HI there. 
I'm sure it's a loaded question. 
I am a smalltime musician, have been burning my own CD-R albums for sale at gigs.   Get reports of bad copies, have been trying to educate myself for a couple weeks.  Have settled on an Aleratec single-copy standalone burner.  Been advised to burn at the slowest speed (4X or 8X) the media is rated for, use the error-checking features.  Am aware that not all players like CD-Rs equally, whachyagonnado?  

Now trying to figure out media.  Have been told (and have just read here) that you can't count on what you purchase being what it is touted to be.  One friend says he has difficulties with playback on printable media.  Fifty other variables, huh?

So....is there any consensus on a brand or type or manufacturer for CD-R discs that will give me the most reliable results, the fewest bad copies (skipping, stuttering, failure to play one or more tracks)?

If there is a nice clear answer, swell!  If there isn't, and the directive is to read through this whole forum  =sigh=  so be it and I will thank you all very much.

Thank you all very much!

Dennis
www.ShakespeareInTheAlley.com

Well, personally, I say that Taiyo Yuden (TY) media is the absolute best for CDR Audio, and I would put Verbatim at 2nd.

(in reply to denno)

Yeap, I'll second that.

(in reply to MP3Mogul)

i imagine the issue here is the used drives at the duplicator, probably TY CD-R media at 8X will give vey good results

(in reply to Iggy)

CD-R media at 8X ?
Where can I find it.

(in reply to emperor)

no i meant burning at 8X

(in reply to happiniess)

Any opinion of Ritek?
Thanks,
Dennis

(in reply to denno)

I have found the quality of Ritek discs even among the name brands to be inconsistent, and generally burn quality is not that impressive.  I prefer Prodisc, Gigastorage or Sony over them.  I have seen some surprisingly top flight results from Prodisc and Gigastorage discs.  Sonys tend to have more problems at the higher speeds and are often are restricted to less than max supported burn speed, as are Riteks.

(in reply to denno)

I would rate media like this for compatability:

Taiyo Yuden
Verbatim Datalife Plus (Made in Singapore!)
Maxell (Made in Japan!)
Ritek
Daxon
MBIL
Prodisc
Gigastorage
Lead Data/Sony

Anything lower on my list then Ritek (not including Ritek) has had serious degrading issues within 3 years for me (I haven't had Daxon media this long yet, so this one is based on reports from other reliable sources, not personal experience.).

(in reply to cbjwthwm)

How about this:  (eBay)
What you are buying here are BurnMaster 52X CD-R manfactured by Taiyo Yuden. Same exact quality as real Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs, but at a much lower price.

(in reply to denno)

The best media I ever encountered was the deep-golden 'Mitsui Gold Ultra II 24x Certified' ... too bad, they don't sell these no more ...

(in reply to denno)

quote:

ORIGINAL: denno

How about this:  (eBay)
What you are buying here are BurnMaster 52X CD-R manfactured by Taiyo Yuden. Same exact quality as real Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs, but at a much lower price.

No... and they are *NOT* the exact same quality as regular Taiyo Yuden. They are Taiyo Yuden's "Value Line" CD-Rs, and they are not guarenteed by TY at all. BurnMaster likes to overstate things, and has gotten in trouble with Taiyo Yuden before over this. (they were selling 4x Value Line media from Taiyo Yuden as 8x, just because it has an 8x MID code).

(in reply to denno)

Thank you.  How about THIS question, which it all seems to boil down to:   ANY known discount price on genuine T-Ys?  I've already gone ahead and bought my first batch of 100 of what I suppose to be the Real Thing from an eBay seller called Westcoastmedia1.  With shipping, comes to around 40-42 cents each, and I can't find anything so far significantly cheaper.  And this is okay --- just looking for the baseline.

Thanks again to all you cognocenti!
Dennis

(in reply to Dolphinius_Rex)

I have bought 50 packs of Fuji branded TY CD-R media for US $15-16.

These were easy to find in the States one-two years ago, but now Fuji primarily uses Taiwan manufactured media.  As far as I know, if you find Fuji media that indicates it was "Made in Japan" then it's most likely re-branded TY media.

(in reply to denno)