CD-R data disks vs CD-R Audio disks

  • Thread starter Thread starter MK-Ultra
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MK-Ultra

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Hi,

I was wondering if anyone out there knows what the difference between these two formats are, other than the price? My Sony CD-RW33 has no problems burning/reading data CD-Rs for music, although my ordinary CD player can be quite fussy about CD-Rs that have been burned on this here iMac. Can anyone tell me if the difference is in the recording platform, or in the disk itself? Both?

I know that a couple of people say that they can hear the difference between audio recorded on a data CD and audio recorded on an audio CD. Any opinions on that?

Thanks, in advance!

MK
 
"Audio disks" are built to have a minimal amount of "digital jitter" by using a recording suface of gold over aluminum.

"Audio disks" had a more significant purpose back in the days of unbuffered CD transports. Nowadays, you won't hear a difference between the two, not that you were likely to before. If you can hear a difference between an "audio disc" and a regular disc, it might be time to upgrade your CD player.
 
NuTT98 said:
"Audio disks" are built to have a minimal amount of "digital jitter" by using a recording suface of gold over aluminum.

"Audio disks" had a more significant purpose back in the days of unbuffered CD transports. Nowadays, you won't hear a difference between the two, not that you were likely to before. If you can hear a difference between an "audio disc" and a regular disc, it might be time to upgrade your CD player.
Click to expand...
Actually, while there may be some changes to the coating that *may* help in reading the data, that is a pretty minor and insignificant characteristic....

The primary difference between audio-only CD-Rs and regular CD-Rs is the fact that audio CD-R's have the copy-bit pre-burned to ON so as to prevent digital duplication by standard consumer-oriented equipment.

That is the only important difference between the two types.......
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Actually, while there may be some changes to the coating that *may* help in reading the data, that is a pretty minor and insignificant characteristic....

The primary difference between audio-only CD-Rs and regular CD-Rs is the fact that audio CD-R's have the copy-bit pre-burned to ON so as to prevent digital duplication by standard consumer-oriented equipment.

That is the only important difference between the two types.......
Click to expand...

Thanks, Blue Bear!

I don't see how that would more than double the price. Does the RIAA get a cut off of Audio CDs?

On a side note, I was organizing piles of CD-Rs yesterday (erm...ever heard of labels Mike?) and was discarding some. One of the disks I was going to toss, I decided to do a little experiment with: I took an exacto knife and made 4 deep gashes radiating out from the center of the disk. I then put it in my finicky CD player and it played perfectly. Yet, if there is ever a speck of dust on a disk, this player starts to stutter and skip madly.

Hmmmmmm.....
 
MK-Ultra said:
I don't see how that would more than double the price. Does the RIAA get a cut off of Audio CDs?
Click to expand...
You betcha!


MK-Ultra said:
One of the disks I was going to toss, I decided to do a little experiment with: I took an exacto knife and made 4 deep gashes radiating out from the center of the disk. I then put it in my finicky CD player and it played perfectly.
Click to expand...
it's fairly easy for the player's error-checking to compensate for that type of error, since it very likely was able to read a redundant bit or even interpolate, but if you cut circular scratches in-line with the circular path of the pits, the player would have a far more difficult time.
 
Thanks, Dude!

*grabs exacto knife to complete the experiment!*

:p
 
Part of the price of "audio" cdrs goes to the ASCAP live music fund.
Dave
 
Blue bear is correct.

The ONLY difference is that bit. I've worked in CD/DVD chip-development, so I know. There's differences in quality for coathing etc, but that is not why they put audio on it. You can have audio CDR's with just the same lame coathing as any other CDR...

That bit is, btw only important if you use standalone audioCD writers. Other writers or readers don't look for that bit.

As for the scratches. Oeh. I've had alot of test discs in my hands, with black spots on em, fingerprints, scratches... Just ask me what you wanna know. It's cheaper. ;)

Blue bear is again correct on the circular scratches. The distance between the "black spots" on a circular path is also of importance, and the width of the black spots.

The way your player reacts on these errors is also different from player to player. There's alot of error correction foreseen on the CD format, but most players don't even use HALF the possibilities! The chips I worked on used half, and they were working on built-in interpolation algorithms for errors that weren't corrected.
 
I get all my CD-rs free. They are data CD-rs. They work just fine and I "haer" no difference. Providing the CD reader reads all the bits, the data is just 1s and 0s. Ask all those suckers who bought the "gold" CDs that were foisted off for twice the price years ago. They will tell you that the difference in sound is way better than the regular ones. Of coarse, they are listening to them through Monster cable.
 
I think the only reason for getting quality cd-r's is the life span of the disk. here's what a coworker of min ehad to say on the subject:

...on a related note, i can not stress enough the importance of using high-quality cd-r's for data backup. those ofice depot discs, and the many cheapos like them, are useless for this purpose. being someone who archives hundreds of discs, i have experienced the poor performance of inexpensive discs repeatedly. i have cd's that are about a year old where the entire data surface film peeled off rendering the disc useless.

do not use: "store brand," memorex, imation, basf

do use: taiyo yuden (fuji, imation), kodak, mitsui, verbatim

you can get "unbranded" taiyo and mitsui discs from a number of sites that cater to tapers. they run between .25 and .75 a piece when you buy them 100 or more at a time. mitsuis are by far the best, and also most expensive, but guarantee something like a 100 year data life.

this page has some good info on disc quality: http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_quality.shtml

i get my media from:

http://www.cascademedia.net/
http://www.american-digital.com/
 
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