The Wonderful World of CD-R's

Gold discs are the best.

I have used MAM-A (formerly Mitsui)  in the past.  They are made in Colorado and are supposed to be high quality cd-rs.  They have gold and silver discs.  The golds are pretty expensive.

I haven't had any trouble with them myself, but I haven't burned much recently.  They are worth a google search so that you can make up your own mind about them.

Since I am not archiving anything the gold discs, which are indeed expensive, seem overkill for what I do. Based on what I have read they can have problems equal to the regular CD-R's as far as write/read problems. However, it may be the case that discs that spendy may have a higher chance of being scrupulously made.

The Taiyo Yuden discs were considered top of the heap years ago, but the original factory quit making them and word is that the CMC version of these are not as well made. I have seen some original ones available from Japan on Ebay, but again very spendy.

It may be that I should stockpile discs I know to be ok while I can before CD-R's become a scarce commodity. It sounds like the archival quality may be the last to go since there are still entities such as governments that specify archival quality CD-R's for important data backup.

I've used Mamm-A and TaiyoYuden discs, but have occasional problems with them. Then I went to HHB discs and these are fantastic, although hard to find. Then another company took them over (sorry, I don't remember the name) and claim they are the same quality as HHB. I should mention that two of my burners are HHB machines. Love em!

I have always been told to stay away from anything made by CMC.

That HHB suggestion is much appreciated. They are now under the brand "Burlington." which can be found on Amazon and Ebay. 1x-12x record speed (even as slow as 1x-8x.) This could prove interesting. I think the slowest record speed on my Dell desktop might be that slow.

Also discovered that the "black bottom" CD-R's are still being made which could bear on a subject we got into on Audiogon awhile back concerning blackening the rims and and hubs of CD's to block "incident laser reflections" that might interfere with integrity of the laser reads in our players.

Black Bottom CD-R

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Yes, there’s still a community of CD-R users, for whatever reason. I’ve found that when you can’t beat the sound of your CD player with other digital sources, you’re almost forced to burn your own CD-Rs. MAM-A Silver Digital Audio CD-Rs are excellent. Use their gold CD-Rs if you want your music collection to last longer than you. Make sure whatever you use will play fine in your CD players. I have ran into issues with playback with the gold CD-Rs on an older CD player. For archival purposes, that’s not a huge deal as you can probably still get the data off clean with a computer CD drive. I have never had an issue with the MAM-A silver CD-Rs. Make sure you find a good CD burner and determine the best burn speed by making several copies at different speeds and listening to the each one. MAM-A Silver Digital Audio CD-Rs get along really well with a MacBook running iTunes/Music and the Apple USB DVD burner running at 4X burn speed.

bolong

Another +vote for MAM-A or Taiyo Yuden.

Happy Listening!

Thanks for your suggestions. I have currently landed on the Plexidisc Taiyo Yuden which are performing very well. Looking at the write side, a very clear reflection of my face appears unlike many other discs which send back a cloudy reflection. Whether this has any bearing on actual quality recording I do not know. I will probably try the MAM-A silvers next.

I second gold discs as my go to for burning cds.

Thank you for this thread. I'm still a fan of the shiny discs, and plan to never own a vehicle that doesn't have a CD player in it. One of my best audio purchases ever was for my SONY CDR-W66 CD recorder (so I'm still one of the few that still purchases CD-R's). This CD recorder puts out the most amazing sounding CD's. 

In my previous response to this thread of 7/30/23, I mentioned I had HHB recorders. Since then I purchased the Tascam CD-RW900SX and I find this machine to be a fantastic recorder, even better than HHB recorders. Took a bit of a learning curve to adjust to, but since then it has worked flawlessly time after time. Anyone considering the Tascam won't be disappointed!

The Jay's Audio CDT3 MK3 CD transport I am using contains the Tuned Philips CDPro2-LF Mechanism with the hold down puck that is covered in a thin layer of black foam on the CD side for grip and vibration damping. This, in effect, is the same as blackening the top side of the CD with black marker. If you think this makes a difference in playback by eliminating incident and perhaps conflicting laser reflections then it is a desirable feature of this transport. I do still ink blacken the rim edges of my CD's even if it might be only a "good luck" gesture. It only takes a few seconds.

Still using the PlexDisc Taiyo Yuden CD's with nary a hiccup. These are about 11% thicker than most other CD's - take that for what it's worth.