Audio CD Burners vs. Data CD Burners?

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mark4man

mark4man

MoonMix Studios
I recently read a white paper on the web that claimed: when burning audio tracks to CD for eventual mastering, use a model recommended specifically for audio recording.

The informational claimed that audio requires a slightly deeper groove-cut; & that using a data drive to write audio can result in playback problems with CD players (ranging from long cue ups, mis-tracking, or even not executing playback at all.)

A) Is this true?

B) If so, how about differeneces in the resulting audio quality itself? Wouldn't a more stable burn yeild a higher quality sound?

Thanks in advance,

mark4man
 
Where is the link for this whitepaper?

Sounds like it may be a bit of marketing hype.

Take a look at the following article, there's a pretty good explanation of errors that can happen during CD burning, along with a few good tips on write speed and media.

www.emedialive.com/EM2000/starrett5.html
 
Masteringhouse,

Thanks for the link. Here's the link for the informational:

http://funklogic.com/pcaudio.htm

Let me know what you think. Also: Heard some good things about the Yamaha CRW-3200 on another board...mfg'd specifcally for audio mastering.

mark4man
 
mark4man said:
"The informational claimed that audio requires a slightly deeper groove-cut" ... "Wouldn't a more stable burn yeild a higher quality sound?"
Click to expand...
To answer the bit about a deeper groove-cut: If you want to turn something (in this case, music) into digital form, it gets transformed into Binary (ones and zero's). If the ones and zero's burnt into the CD were three meters deep it would still sound the same, as the only information a CD player can from a CD are ones and zeros, on or off, etc.

If the CD Burner was too weak to even make a decent mark for the CD Player to read, or it was spinning to fast and skipped data, then that would be a different story :)

But, most CD burning software feature integrity checks that make sure the data on the CD is an exact copy of the local version.
 
The white paper really doesn't get into enough detail. There are issues other than pit depth that are also very important.

Take a look at:

http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/manuf/rep_quality.htm

There are some very good articles on QA for mastering as well as the mastering process (note: what a mastering house really does is called "pre mastering").

When a cd has errors due to these sorts of problems it does an interpolation. This is essentially using neighboring data to estimate what the data in error should be. The more errors, the more "guessing" the player has to do. As a result your audio is distorted from it's original form.

Hope this helps.
 
Andrew123,

I understand that what you're saying is technically correct, but the people I've heard from who have the Yamaha CRW 3200, or the new CRW - F1, claim that there is an appreciable increase in the quality of the sound. Take a look at this link:

http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/yec/products/cdrw/crwf1.asp

Click on the "Advanced Audio Master" icon; & check out the technology demonstration. There are reasons why the larger pit size yeilds a higher quality audio burn (according to Yamaha; & a whole bunch of audiophiles that use this burner.)

Thanks,

mark4man
 
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