Greetings,

I wonder what's the best CD-R I can buy for audiophile recording, available on eBay if possible.

I was watching that Kodak Gold Preservation CD-R's but they're a bit expensive. So I'm almost buying a package of some Taiyo Yuden CD-R's. Are these ones a good choice?

Thanks guys, cya.

Welcome to CDF's:

oh yeah you cannot go wrong with TY CD-R's. What burner do you have?

I have a Pioneer 111D, and usually I use Nero and Exact Audio Copy (EAC). That's other thing I was going to ask in another topic, what burner should I use for optimum audiophile recording...

I use my Plextor Premiums. I have both Premium1 and 2's. If your happy with what you have now then keep it that way.

The best combination at the moment is a Plextor Premium 2 and some Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs.

Being an 'audiophile' is irrelevant, as the disc is either fully readable or not - the only quality degradation you will have is skipping (including clicking which is due to more rapid skipping) due to the disc not being able to be read by the player.

Are Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs better than Kodak or Mitsui CD-Rs?

All their CD-Rs series are at the same level or should I look for a better one?

Thanks guys!

The Mitsui and Kodak you see on sale today are not what they used to be in the past. TY is the best you can get at the moment.
There are different grades of TY but i dont know if these are available outside of Japan.

If you can find them I recommend getting Verbatim Pastel (Taiyo Yuden) CDs. I have found them to be particularly good Taiyo Yuden CDs, noticably better than the unbranded Taiyo Yuden CDs I have used. If you are in the UK or Europe then svp.co.uk stock them.

This scan is typical of a Verbatim Pastel Taiyo Yuden CDR written with my Samsung SH-S202N at 32x. It also shows that the best write speed is not always the slowest. Experiment and find which speed gives the best results with your particular drive.

Verbatim Pastel Taiyo Yuden, 32x Samsung SH-S202N SB02 (CDSpeed ADQ 32x Benq DW1655).jpg

If you are not satisfied with your current drive and can't find a Plextor Premium 2 then Samsung's DVD writers are probably the best current drives for writing CDs. The SH-S202 & SH-S203 range are excellent CD writers, but I have no experience of their newer 22x models. Be aware that some other Plextor drives are rebadged drives and not made by Plextor (their current DVD writers for example are rebadged Optiarc drives). The Premium 2 may be the last genuine Plextor ever.

yep the best speed is not always 16x like recommended here at CDF's either. And yes it is best to burn CD-R's and DVD's at different speeds to find the sweet spot(s). You must have a good CD-R scanning drive though.

I have never used my Sammy 203B's or 223F for CD-R's as i have my Plex Premiums to use for those. I have seen some nice CD-R scans from the Sammy's.

Absolutely, and they are even more difficult to find than a good writer.

As this thread contains the word audiophile we must remember that a good scan won't make a CD sound better. In the digital realm a copy will either be identical to the original or it won't and will have errors. The brand of disc used can't make any subtle difference to the sound quality. Every now and again someone comes along who insists that CD brand A sounds "warmer" than brand B on their £5000 Hi-Fi. This is impossible no matter how much you spent on your Hi-Fi (the CD player would have to read the ATIP code and then deliberately change the sound output).

But a good quality disc will stand the test of time better and should be easier for a CD player to read without errors.

Really nice answers, thanks very much all of you!
Ibex, I'm from Brazil then my only option is buying on eBay, I can't find good CD-Rs here.

I have 2 more doubts:

- Should I go with those commum TYs CD-Rs ou would be a better choice to me look for some gold plated CD-Rs, like those Kodak Gold Preservation CD-Rs? Do they really last longer?

- What burning software do you guys recommend me to use? I only know Nero and Exact Audio Copy (EAC).

Thanks!

See if you can get the seller to tell you if they are MIJ = Made In Japan. Look for packages that have MIJ on the labels. They should all be TY's if MIJ.

I have TY's and Maxell MIJ TY's and they seem to burn the same for me. I also have TY printables and they also burn the same.

If Nero and EAC works for you then use it.

Yep...you're totally free to go down or up in the speeds a bit. I've had good playback results with my TY in my LG drive that can write at 8x [I haven't had a chance to try 4x].In my opinion, gold preservation CD-Rs are more a gimmick. When taken care of, a well-written CD should last a good while regardless of if it's gold or silver. You'd be better off getting the normal discs.

Some gold CDs also play back worse than normal TY media, so it's just not worth it.

I like EAC for ripping to a .CUE file as well as writing. I also like to use ImgBurn to write CUE files [it doesn't make a better burn; it just has a burning engine that I like].

Nero isn't bad; I'd just prefer the other two applications I mentioned. Like Bob said, if it works for you, then use it.

Ok guys, thanks for the answers, you really helped me a lot!

For a CD-R (or DVD) to be physically readable there are two basic requirements; the reflective layer needs to reflect the laser and the dye needs to block the laser in selected places. For a disc to be easy to read you want good contast. Over time the dye may fade and the material used for the reflective layer may oxidise making it less reflective.

The idea behind using gold for the reflective layer on an optical disc is that, unlike silver, it will not oxidise over time. The disadvantage of using gold is that it is less reflective than silver, so the only advantage of gold is longevity. Also the high cost encourages manufacturers to make the reflective layer very thin reducing the amount of light reflected. On a good quality CD-R the top and edges of the disc should be well enough sealed to prevent the silver layer from oxidising if the disc is stored correctly. I think that one reason that gold was used on early CD-R discs was that they didn't have a protective lacquer on top of the reflective layer.

So I think that the overall quality of a disc is more important than the material used. The gold CD-Rs that I have seen in recent years have been made by companies not known for making good quality discs. The discs appear to be the company's usual rubbish but with a gold reflective layer (most seem to have the same ATIP code as the regular discs). In 2006 CDFreaks reviewed some Emtec Gold CDR discs which were made by MPO, a company not known for quality (http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/EMTEC-CD-R-Gold-Review). The scans were not particularly good and often had C2 errors. This thread from 2007 (http://club.cdfreaks.com/f33/cd-r-ul...-650mb-218117/) says that current Kodak Gold CD-R & Delkin Device Gold CD-Rs have a Mitsui ATIP code. Once upon a time Mitsui did make good CD-Rs but they no longer make their own discs. I think I have also seen some gold CD-Rs that were made by CMC Magnetics.

Possibly the only gold discs worth getting might be Verbatim's UltraLife archival CD-R (& DVD-R). I have no experience of them. They are supposed to have both a silver reflective layer for readability and a gold layer as a long term backup. Verbatim's AZO dye is also good as it contains metal particles to make it more resistant to UV than Cyanine dyes (as used by Taiyo Yuden).

If I am just making a copy for everyday use then I use something like Daxon or Ritek CD-Rs (cheap but consistently free of C2 errors with my chosen writer), after all it will sound exactly the same so long as it is error free. If I am making a master copy that needs to last then I use Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim Datalife Plus (AZO). The Verbatim DL+ are not quite as good as they used to be, but I think that the problem is mainly that most recent writers don't do a good job on them. If it is something really important then I will make master copies on Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim DL+ and Ritek (+ a couple of copies for everyday use). This means that I can hedge my bets and have good copies on all 3 different types of dye - Cyanine, AZO and Phthalocyanine. The quality of Ritek CD-Rs varies a lot but they seem to be the best Phthalocyanine CD-Rs around at the moment (I get Maxell branded and send them back if they are a bad batch). I have had good results on Daxon CD-Rs (Imation branded) but I don't know how well they will last.

One final thing to consider is that audio CDs have less error correction than data CDs. So for something important you might want to make an additional master copy in a well supported lossless audio format (like FLAC) on a data CD.

As for software, I find Nero useful for writing audio CDs. I particularly like being able to load a single large audio file and then insert track markers in Nero. It makes it much easier to make a gapless CD.

[Sorry it's a very long post]

Great, just great post! Thanks very much Ibex.

Just let me ask you one more thing, as you have more experience on this, can you know if this TY's CD-Rs are good/original ones?
http://cgi.ebay.com/100-Taiyo-Yuden-...6.c0.m14.l1318

Is there somewhere else where I can find TY and ships to worldwide, instead of eBay?

Thanks.

Note - I am not an expert on identifiying fake discs and there are other CDFreaks members who know much more about Taiyo Yuden than me.

Genuine Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs have a green-blue Cyanine dye, a frosted plastic center hub with a serial number stamped into it and the ATIP code 97m24s01f. Also they are often (but not always) sold in a distinctive cake box as shown in the photo on the Ebay page you linked to. But Cyanine dyes are not exclusive to Taiyo Yuden and I understand that the ATIP code, frosted hub and even the cake box design have been faked.

Even among genuine Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs there are good and bad grades of disc. And to make things even more difficult most Taiyo Yuden CD-R discs are sold completely unbranded. SVP (a well known seller of discs here in the UK) for example sell 3 different ranges of identical looking unbranded Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs. The most expensive are sourced directly from Taiyo Yuden, the other two ranges are still made by Taiyo Yuden but are sourced from Datasafe and Mediastar. I haven't tried the Mediastar discs, but the one pack of Datasafe that I bought a while ago were clearly second rate and many of the discs had small holes in the protective lacquer on the top of the discs. Despite this most of the discs are OK, but 10-15% of the discs partially unreadable and have a huge number of C2 errors. The discs sourced directly from Taiyo Yuden should be top quality.

SVP also sell Verbatim Pastel branded Taiyo Yuden CD-R discs which are my prefered choice. They seem to be consistently top quality. But even sticking with a reputable brand in no guarantee that you won't occasionally get a bad batch. I have a pack of Plextor branded Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs that I bought a few years ago which are rather poor qualty (C1 average always >5 and frequent C2 errors).

Any new CD-R discs that say Made in Japan should be Taiyo Yuden as they are the last company manufacturing CD-R discs in Japan. The only branded Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs that have seen in the UK recently are Verbatim Pastel and Mediastar in slim jewel cases. Some Panasonic, Maxell and Verbatim Datalife (not Datalife Plus) CD-Rs used to be Taiyo Yuden. Taiyo Yuden also have their own brand called That's but they distribute them in a few countries (the only country in Europe is Greece). Plextor no longer sell their own range of discs.

If you see any Taiyo Yuden discs sold under a reputable brand (especially Verbatim) then I would be inclined to give those a try first. If you can only find unbranded discs then try to buy them from a respectable source. There is no reason why unbranded Taiyo Yuden discs shouldn't be just as good as branded, but I think that there is a greater chance of getting the low grade discs.

Some American CDFreaks members have recommended Rima.com as a good source of Taiyo Yuden discs in the past. I have no idea if they will ship to Brazil.

Rima doesn't ship outside the United States