RE: [AV Media Matters] arsclist CD-R compatibility with various CDburners

[Charles Repka <Charles.P.Repka@abc.com>]

>At 01:48 PM 05/17/2001 -0500, Brian Levy wrote:
>>In the meantime, could I please get some recommendations for which
>>_specific_ CD burners seem to perform best with which blank media.
>
>I have used over a thousand Mitsui Gold and Silver and they work
>wonderfully in my Yamaha 4260.
>
>I just acquired a Marantz CDR500 2x audio burner that doesn't require
>special audio discs. It seems to be compatible with the
>Mitsuis as well.

You cannot judge how well matched your burner is to a particular brand of
disc by playing the disc in and Audio player.  The disc could have a high
error rate that is being corrected by the error correction circuits in the
player.  And a disc that an acceptable error at 2X may not do so well in the
same burner at 4X or 1X.  You really must check with a tester to be sure.
Lacking that, you might trying using a little software program called
CD-Diagnostic (from www.cdrom-prod.com)
which keeps track of ECC errors while playing back the disc in a computer
CD-ROM  that basically tells you how hard the player has to work to recover
the data.  you can download a 30 day free trial. While this is not a true
test of error rates. you can easy spot trends in certain brands of discs
burned at different speeds. Discs that require a lot of error correction
should be avoided.  Not all players report ECC data ( Plextor does, Creative
CD does not) however.
I am in the same position as you, that is, I cannot afford a real tester.
This program gives me some level of confidence.

Charles Repka