T2K Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 I've been listening to a Santana CD that a friend burned for me. It sounds better than many newer CD's that I own. Anyone here have a CD burner? What do you think of the quality of the copies? Any advice/tips about the equipment or the process are appreciated. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 I use nothing but burned copies and save the originals from scratches. I hear no difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Good2BHome Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 I also listen to only my copies. I've used a cardware copy program call EAC (Exact Audio Copy) for about the last 6 months. It reads the sectors? of the disk up to 24 times to get the exact information. If there are errors due to whatever, it reports that to you and offers to fix them to best of its ability, which has been to my satisfaction. Most of the time I can't even hear the error it found. It is a little slower coping, but I think it is worth it. If anyone needs help finding EAC I will help. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Mobley Posted December 13, 2003 Share Posted December 13, 2003 EAC roolz, or whatever. http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ this is freeware as far as I know. It has never failed me yet, making perfect copies of CD's that won't even play in a CD player. Get it, use it. Save your originals in perfect condition. This is not a copyright violation, you are entitled to make a backup copy of just about anything you own. Making copies for everybody else is iffy, however. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted December 15, 2003 Author Share Posted December 15, 2003 Thanks for the replys and the info. The burned CD was a copy of a CD that I purschased retail ;^). I don't know anything about my friends hardware but this particular copy sounds better, after more listening tonight, that even HDCD's that I have. Must learn more. Thanks again. For the link too. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 I've had mixed success with CD copies. I've had a number of disks go bad, unplayable by any means. Most are on silver, cheapo computer CD=Rs I got in show trades. Amazing, people will insist on using at least moderate quality Maxell XLII tapes, but use $.15 piece of crap Office Max CDs! I can hear a definite degredation in quality (usually due to artifacts) in high speed burns (8x or more usually). I personally have a component Philips burner (CD-R Music) which makes great cloan copies in real time and is great using analog copies as well. The S/N and Dynamic Range of the analog recordings are both over 90db, way better than any tape deck. I also have a Yamaha 24x computer burner which does a very nice job (have digital I/O for recording direct from stereo components). I use EAC for ripping and recording and Nero Burn for burning. On the other hand, I've never had a tape go bad for no reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 A digital copy will be an exact cloan of the original disk, theoretically. Component quality will make a big difference though. A $300 Pioneer component recorder will be a better job than a $20 Office Depot computer CD-R. Unless you buy a high quality digital soundcard, you won't beable to make good recordings to your computer if you're using analog source material (LP or tape to hard drive). Too much noise in the computer to use a generic soundcard. ---------------- On 12/13/2003 2:27:57 PM T2K wrote: I've been listening to a Santana CD that a friend burned for me. It sounds better than many newer CD's that I own. Anyone here have a CD burner? What do you think of the quality of the copies? Any advice/tips about the equipment or the process are appreciated. Keith ---------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark1101 Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 I am always making copies and can't tell the difference from the originals. One tip however. I have found that burning faster than 16x sometimes causes some players to either skip or not play the recorded CD correctly (noisy). Mostly personal portables, car players, or boom box players (my kids). I learned this and now always burn at 16x or 8x and have never had another issue. I use Nero burning software, and on my PC it takes about 15 minutes total to copy a source and write the new CD at 16x. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 If you are going to do this, do it properly and use high quality cd's to burn to. I HIGHLY recommend Harmony Media Gold CD's. I backed up my entire music library onto these CD's and never had a failure. You can even make an exact copy of an HDCD to CD-R's and the HDCD player will play it as an HDCD. Get the Harmony CD's, or at least something similar, and then you should not have any reason to have any doubt that you are getting at least as good of sound out of the burned copy as the original. (harmony CD's have aa much longer lifespan than most cd's from memorex, TDK, Verbatim, etc. They don't cost much more, actually cheaper quite often!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stream Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 I have a live concert collection of almost 3000 discs, so this is something I actually know quite well, unlike home audio (yet!) There is no possible way a burned CD can sound better than the original. It will have the same information encoded on it as the original, and unless you're using EAC in its most secure mode (and sometimes not even then), there will be some errors in that information on the burned copy. The only way it could sound better is because you're listening to your burned copy in a different setup (or perhaps with EQ settings more to your liking) than when you heard the original. Plus, keep in mind that some CDs simply sound better than others because of engineering, mixing, producing, etc. Also, keep in mind that the speed at which you burn CDs has no effect on the quality of the music. As long as your computer's system bus can keep up with the high speed flow of data, the same information is getting written to the disc at 32x as it would get written at 2x. Oh, and **never** copy audio discs "on the fly." ALWAYS copy the disc to your hard drive first, then burn from your hard drive. And, always use EAC to copy the audio discs to your hard drive. Be sure you're using EAC in its most secure/accurate mode, or you're defeating the purpose of using that program. You can also customize EAC to your drive's settings by using this chart: http://www.ping.be/satcp/eacoffsets01.htm#- If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. -Jesse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 Jessie, I agree with most of what you said, but I've done a lot of "research" with various writing speeds have come to a few anecdotal observations. 1. High Speed burns do not always play in all CD players. 2. There is an audiable difference in disks I've brunt on my Philips component quality 1x writer and my computer based 24x burner. Personally, if I'm trying to make a highest quality copy, 1x is the way to go. For mp3 or car CDs, I don't worry about it. I think this has to do with the amount of jitter created at high speeds and that the burns probably aren't as accurate or as complete at high speeds. The latter would account for high speed dubs not working on some CD players. But, theoretically you're correct. ---------------- Also, keep in mind that the speed at which you burn CDs has no effect on the quality of the music. As long as your computer's system bus can keep up with the high speed flow of data, the same information is getting written to the disc at 32x as it would get written at 2x. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael hurd Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 Anyone have an answer as to what discs are the most scratchproof of all the available blank cd-r's? Just wondering. I have only copied a few discs for the car, and I tried burning at 12x, but had a problem. After slowing down the rate to 4x, no problems. Just takes a little longer, that's all. How much does the speed of the computer affect this process? I mean the computer we have is older, and not necessarily up to date ( pentium II 450 with 256 megs ram ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbflash Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 I take it everyone is talking about a CD burner inside a PC either laptop or tower. What happens if I don't have a PC at the house and I really don't want to buy one at this time. Is there a stand alone CD burner out there? I don't care about MP3's. Danny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stream Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 Danny, Harman/Kardon makes a really nice one for under $200 if you look around for good prices. -Jesse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbflash Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 Jesse, Thanks. I will check it out. Danny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stream Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 http://www.harmankardon.com/product_detail.asp?cat=CDC∏=CDR%2026&sType=C That's it. I'm sure it's nowhere near the best out there, but it's great for the money. You can find it here for $279: http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?stk_code=harcdr26&svbname=30 (sorry, I meant under $300, not under $200) -Jesse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trvale Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 ---------------- On 12/15/2003 8:06:24 PM michael hurd wrote: Anyone have an answer as to what discs are the most scratchproof of all the available blank cd-r's? Just wondering. I have only copied a few discs for the car, and I tried burning at 12x, but had a problem. After slowing down the rate to 4x, no problems. Just takes a little longer, that's all. How much does the speed of the computer affect this process? I mean the computer we have is older, and not necessarily up to date ( pentium II 450 with 256 megs ram ). ---------------- I treat my discs horribly, throwing them around in my car. I guess because I know I can always just burn another copy . With just the regular green or blue dye cd-r's, scratches can make the cd skip sometimes in just a few days. I tried TDK's black cd-r's, which are a little more expensive but seem to withstand my abuse completely. I don't think I have had a black CD go bad yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted December 17, 2003 Author Share Posted December 17, 2003 ---------------- On 12/16/2003 1:49:33 AM dbflash wrote: I take it everyone is talking about a CD burner inside a PC either laptop or tower. What happens if I don't have a PC at the house and I really don't want to buy one at this time. Is there a stand alone CD burner out there? I don't care about MP3's. Danny ---------------- Hey Danny. Another suggestion. Do a Google on Sony RCDW2000ES or Sony RCDW500C . Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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