Stevie Boy wrote:

snip
- the dyes in
current CD-Rs actually work better at higher speeds than at low
(someone did a study on this a couple of years ago and published
results on the web).

Interesting I too would like some link on these results.


Some of the more modern burners are able to report error rates and
jitter on burned discs. I've been doing some informal error rate tests
on a Plextor Premium drive and I've noticed that, in general, older
drives have generally higher error rates but they aren't particularly
speed dependent (with the odd specific exception) unless burned at the
fastest possible speed. Burning at the absolute highest speed that the
burner/media combination will allow does seem to produce higher error
rates but these error rates on modern drives are still lower than those
achieved by older drives at low speeds.

Having said that there is no general rule, I typically burn at half of
the lower of burner speed and media rating - e.g., for a x32 disc on
an x48 burner burn at x16. On my setup this produces copies that (a)
are digitally identical to the original, and (b) play without any
discernable error or difference in sound on a variety of CD players.

Out of interest which manufacturer/s do you use for media and burners?


I use Plextor burners with Mitsui 16X or Taiyo Yuden media. The Mitsui
media generally gives the lowest error rates. Decent quality Mitsui
media appears to be no longer available though.

Cheers.

James.