What brand of CD-Rs do you recommend?

[mikelz777]

I'm just getting into burning some CD-Rs and was wondering what brand you would recommend? What brands should I definitely avoid? They'd be used primarily for music.

[jazzbo]

These days my favorite brand is the one on sale at Walgreens!

[J Larsen]

The brand shouldn't matter at all. 0s and 1s are 0s and 1s. Lon has the right idea, get whatever is cheap.

[Quincy]

I know "CDR" doesn't work well with the search engine, but we've been thru this at least a couple of times.

CD-R discussion

And a thread about my favorite brand Taiyo Yuden.

And it's just not 1s & 0s, it's about the dye.

[J Larsen]

I know "CDR" doesn't work well with the search engine, but we've been thru this at least a couple of times.

CD-R discussion

And a thread about my favorite brand Taiyo Yuden.

And it's just not 1s & 0s, it's about the dye.

Sorry, but that just isn't true. The lasers in cd players operate in the infrared. They are completely "indifferent" to the dye of the cd. It used to be true that the green cds had shorter lifespans because the material used to make the dye simply did not maintain its reflectivity for very long, but that is no longer the case.

Edited April 13, 2007 by J Larsen

[Quincy]

I know "CDR" doesn't work well with the search engine, but we've been thru this at least a couple of times.

CD-R discussion

And a thread about my favorite brand Taiyo Yuden.

And it's just not 1s & 0s, it's about the dye.

Sorry, but that just isn't true. The lasers in cd players operate in the infrared. They are completely "indifferent" to the dye of the cd. It used to be true that the green cds had shorter lifespans because the material used to make the dye simply did not maintain its reflectivity for very long, but that is no longer the case.

Things change and I guess I haven't kept up, as I burn a LOT less than I used to because bit torrent & hard drive storage has taken the place of burning & trading. I was refering to the inability to extract the music later in (shelf) life from a few discs from 5-8 years ago. Dreaded Taiwanese TDKs, the "bad" Maxells, so on & so forth.

Just make sure they don't have wheat gluten in them.

[J Larsen]

I know "CDR" doesn't work well with the search engine, but we've been thru this at least a couple of times.

CD-R discussion

And a thread about my favorite brand Taiyo Yuden.

And it's just not 1s & 0s, it's about the dye.

Sorry, but that just isn't true. The lasers in cd players operate in the infrared. They are completely "indifferent" to the dye of the cd. It used to be true that the green cds had shorter lifespans because the material used to make the dye simply did not maintain its reflectivity for very long, but that is no longer the case.

Things change and I guess I haven't kept up, as I burn a LOT less than I used to because bit torrent & hard drive storage has taken the place of burning & trading. I was refering to the inability to extract the music later in (shelf) life from a few discs from 5-8 years ago. Dreaded Taiwanese TDKs, the "bad" Maxells, so on & so forth.

Just make sure they don't have wheat gluten in them.

Yes, they used to use a cheap chemical in the green ones that lost its reflectivity quickly (within a couple days if left in the sun), which is why people used to buy the more expensive gold ones (which actually have gold or silver in them) or the blue ones (which have a chemical developed by Mitsubishi, the name of which I can not remember. But they have now made the green dye much more stable, so the practical benefit of one dye vs another is very small.

I guess the caveat here is that the products on the market now haven't been around long enough to directly measure their lifespans, so they have been approximated by stress testing, which can be imperfect. But this is as much a problem for the gold and blue ones as it is for the newer green ones.

[robviti]

i buy taiyo-yudens from runtechmedia.com. great product at a very good price (100 for $27 w/ free shipping). here's a link: runtechmedia

[Soulstation1]

i just bought 300 TDKs for $36 plus tax @ circuit city

[Late]

i buy taiyo-yudens from runtechmedia.com. great product at a very good price (100 for $27 w/ free shipping). here's a link: runtechmedia

What jazzshrink said. The Taiyo Yudens from RunTech are flippin' sweet. At $27 (for 100 CDRs), and with free shipping, it's hard to beat. I've had zero problems so far.

Recommended!

[mikeweil]

A good source of information for German members is found at http://www.feurio.net/index_german.shtml? - I also recommend their burning software.

[AllenLowe]

Taiyo Yudens and Taiyo Yudens only - lowest error rate, and I have burned literally thousands with nary a glitch - I used to make a living at it, and they were the ones I used. No discounted CDR is worth it - and the Taiyo Yudes are cheoap on the spindle from NRS in NYC -

Edited April 13, 2007 by AllenLowe

[Chalupa]

Taiyo Yudens and Taiyo Yudens only - lowest error rate, and I have burned literally thousands with nary a glitch - I used to make a living at it, and they were the ones I used. No discounted CDR is worth it - and the Taiyo Yudes are cheoap on the spindle from NRS in NYC -

TY's are the best, IMHO.

[mikelz777]

Between the responses here and the link to another discussion on the topic, we have the whole gamut here from buying the cheapest to pure dedication to a specific brand.

I checked on the Taiyo Yudens and it doesn't look like you can buy anything less than 100 anywhere that I've seen. For my needs, even 50 sounds like a lot but not so far out that I have to have less. I basically just want somthing reliable to burn and give to friends/family or make some copies for my car.

Reading reviews at Amazon.com isn't exactly black and white. People will praise a certain brand and then the next person will say that they are the worst they ever tried and recommend another brand which others will say are the worst they ever tried.

It sounds like people here have had good luck with just about everything. I guess I just need to stick with major brand names that I can find at a price I like. Maybe Maxell, Memorex or Verbatim? They seem easy to obtain where I am.

Edited April 13, 2007 by mikelz777

[etherbored]

i've been given more than a few maxell burns that skip. then again, that could go down to its encoding (the burn process) and have absolutely nothing to do with the media...

Edited April 13, 2007 by etherbored

[jazzbo]

I have found that I like Sony's though some burners don't want to burn some blanks. If my standalone Alera Technologies burner won't accept the Sony, my iBook burner will, so I just set them aside if I run into one with a problem.

Imation have done very well for me.

TYs yes, great stuff in all their incarnations. I just find it easier to stop off at Walgreen's on the way home and buy a spindle of what's on sale.

I have had longevity issues with Kodaks. Others have had longevity issues with a cheap brand of audio blanks I bought from www.am-dig.com some years ago, but I actually haven't.

[Quincy]

Reading reviews at Amazon.com isn't exactly black and white. People will praise a certain brand and then the next person will say that they are the worst they ever tried and recommend another brand which others will say are the worst they ever tried.

Part of the reason why reviews about Sony, Imation, Fuji, TDK, Maxell & Memorex are all over is the place is that they do not make the discs but merely slap their name on them. Once upon a time dedicated users (or perhaps I should say Dead traders ) would look for "Made In Japan" as this meant that the discs were manufactured by Taiyo Yuden, albeit with a Sony (or whatever) name on it. If they were made in Taiwan they weren't TYs.

Rather than play the game of running around town to see if the advertised specials for Fujis were "good" Fujis (and so on), about 5 years ago I said to hell with it and started ordering Taiyo Yudens online.

There are a few other companies that make their own discs too. I think Verbatim may be one of them, but I'm not positive.

Not sure where you live, but you might check and see if there's a specialty type of store that sells TYs in any amount you chose. I live in a city of about 120,000 people and we have such a store where you can buy just 1 disc or hundreds at a reasonable price (I still order online by the hundred though.)

[mikeweil]

Fact ist, the brand of blanks you use is not the only factor - it's the combination of CDR, burner, and the settings. There are many differing opinions but my experience that 4 x burning speed is optimum (professional CD burner in recorders use that speed exclusively, like the Alesis Masterlink I borrow from time to time).

I have read in many places that certain burners do not "like" certain brands. My TEAC accepts pretty much anything.

[mr jazz]

are TY DVD blanks also reliable?

[Soulstation1]

FWIW

circuit city has 100 TDK cdrs for $12