Re: cd burning speeds and audio

[Julian Knowles <j.knowles@xxxxxxxxxx>]

taylor deupree wrote:

> hi list,
>
> i've been wondering lately, just out of curiosity.. what the latest
> "rules" are for cd burning speeds and audio. i remember in the old
> days it was a general rule to not burn audio masters at anything
> greater than 4X speed.. as it would have a higher rate of error...

I'm afraid it depends very much in the burner and media used. There 
are some useful tests on a series of burners done by Glenn Meadows 
(of Masterphonics) which show the correlation between burner model, 
media, write speed and the resultant error count. Although the test 
list is comparatively limited, it demonstrates the complexity of 
making rules about such things. To measure block error rates you need 
special gear so it is often difficult to determine performance.. It 
is also quite clear that some burners hate certain media, and 
unfortunately they do not tell you this in the docs.. Thus there is 
no such thing as the best media brand, as the 'best' is the one that 
resembles most closely the formulation they used to calibrate the 
laser in the burner in the first place (and they don't tell you this 
either). Thus, a $2 verbatim blank might give you a lower error count 
that a $7 apogee blank (which were reportedly rebranded mitsui 
golds), and... this situation might be reversed on a different 
burner. Thankfully i have one of the burners tested (Yamaha CDE100) 
so for duplication masters i can use the media and speed which will 
give the lowest error count.

Check out http://www.digido.com and go to the link for Glenn Meadows' 
CDR tests. Its an education.
--
**************************
J u l i a n  K n o w l e s
Lecturer/Co-ordinator Music Technology
Course Co-ordinator Electronic Arts
School of Contemporary Arts (Music), University of Western Sydney
Social Interiors web: http://www.geocities.com/socialinterior