A couple days ago I bought a Harmon Kardon CDR 20 standalone CD burner. I'm planning on starting a huge collection of audio CD-Rs. The sound quality, compatibility, and longevity is extremelly important to me so I've spent the last couple days absorbing a tremendous amount of information about audio CD-Rs on the Internet. I had purchased 1000 Memorex 40X AUDIO CD-Rs for this project, but I've come to the conclusion that I should probably get some different media based on what I've read. CD ID says the manufacturer is ProDisc which I've read some very good and some very bad things about. I've also read that media rated 40X can be pretty bad too. The best manufacturers seem to be Ritek, Taiyo Yuden, TDK, and Mitsui. I really don't want to buy any rebranded CD-Rs as they seem to change manufacturers a lot. Would you guys agree that these are the four best manufacturers? Where can I get a good deal on AUDIO CD-Rs from any of these manufacturers that are not rebranded?
I have very little experience in Audio CD-R. I have only used a few as data CDs. The top manufacturers have been discussed here a number of times, for example the summary thread. You'll find a lot more using the search. http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/12824
Thank you for the link. I've definitely read that entire thread and I've been over a lot of other threads on this forum. I'm taking my audio archiving project very seriously as I don't want to end up with a bunch of unreadable discs a few years down the line. For example, I've read that Ritek is up there with the best but I've come across some threads that say they seem to have gotten a bad batch somewhat lately. Is there a manufacturer who has a stellar enough reputation to eliminate that kind of possibility? Maybe Mitsui and Taiyo Yuden? I've found 100 24X 80 min. Mitsui Unbranded Audio CD-Rs for $62 from mediasupply.com. They are silver and use Phthalocyanine dye. Does anyone ever have problems with Mitsuis? Also, should I worry about the possibility of incorrect ATIP information from these discs?
Any brand of CDR can turn bad after some time. All the Mitsuis I burned in 2000 are now dead. All the ones that were in my flat at least, but the ones stored in my father flat are still OK. Therefore it is either a matter of light (my room looks southwards, and his' looks northwards. Being in France, my windows see the sun and his' don't) or of heat (24 °C in summer in his flat, 28 °C in mine).
Were the CDs themselved exposed to the light or were they in a case that was exposed to the light? Were there other CD-Rs that were subjected to the same thing that did not end up dead? About how many Mitsuis died? I'm putting off buying my CD-Rs until I hear back from you.
I have to underline here that even though Pio's experiences with Mitsui are factual, they are quite an exception to the genreal experience of Mitsui's quality. On the other hand I have seen one Mitsui go dead. A sort of a "stain" appeared on the dye (an area size of 1cm^2 with a slightly darker color).
A part of the sunlight going through thin parts of the shades runs over the jewel cases in winter (through the holes through which the cords pass, the shades themselves are always set to stop sunlight). EDIT : it always reaches CDRs on the ground, if there are, and maybe CDRs that are on the right hand shelve (25 % of my CDRs). I don't know if it can reach the 75 % of CDRs that stand on the left hand shelve. 13 Mitsui dead, one alive, 1998 to 2000 (Branded Mitsui, Teac, and HP) 2 Traxdata dead, 2000 2 Ricoh dead, 2000 2 HiSpace Silver (former model) dead, 2000 1 HiSpace Black dead, 2002 ! 1 BASF dead, 1998 In one word, 80 to 90 % of what I burned before 2001 is dead, regardles of the brand used (I bought mostly Mitsui). CDRs burned in 2000 with the Yamaha 6416S were dead a little before CDRs burned in 1998-1999 with a Teac 4x burner (thus they lasted 2 years while the Teac ones lasted 3.5 years).
Thanks for following up Pio2001. It sounds like your experience would have to be attributed to the UV light your CD-Rs were exposed to doesn't it? That's interesting that the black CD-R died too as those are touted to be more UV-resistant. I've ordered up 200 of the Mitsui Unbranded Silver 80 min. AUDIO CD-Rs for $124 from CDRPlanet.com. I plan to burn them in the standalone Harman Kardon CDR 20 (at 1X to minimize jitter), keep them in one of those big 200+ CD wallets by Case Logic to keep them from crapping out, and use the Neato labeler, software, and labels to label them with all pertinent information. I'm using the Collectorz.com Music Collector to keep them cataloged too. Sounds pretty good to me!
The black tint blocks UV. Difficult to know what happens for sure, because glass windows block UV too. The black CDRs have a high error rate just burned. I've got one or two C2 errors on them as soon as they get out of the burner. Since my father's old CDRs are OK, I... wait, no, I can remember one dead ! I wanted to recover mine, and since I failed I asked him the one I made for him the same time as mine, and it was dead too... I'll check gold CDRs, they are more recent than the others (2001), but I found no one dead yet. I'll compare them to 2001 silver CDRs.
Bad news : I've watched my CDRs during a sunny day, and the sun never reaches any of them. I've checked other CDRs from my father, and some are dead too. Good news : My gold CDRs are as old as my silver ones, and none is dead : http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/28410
That's really interesting. Maybe gold is a big factor in CD-R longevity along with the manufacturer. I'm surprised I haven't read about anything like this before. I'm a bit bummed on Mitsui right now, and I'm actually going to return my Mitsui CD-Rs for some Taiyo Yudens. I'm getting a Marantz Professional standalone CD burner instead of the Harmon Kardon so I'll be able to burn using standard CD-Rs. Does Taiyo Yuden offer gold discs? Is there any drawback to a gold disc?
From http://www.mscience.com/faq53.html : A CD-R dye layer is covered by a thin metallic coating and then a fragile protective layer. This very thin acrylic or lacquer layer is only 5 to 10 micrometers thick (200 to 400 microinches). Physical damage to this surface will destroy the underlying recorded data, or will admit atmospheric contaminants that corrode the metallic coating. Silver is particularly vulnerable to attack by sulphur, a common air pollutant. Even aluminum layers used for CD-ROM discs oxidize when exposed to clean air, resulting in loss of performance. I live in a polluted town (Lyon, France), but we're nowhere close to comfirm the hypothesis of air pollution attacking the silver... We should gather more data on silver vs gold CDRs. Gold CDRs are uncommon, expensive. I've just read in CDRLabs that they never saw any Tayo Yuden gold in the US, if they exist at all. That's why we have little data about gold vs silver. I know HiSpace gold (reported to have a high C1 error rate by a german magazine), Fnac Gold, that are made by HiSpace, Mitsui gold, highly praised by the few who use them, but one is reported dead here, Kodak gold Ultima, very high quality, they say, and TDK gold 80 made by TDK, utter crap, according to one or two people who didn't manage to burn any.
If I keep my backup Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs in a CD wallet out of the heat, light, and humidity, they should last a long time shouldn't they?
I don't know, all I know is posted here and there... Avoid PVC wallets (you can spot PVC at the smell), the CD top layer sticks to it, and when you remove the CD, the metallic layer stay glued into the PVC
Hmmmm, I've got a brand new Case Logic wallet case. How can you tell if it's PVC? I've got a sensitive nose and the CD holding portion doesn't seem to be putting off any smell at all. So I guess it isn't?
