I recently bought a new (not new) car. Although it will play my store bought CDs fine, it won’t play any of the CDR mixes I’ve burned myself. My other car stereo worked fine. I’ve been using burnatonce’s Audio CD creator to create the CDs an my new car’s CD player is a Sony CDX 4100RDS if it matters. Does anyone have any idea what I can do to get CDRs to work?
It is a common problem especially with older players. Are you burning MP3 CD’s or just regular ones? Only certain players will be able to read MP3 CD’s and yours probably isn’t one of them. If you are just burning full CD’s, the only thing to try is different media and/or a different burner. Sometimes you can get these things to work and sometimes you can’t. How old is the player?
Try a different brand. If you’re using CD-RW, switch to CD-R instead. Many older CD players don’t like the CD-R format, because they weren’t specifically designed for it, so you’ll have to go through a process of trial and error to find one that works for you. The problem, basically, is one of reflectivity; the dye layer used in CD-Rs doesn’t let as much of the read laser light reflect back to the detector as the unobscured aluminum layer in pressed CDs. Some brands of CD-R work better with older players than others.
It is just CDs, not mp3s. As for the player, I don’t know. The car is 1997, but it’s not the player that came with it so it could have been put in at any time.
Thanks Q.E.D I use the cheapest brand of CD-R I can find. Currently Datasafe. Do you have any reccomendations for a better brand?
I’ve seen some like these that have a silver data layer, rather than the typical blue. Although I don’t know for sure, I’ve heard (and it makes sense) that these reflect better and therefor have better compatibility with older players. Pick up the smallest quantity you can find and give it a shot.
Head unit manual here The Player appears to be circa 1995. Right on the border timewise of units that might, or might not, play CDR’s. Try Sony brand CDR discs. 
If the car and its stereo were made in 1997, there were no home or auto CD players that were built to read CD-Rs then, only computer CD writers would do it. The laser on non-computer drives was not calibrated to read CD-Rs. The standard for CD playing devices has been updated to include MultiRead format since then. It’s not uncommon for an old CD player to be unable to find the start sector on a track, or read the TOC, or go beyond a certain point on a CD-R. All that has changed now. Many car stereo players are able to read CD-Rs and CD-RWs, as well as play mp3 data CD-ROMs, and many will display CD-Text.
You are likely going to have to buy a new CD player for the car if you want to use your own homemade discs in it. Then it won’t matter what brand or dye type of disc you use.
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Make sure you “close” the disc. (Not the same as closing a session which should happen anyway if the burn is correct.) Some players cannot handle multi-session CDs if they are not closed. I don’t know what term your software uses for closing a disc. Some programs use the term “finalize”.
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You can avoid a lot of problems using “disc-at-once” burning. No multi-session at all. (You can also get rid of gaps between tracks and other nice things.)
It’ll still be cheaper to try a few single CDs first. Just because they’re not designed for CD-R doesn’t mean that they can’t read them if you can find the right media. I’ve got a Nakamichi CD-35z and the manual specifically says that it can’t read CD-Rs. However, I use Imation CD-Rs with no problems.
The OP said he/she was making audio CDs, so they’re closed by default. My guess is that the drive just isn’t compatible with CD-Rs; I’ve had the same problem on an older CD player.
I seem to recall a particular brand of CD drives being burnt disk unfriendly, and I could almost swear it was Sony. I know I recall my ex warning people not to buy this particular brand of CD-ROM drive if they intended to use burnt disks in it. He used to say it was because the company was anti-piracy. No cites, I’m afraid.
Sorry, that is not correct. I use Nero and Roxio. Neither of my versions do disc-at-once audio CDs by default.
Please read the following section of the CD-R FAQ all the way thru.
I stand corrected. I seem to recall, however, that while they do not do disc-at-once, they do close the disc. I’m not using either Nero or Roxio at the moment, however, so this is based on past memory.
Certainly the program I’m using now (Sonic RecordNow!) doesn’t even give me the options for audio CDs, only when writing data. The disc is definitely closed.
However, I still stand corrected. 