Thanks for the response. I have been arguing about this with a friend -he argues that if even 1 bit of a PC CD-ROM data file is incorrectly written then the computer won't read the file at all, and I agree with him on this, but I have a Yamaha IDE CDRW burner and of course it can write at 8x and my computer will read the data perfectly, so surely an audio CD will be written the same whatever the speed it is written at. This seems right to me although through listening I am inclined to think there is a difference, I just can't think why this would occur.
I already have a model of Yamaha CDRW with nero, and I am soon to be getting a Philips CDR700, so I will be able to do this test myself, but this argument needs settling NOW!