Burning music CDs

pineapple

Sorry if this is a stupid question but does it matter what CDs you use? I always thought you had to have a special audio CD, but I just downloaded some music to a Fujifilm PhotoDisc and it seems to be playing fine.

jayme1

all burnable CDs and DVDs are exactly the same, special 'CDs' for photo burning are only thought up in the marketing departmant to be able to charge more.

Hammyman

As above - you can use any CD. When cerating the CD though, make sure you select to do it as an audio CD because if you don't, it will just burn the files as WMP/MP3 etc files and not audio tracks - fine if your player supports WMP/MP3 playback but not if it doesn't.

fwor

jayme1 wrote: »

all burnable CDs and DVDs are exactly the same

That's not true. Some CD-Rs have greater or lesser reflectivity depending on the type of dye used, which may mean that some (particularly older) CD players can't read them, and CD-RW typically have the lowest reflectivity of all and give the most problems.

Burnable DVDs are more complicated, because there are several formats which have a physically different layout at a microscopic level on the disc (e.g. DVD-R versus DVD+R).

But it's true that, if reflectivity is high enough for your player, any CD-R should be fine for burning an audio CD.

rrf494g

Some (eg bose ) cd players will only play recorded CDs that are on "official" audio CD blank stock. These came about in the early days of "standalone" CD hi-fi recorder/players (eg I have the Pioneer PDR-609). I think it was in germany that these were specified and the "audio" blank discs had a small extra tax on them which was (supposed) to go to the musical copyright protection agency. The blank discs have a marker track that identifies that the tax has been paid. You can still buy these audio balnk CDs. I use "JVC CD-RW for Audio".

I still use the standalone Pioneer to catch music digitally, as it contains high quality analogue to digital circuits that are better than the run-of-the-mill sound cards in a PC.

Once on the "audio" CD, the music can be read as usual by a PC.

Most CD playing equipment now, however, does not check for the "audio tax paid" marker, so it's down to the basic quality of the CD and the player. I have found that many (particularly car audio) devices do not like recordable CDs (CD-R or whatever) and some handbooks will state that recordable CDs may not/will not play.

regards

OK_Sauce

I have the same CD recorder as you although it is now confined to the loft. I distinctly remember trying to use a regular CDR in it, but the recorder was having none of it. I seem to remember the Blank Audio CDRs were incredibly expensive.

The OPs original question wasn't stupid at all, although I suspect they will have no issues nowadays!!!

pineapple

Thanks all
Well I've never done this before and I had a load of unused CDs that I had originally bought for photos so I thought I would try it.
In fact I backed all of the 'my documents' folder on one, then I tried it with music. I've only played it on the computer so far. Yet to try elsewhere!

prowla

Some people say that different media sounds different, but I've never bothered trying to find out.
One thing that I have found out though, is that recorded CDs deteriorate, especially if used in the car (which can be a bit of a hostile environment for them).

dojoman

I use TDK cd`s and have never had a psoblem with them even in the car.