miss exercise!

My experience gives Sony the best rating, followed by Maxell. TDK are very blue in color and some car cd players will not recognize them. Above all, Memorex is by far the worst. It's not even good for backing-up data on the computer. The few Memorex cd's I've used for backing-up data take forever to load. In my experience Sony is the one to get.

FYI- I do not own any stock in Sony Corp.

Some time ago there were threads that dealt with this, maybe try a search. There was some testing done in Europe that provided some guidelines on CD quality, and at the time, the gold colored blanks were considered most stable, the silver very good, but the blue/green not so great (not as long term stable).

But, since then, I've read that the dyes used on the blue/green discs have been stabilized/improved. Also, the European tests showed that there really are no clear "best" as there are only a few factories that produce the dozens of different brands of CD-R/RWs. And of course, the factories do it to the specifications they are given (or work out).

It's confusing. The European tests did recommend Sony, and a few others-- but that was over a year ago. Optimistically speaking, I'm hoping it's true that the blue/green dyes really have been improved, because that's what is most commonly seen for sale, and of course they're also least expensive. I've never seen a gold or silver CD-R blank-- and I've looked. For the best Audiogon info., member Ramstl is the guy to contact. Cheers. Craig