CD-R vs CD-R Digital for MP3 Recording

I was just wondering which CD-R is best for burning MP3’s and has the most probability of playing in more CD players.

Thanks.

Unless some new format has snuck up on me I’d have to say that there is only one commonly used format, so there is no cd-r ‘digital’ (it’s all one and the same).

Perhaps you’re asking about the CD-R’s labeled for music? There is no difference still, except that you pay more for those and that extra money goes to the Record Industry to ‘off-set’ their losses from copyed material.

In other words, don’t buy them

Well, the reason I ask is because when I burn onto a CD-R it won’t play on my portable CD player. But when I burn it onto a CD-R that says “Digital” it plays.

There must be some difference between the two (besides the price).

Hmm that’s strange. Are you certain you are writing to it using the same format?

How old is your Cd player?

There’s no such thing as a non-digital CD, so there must be some other difference.

Are the two discs of the same brand?? I’ve known people who had car CD players that would only play TDK discs while their home player would play any brand - TDK, Memorex, Fuji, etc.

The best CD-R brand (IMHO) is Taiyo Yuden. TY doesn’t sell any of their CD-R discs at retail in the US, but any spindle of Fuji CD-Rs that says “Made in Japan” should be TY. If you google for “Taiyo Yuden” you’ll find some places that sell spindles of genuine Taiyo Yudens, but because they cost a bit more anyway (plus you have to get them shipped) this costs a bit more than you’re used to.

As far as your portable player goes, I haven’t seen a portable player built in the past 3 years that couldn’t handle a CD-R. This also makes me think it’s the brand you’re using. If another brand doesn’t work, you might consider a CD cleaning disc, but since the decent ones cost $14.99 or so, you might just wanna think about getting a new player if a brand change doesn’t solve your problems.

It’s only a year old.

I have two different kinds of CD-R’s here…

  1. TDK Music CD-R for Audio Recording - Compact Disk Digital Audio Recordable

  2. Memorex CD-R - Recordable Compact Disks for Computer CD Writers

#1 plays in my Portable - #2 does not.

#1 says it’s “Digital” - Nowhere on package #2 is the word “Digital”
So I guess one is Digital and one is not - but I’m still confused as to why they won’t play in the same player?

You got your CD-R which can be used for data or music. Then there’s CD-R Audio (sometimes labeled “music”) which can only be used in stand-alone CD burners.

From The CD-R FAQ

That’s not true. You can certainly use “music CD-R” discs to burn data CD-ROMs - the copy of Office 2003 that I’m using now was burned to one - but you can’t use “plain” CD-Rs with “console” type CD copiers (the kind that sit on a rack with your other audio equipment). The reason for this is that the “music CD-R” discs contain an extra data track on them that the console copier looks for when you put a new blank in to copy. If it doesn’t find it it won’t burn - which is what happens if you use “regular” CD-R discs.

My guess is that your portable doesn’t like Memorex. Try a different brand.

Sorry, I had that reversed. Standalone recorders can only use “music” CD-Rs.

And they are all digital media, which was my point.

Are you sure you’re burning both discs the same way? Perhaps your CD burning software is automatically switching to audio mode when it sees you’re using a disc intended for audio, and staying in data mode when a data disc is used. In order to record music for playback on an ordinary CD player, you must set your software up to burn an audio discs, not data discs.

And, as others have said, both discs are digital, both should work equally well for your purposes. It’s just that the TDK “audio” discs will also work in a standalone CD recorder.

you wouldn’t be able to burn MP3’s in anything but data mode. Unless you mean decompressing the MP3 back into a normal WAV file in which case, you only get 72 minutes of music off one CD.

I found that my purchase of a cakebox of 100 recordable Taiyo Yuden discs from All Media Outlet offered a lower unit price than I had seen at any retail store.

Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. It’s what you must do if you want to play your MP3 files back on a standard (non-MP3 capable) CD player, and it’s what at least one popular CD burning program (Adaptec EZ-CD Creator) does by automatically, when MP3 files are added to an audio-CD layout.