CD Burning: What Route Should I Go?

I have burned CDs using a computer burner with my G4 Mac. The burner is an external EZ Quest 48X. This uses the regular CDR media. I also use a HK CDR2 (uses only CDR “music” media) connected through my Enkianthus DAC and being fed by my transport.

I’ve found that duplicating with a computer burner, at high speed, tends to degrade the sound slightly from the original. I have heard extra brightness and lack of bass focus on the duplicated disc in comparison to the original. Even at the lowest speeds the results are similar. The HK transfers (done at 1-to-1 speed) sound much closer to the original. With some CDs there is hardly any difference at all.

I have experimented with various brands of CDR and CDR “music” software and the results are the same as described above.

I hope this is of some assistance to you.

To some extent the answer depends upon exactly what you're going to burn onto the CD-R. If you're going to burn copies of a vinyl collection, then a stand alone recorder is the easiest way to go. For $400-600 at your local music chain (Sam Ash, Guitar Center, etc.) you can get an excellent sounding, simple to use stand alone recorder. The stand alone models will also do a sonically excellent job of copying CDs, but it does have some drawbacks. Making copies using a stand alone player is very time consuming in that it's done in real time.

If you use a computer with a built-in CD-R the process is much, much quicker and affords you several valuable convenience features. If you use Apple's free software, iTunes, you can rip a CD in 5 minutes onto your hard disk. Assuming your computer has an internet connection iTunes will automatically supply the artist name, album title and individual song titles as part of the ripping process. You can then also use iTunes to burn a copy of the just ripped CD. The burn speed is user variable, but I can't honestly say I hear any differences between the burn speeds, hence I use the highest possible and the burn process takes 10 minutes. You can then use a print screen utility to print a list of the songs you just burned and use it as the CD insert.

Another big feature of using a computer is that once you've ripped a number of CDs onto your computer hard drive it's now just a click and drag operation to make compilation CDs. You can make a compilation of your favorite 17th century Ukrainian folk tunes in less than 15 minutes. Making the same compilation using a stand alone recorder would as a minimum take an hour. Don't underestimate iTunes ability to quickly access songs once they've been ripped, it's an enormous convenience feature.

Computer based systems can also record vinyl to digital, and ultimately they can perform a far more thorough and better sounding conversion process than a stand alone recorder, but you would then require an expensive sound card and/or expensive outboard A/D converter plus the appropriate recording software. We're talking in excess of $1,500 plus the cost of a computer. The big advantage of such a system is that it will allow you to digitally process you music. This can result in a substantial reduction in clicks/pops and other vinyl surface noise. Also, a little EQ can do wonders to what are otherwise sonically annoying albums.

My bottom line recommendation - get a new Mac computer. When compared to a stand alone recorder it's quicker to use, is far more flexible and can be further upgraded for increased functionality. A stand alone recorder is your best bet if price is serious factor and your aim is to make casual transfers of vinyl. A basic Mac with a built-in CD-R costs as little as $799 (including monitor). A new G5 with built-in digital optical I/O is priced at $1,799 (plus monitor). Used Macs are readily available on eBay.

If you add an external CD burner to your Mac, I think you'd want one that uses the firewire protocol rather than USB. Firewire is native to Macs.

Also, you should get better results copying the CD to the hard drive rather than duping straight from a CD reader to the CD burner.

you shouldn't see any quality differencr b/t a computer burner and a stand alone.

a problem w/ stand alone is that you need to use "audio" cdrs. these have a tiny bit of information on them that stand alone burners need to see in order to burn to the disc. audio cdrs are more expensive because they're taxed. this was the RIAAs attempt to get money for blank cdrs because they figure you will be copying commercially released cds (as oppesed to buying them) on stand alone burners. buying a PC burner will get around this.

pc burners are very reliable, at least from my experience. i have an HP cd writer, its about 4 years old, and it has burned about 3-4K+ cdrs and keeps on going. it was expensive back then, but they all were back then. it is still equivalent to todays burners save for the speed, but you dont want to burn audio at over 8X anyhow!

i have found that disc to disc copying introduces all kinds of artifacts. the only way to go is to transfer to hard drive first using EAC (exact audio copy) and burn from there. you will never have a problem... i havn't yet!

also, use quality cdrs. mitsui are usually considered the best, but they are pricey. Taiyo Yuden are fairly priced and are outstanding in quality. all the other cdrs people always recommend (such as TDK, sony, maxell) have all been made by different manufacturers of varying quality. they switch their supplier all the time. you can't expect any one manufacturer if you buy these brands anymore.

there is a wealth of information on the internet about cdrs, burners, audio extraction, and burning. here's a good place to get your feet wet. check out as many live music trading sites as you can... include that in your searches. we have a tendency to be very anal about quality and have found the best ways to produce perfect clones :)

http://www.etree.org/faq_cdr.html

good luck!

Thanks, guys. I have a G3 Mac and it doesn't have Firewire. Considering the cost involved in putting in Firewire card and getting an external burner, I guess it makes the most sense to just buy another computer, such as the Emac for $799 (though I'm not crazy about the all-in-one monitor thing). There is some divergence in opinion here about sonics, but most of you seem to think putting on the hard drive & then burning gives best results.

I had considered buying a Windows computer, as you get so much more software and processing power for less money than Mac, but with the vulnerability of Windows, I almost think one is better off with Apple, as it is pretty much immune to the viruses and hacking that plague Bill Gates' ill-conceived creations.

Where can you get Mitsui's at a fair price, rather than paying through the nose for them at the few audio dealers or high-priced boutiques that carry them?