F
fenix
New member
I know this is debatable. Most people will claim burning at 1x will give you the least errors. Here's what a local mastering engineer in my area has to say about this:
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Since I burn CD-R's all day long for a living, and have to teach about them too, I'm fairly up to date with current research, and will present the facts, minus opinion.
1) 1X is not automagically the best or even optimum speed. Todays media are optimized for much faster speeds, and few drives are even capable of burning 1X. While all drives calibrate themselves, makers of most 1X-capable drives (current Plex Premium and Yamaha Music drives EXCLUDED) never envisioned a need for the kind of range todays media support. So, many older drives that do 1X burn big, sloppy pits that can be MORE difficult to track on some media.
2) Write speed is far less critical than media/drive combination. The cheapest discs at Best Buy are probably NOT the optimal match for your particular drive. They're just the cheapest. The optimal match varies, not just across brands but over time. Today's Verbatims are manufactured by Compaby X under contract, but tomorrow the contract may pass to Company Y. TDK has recently switched to less-reflective "silver backs" from more photoreactive green/blues. What you CAN say for sure: You get what you pay for. Cheap is just cheap. Sometimes it's good, but mostly its just cheap.
3) there's nothing inherently wrong with 4X. Period. Sorry, that's just bad info, and no, I don't much care what any taper website or rec.audio.pro guru swears it sucks. One of our towers cuts measurably better discs at 4X than 8X or 2X. One cuts better at 8X. My Sony 900 likes 1X, and my Pioneer A04 loves 12X. They all love Taiyo Yuden discs this year. 4 years ago they liked Mitsui best.
It's a complex equation of variables, and I'm sorry to say you can't reduce it to simple fixed values. Media + Burner + Speed = Quality X. Change any of the variables and you'll see some change in X. Speaking in the most general terms, Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden discs seem to perform measurably well across the widest range of burners over time. We've used T-Y discs for 3 years for refs and replication, and they've got an astoundingly low return rate relative to TDK and Mitsui's I used to use for refs. In objective measurements and shootouts I've seen, Verbatim's been scoring high for the past 4 years. TDK, Maxell, and Sony have all been up and down in their product, and lately Mitsui's crashed after a long run.
By far the biggest single culprit I've observed is the "silver back" dyes. Yeah, they look real. But they measure extraordinarily low RF output (measure of reflectivity), and have higher error rates in most drives. The blue T-Y's have done much better over time. Black used to be as bad, but the new Verbatims are a very dark (not black) dye that kicks butt by all accounts.
As I've said, the "8X vibration" thing is nonsense, but there is a kernal of truth in the 20X warning: speeds that high are somewhat problematic, pushing the media to its limits, even if it's 32X media. That's really at the outside of the envelope, and should be reserved for verifiable non-synchronous applications (ie computer programs that the drive can methodically and slowly reconstruct data when read errors occur). As drives age and are used, lasers dim. So, your 24X rated drive may or may not be able to deliver that kind of speed after you burn a couple hundred freebie discs. You have no way of knowing until fans, reviewers or contest judges complain or ignore your music. That's a real concern I rarely see bands consider: there's a cost to your CD burner for every disc you burn. Even if the media cost just a dime, you're burning another dime or so of your drives useful lifespan. With verifiable content (CD-ROM), you can rely on the CD formats built in error correction to keep things kosher. With music content, played back on players of unknowable quality and performance, the window of operation is much narrower. Discs that play on the burner that burned them might play on few or any different players! Doh! At any rate, these problems occur most frequently when burning at speeds above 20X. It has nothing to do with vibration however, in a well designed disc. [Note: Mojo could be referring to some poorly designed drive mechanisms that had problems unique to 24X. With Plextor, Pioneer and Yamaha mechanisms it is a non issue. So at best this is a truism specific to cheap Korean or Chinese mechanisms stuffed into box-shop computers].
Finally, today's good disc can be tomorrows coaster. These ARE light sensitive, and not really appropriate for leaving in hot cars in the sun. The more sensitive the dyes (ie faster speed rating), the more serious the problem. It's probably a really bad idea to sell or give away cheap uncoated silver dye discs rated for high speed and packaged in clear sleeves or clear jewel boxes. Black trays and a booklet really help. Good quality discs help more. The burn speed matters far less than the dye sensitivity to longevity.
Use name brand discs (even good discs can be quite affordable), and pay attention to changes in dyes. Package them appropriately. Burn at speeds near the middle of your burner's operational range (even if that means 8X). Forget the voodoo.
______________
Since I burn CD-R's all day long for a living, and have to teach about them too, I'm fairly up to date with current research, and will present the facts, minus opinion.
1) 1X is not automagically the best or even optimum speed. Todays media are optimized for much faster speeds, and few drives are even capable of burning 1X. While all drives calibrate themselves, makers of most 1X-capable drives (current Plex Premium and Yamaha Music drives EXCLUDED) never envisioned a need for the kind of range todays media support. So, many older drives that do 1X burn big, sloppy pits that can be MORE difficult to track on some media.
2) Write speed is far less critical than media/drive combination. The cheapest discs at Best Buy are probably NOT the optimal match for your particular drive. They're just the cheapest. The optimal match varies, not just across brands but over time. Today's Verbatims are manufactured by Compaby X under contract, but tomorrow the contract may pass to Company Y. TDK has recently switched to less-reflective "silver backs" from more photoreactive green/blues. What you CAN say for sure: You get what you pay for. Cheap is just cheap. Sometimes it's good, but mostly its just cheap.
3) there's nothing inherently wrong with 4X. Period. Sorry, that's just bad info, and no, I don't much care what any taper website or rec.audio.pro guru swears it sucks. One of our towers cuts measurably better discs at 4X than 8X or 2X. One cuts better at 8X. My Sony 900 likes 1X, and my Pioneer A04 loves 12X. They all love Taiyo Yuden discs this year. 4 years ago they liked Mitsui best.
It's a complex equation of variables, and I'm sorry to say you can't reduce it to simple fixed values. Media + Burner + Speed = Quality X. Change any of the variables and you'll see some change in X. Speaking in the most general terms, Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden discs seem to perform measurably well across the widest range of burners over time. We've used T-Y discs for 3 years for refs and replication, and they've got an astoundingly low return rate relative to TDK and Mitsui's I used to use for refs. In objective measurements and shootouts I've seen, Verbatim's been scoring high for the past 4 years. TDK, Maxell, and Sony have all been up and down in their product, and lately Mitsui's crashed after a long run.
By far the biggest single culprit I've observed is the "silver back" dyes. Yeah, they look real. But they measure extraordinarily low RF output (measure of reflectivity), and have higher error rates in most drives. The blue T-Y's have done much better over time. Black used to be as bad, but the new Verbatims are a very dark (not black) dye that kicks butt by all accounts.
As I've said, the "8X vibration" thing is nonsense, but there is a kernal of truth in the 20X warning: speeds that high are somewhat problematic, pushing the media to its limits, even if it's 32X media. That's really at the outside of the envelope, and should be reserved for verifiable non-synchronous applications (ie computer programs that the drive can methodically and slowly reconstruct data when read errors occur). As drives age and are used, lasers dim. So, your 24X rated drive may or may not be able to deliver that kind of speed after you burn a couple hundred freebie discs. You have no way of knowing until fans, reviewers or contest judges complain or ignore your music. That's a real concern I rarely see bands consider: there's a cost to your CD burner for every disc you burn. Even if the media cost just a dime, you're burning another dime or so of your drives useful lifespan. With verifiable content (CD-ROM), you can rely on the CD formats built in error correction to keep things kosher. With music content, played back on players of unknowable quality and performance, the window of operation is much narrower. Discs that play on the burner that burned them might play on few or any different players! Doh! At any rate, these problems occur most frequently when burning at speeds above 20X. It has nothing to do with vibration however, in a well designed disc. [Note: Mojo could be referring to some poorly designed drive mechanisms that had problems unique to 24X. With Plextor, Pioneer and Yamaha mechanisms it is a non issue. So at best this is a truism specific to cheap Korean or Chinese mechanisms stuffed into box-shop computers].
Finally, today's good disc can be tomorrows coaster. These ARE light sensitive, and not really appropriate for leaving in hot cars in the sun. The more sensitive the dyes (ie faster speed rating), the more serious the problem. It's probably a really bad idea to sell or give away cheap uncoated silver dye discs rated for high speed and packaged in clear sleeves or clear jewel boxes. Black trays and a booklet really help. Good quality discs help more. The burn speed matters far less than the dye sensitivity to longevity.
Use name brand discs (even good discs can be quite affordable), and pay attention to changes in dyes. Package them appropriately. Burn at speeds near the middle of your burner's operational range (even if that means 8X). Forget the voodoo.
