do burnt CD copys sound as good as originals?

I must say I can't hear a difference either, i just thought it was my poor hearing. A different issue is CD life. I have heard origonals have a longer life expectancy than copies. This is due to the less permanent method of burning CDs in a computer, any thoughts?

Photon6 and Kmcarty,

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed reading the Genesis article. Clearly the author has encountered some kind of transport/burning problem. As the author states....according to the "data" it is identical, however, it sounds different => this can only be due to a problem reading certain types of "burned" disks on the transport being used.

Some early CD players had trouble with some types of "burned" discs and some lasers had trouble with some types of dyed discs- so this is entirely possible. Also, as the author states no compression or software errors/bugs can occur in the copy process.....in which case the copy is no longer a true copy. Given the unreliability of windows software and hardware compatibility, the complexity in some "burn" programs and the general infinity of permuations of hardware/software...it seems possible that Genesis ran foul of some technical compatibility problems somewhere.

However, these findings do not negate that a correctly executed digital copy of data should be identical to the orginal data...it just means that some sets of hardware/software do not work properly together as they should.

Rather than blame all CD copying as a process fraut with some errors (patently untrue) it would be only fair to conclude that the author (and others) have encountered hardware/software bugs or compatibility problems somewhere in the reproduction chain. (not unlikely given the myriad of possible hardware/software combinations)

So how do you burn CD's "bit-for-bit" on a Windows system without compressing?

So how do you burn CD's "bit-for-bit" on a Windows system without compressing?

It will depend on the software and ensuring that the original file is not compressed. For example, iTunes has a setting in the preferences folder that is normally set to automatically compress any CD you stick in the PC and copy into iTunes (AAC format is the default, just like the iTunes music store)...obviously the setting needs to be changed so that there is no compression when copying an original CD.

...as for iTunes downloaded music=> there is NO solution it is already compressed - so what you burn it to a CD audio format from what was downloaded from iTunes on your hard drive then it will definitely be inferior to the original CD that you might purchase, for example, at Amazon.

If you normally rip your CDs with Apple Lossless, should you change that to a non-compressed format for the CDs (or tracks) you wish to burn to new CDs?