SEEKING A QUALITY CDR


I have been downloading music from Music Giants. Com for the last two weeks and all I can say is that the fidelity is better than many of the store bought cd's that I own.
Now that I've purchased the music I would like to make a
CD, but what blank cdr to buy? The Mobile Fidelity Gold disk is $95.00 for 50 cd's. Is there anybody out there that could recommend a blank quality CDR for music?
Thnaks in advance. By the way the quality of the music
from Music Giants amazes me. Give it a try, it is $1.29 per song, but totally destroys, I Tunes, Rhapsody and the
rest. By the way, I'm in New York and they are in Nevada,
my only association is that I am a satisified customer. By the way they have nice people to speak to in customer service. Yes, would you beleieve customer service, most members of Audiogon may remember the term.
kjl
Not sure how ripping and burning a CD causes it to sound better, even with the upsampling (as higher sample rates are primarily used to get filters far, far away from the audio band, and by the time a CD has been produced they've already been introduced), but I guess that's not relevant to the original question. I like MAM-A Gold and Quantegy Gold CDRs. Never had any issues, and we're using between 100-200 a month.
The reason why the fidelity is better than a bought CD is because you are playing through a computer - or burning to a CDR, which improves the quality.

You can do the same with the bought CDs - just use EAC program to get it into our computer, and burn it on a Taiyo Yuden CDr.

You can improve the quality still by using a program like the one that comes with the creative MP3 players - it converts wav files to 192 kh.

You can burn it using window media. Make sure you use the slowest speed your cd writer allowes.

You can get the EAC and the feurio program for free !
Just google for them.

When you do this, digital sounds quite satisfying...
You don't have to go back to LP.
Piano632 wrote:-
"Another excellent brand is Taiyo Yuden. Some (not all) Fuji & Maxell CD-R are Taiyo Yuden (but only if they say "Made in Japan" on the packaging)."

agree! I've had experience only w/ Taiyo-Yuden disks in the form of Fuji & Maxell CD-R Pro. The packages always say "Made in Japan" otherwise I do not buy them. the recording surface is green-ish silver in colour. I've had very good experience w/ these blank CD-Rs. Walmart has the Maxell CD-R Pro for $7.50 + tax for a 10-pack w/ slim jewel cases. I believe that Office Depot or Office Max has the Fuji blank CD-Rs.
Joey, I buy them in 100 packs but suspect the product is the same. Probably smarter to buy the 25 pack and give them a try before committing to big quantities in case they don't please you.

I have discs that were burned several years ago on my old original computer and always cringe when a customer calls up and asks if I still have "those" images in my files.

Fortunately thus far the Mitsui have not let me down.
"Audio" cdrs are not necessary when using a computer burner. You probably paid a little extra due to a tax put on audio cdrs.
http://www.feurio.com/English/faq/faq_vocable_audiocdr.shtml
The Taiyo Yuden discs are available from Sweetwater.com at US$50. for a stack of 100 with free shipping.They are good people to deal with especially if pro audio is an interest.
Albert,

On your earlier reccomendation, I went to that site (Digital Supply I think) you mentioned, and found several different kinds of Mitsui CDR blanks. I settled on a 25-pack of "Mitsui Digital Audio Disk For Consumer". Was this a good choice????
A good unit is the Yamaha CRW-F1-UX. Use Mitsui Gold media.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer/modder
HHB Gold & Silver are usually made by Mitsui (sometimes Ricoh)
MFSL Gold are made by Mitsui
Apogee Gold & Silver are probably made by Mitsui
Delkin Gold are probably made by Mitsui

Mitsui today is more known as MAM-A

Another excellent brand is Taiyo Yuden. Some (not all) Fuji & Maxell CD-R are Taiyo Yuden (but only if they say "Made in Japan" on the packaging). Or you can just buy unbranded TY discs thru on-line dealers.

I would mention Ricoh discs as well, but alas you can't find them any more (except for some HHB discs).
If your attracted to the best quality gold discs, Mitsui CDR are the best I've used, although I admit in my case it's to archive images.

The Dutch government did a test two years ago and published some surprising results. Some silver CDR's developed errors by exposing them to just a few minutes of window light.

The Mitsui had the fewest failures and was the most stable. Second place was a special version from Kodak that was sold to commercial duplication houses.
I have tried the following at various points in time:

HHB Gold and Silver
MSFL Gold
Apogee Gold
Mitsui Gold and Silver
Quantegy Gold
Memorex Black

I can say that Mitsui Gold has been the best of the lot on a consistent basis. There are some HHB recordings that have been very good, but others that sounded better direct from the HD. Quantegy is okay and Apogee was the most disappointing. The Memorex black I have never recorded on, but have some test discs that others made for me that sound pretty good. However, go to this link and perhaps you will find some additional information that is helpful:

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/White%20Paper%20on%20Black%20CDs%20ver%203.1.pdf
The problem is that many companies outsource their cdrs and sometimes you never know who made them. Therefore, quality can vary even within the same "manufacurer". I've read that memorex has 4 different sources providing their cdrs. You might try a small pack of TDK black cdrs and see how they work for you.