# Music CDR burn speed **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 10, 2002, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286 "2002-07-10T19:26:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2002, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/1 "2002-07-10T19:26:24Z")
Several people I have talked to have noted that they generally burn music cds as slowly as possible, because they have gotten errors when burning them at higher speeds. This seems illogical to me, as I can burn data cds at very high speeds without errors, and music cds inherently contain error correcting codes that interpolate missed bits. Is there any reason why music cds should be burned slowly, or are more prone to error than data cds? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2002, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/2 "2002-07-10T20:05:30Z")
People who burn at slow speeds are fooling themselves. As long as the CD-R you’re using is rated at or higher than the speed you’re burning, you’ll be fine; the error-correcting circuitry of the CD-R drive will take care of problems. In fact, I read an article a while back (don’t even know where to look for it now) that said that burning at higher speeds actually produces _better_ copies; apparently CD-R drives can take care of errors more efficiently at higher speeds, or something. My take: by burning slower, you’re just making the process take longer, sometimes a _lot_ longer, and that’s just more time for something to go wrong. Shorten the time, you’ll make fewer coasters. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2002, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/3 "2002-07-10T20:36:46Z")
I got errors burning music CDs at high speed. But the problem was the software decoding the mp3s into wavs in real time (and other glitches). I now decode first in the background and then burn at high speed. ---
**Author:** ![M80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@M80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/M80)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2002, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/4 "2002-07-10T23:09:12Z")
That’s not just a matter of errors. When you burn CDRs at low speed, the pits made by the laser beam are deeper. This helps to reduce the wear of hi-fi devices (yes, they are subject to wear like anything else) because the reading lens has to make a less effort in focusing the pits. I once had to have the optic group of my CD reader replaced for this reason, so I’ve been burninng CDs at the lowest speed (1x) ever since. It’s better to use an audio CD recorder, if you’ve got one, but the audio-only blank CDs are more expensive. When a CDR costs more, anyway, that’s because its metal layer is purer and won’t shorten the life of your equipment too much. If you think you’re going to listen to a home-recorded CD quite often, it may be worth the price. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2002, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/5 "2002-07-10T23:21:57Z")
This is chilling information. I let the TiBook burn at the speed it choses, and indeed as the song burns, the speed it reports shifts during the burn. ( I haven’t figured out HOW yet ). Actually, now that I think about it, it rips the song from CD to TiBook at variable rates, it burns the songs back to a fresh CDR at a constant speed, but I think that speed is 8X. Should I find a way to get into the settings for iTunes and alter the speed of the burn? **M80** , what you said sure makes sense to me. Cartoonivers ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2002, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/6 "2002-07-10T23:52:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by M80 \* > \*\*That’s not just a matter of errors. When you burn CDRs at low speed, the pits made by the laser beam are deeper. This helps to reduce the wear of hi-fi devices (yes, they are subject to wear like anything else) because the reading lens has to make a less effort in focusing the pits. I once had to have the optic group of my CD reader replaced for this reason, so I’ve been burninng CDs at the lowest speed (1x) ever since. > It’s better to use an audio CD recorder, if you’ve got one, but the audio-only blank CDs are more expensive. When a CDR costs more, anyway, that’s because its metal layer is purer and won’t shorten the life of your equipment too much. If you think you’re going to listen to a home-recorded CD quite often, it may be worth the price. \*\* Welcome to the board! I hope you enjoy the SDMB M80. Do you have any kind of technical cite at all for the assertions that: 1: Pits burned at lower speeds are “deeper” 2: Even if the “deeper pit” assertion is true that this makes the laser work less hard 3: The metal layer on an audio CD is “purer” than the one on a data CD ---
**Author:** ![mblackwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@mblackwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mblackwell)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/7 "2002-07-11T00:00:38Z")
Do cd writers even burn pits or do they simulate pits by changing the reflectivity of the dye? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/8 "2002-07-11T00:11:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by M80 \* > \*\*That’s not just a matter of errors. When you burn CDRs at low speed, the pits made by the laser beam are deeper. This helps to reduce the wear of hi-fi devices (yes, they are subject to wear like anything else) because the reading lens has to make a less effort in focusing the pits. I once had to have the optic group of my CD reader replaced for this reason, so I’ve been burninng CDs at the lowest speed (1x) ever since. > It’s better to use an audio CD recorder, if you’ve got one, but the audio-only blank CDs are more expensive. When a CDR costs more, anyway, that’s because its metal layer is purer and won’t shorten the life of your equipment too much. If you think you’re going to listen to a home-recorded CD quite often, it may be worth the price. \*\* Wow. I don’t know which part of this to correct first. Well, first of all, when you burn a CD-R, you’re not really creating “pits”, you’re etching a pattern into the recording layer, and their “depth” doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to your player. Audio-only CD-Rs are functionally identical to other CD-R media, but they have an extra fee added to the price by the recording companies, who believe they should be compensated for you recording their music. And consumer CD-Rs don’t have a “metal layer”, what you’re etching your music/data/whatever onto is basically a dye. So, either someone’s been feeding you a line and bilking you out of your cash, or you think we’re all maroons and you wanted to see what kind of responses you’d get. I guess it doesn’t much matter which. ---
**Author:** ![kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f9ae1b/32.png) [@kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirk)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/9 "2002-07-11T00:16:14Z")
> [@](#): > > audio-only blank CDs are more expensive. Audio cdr’s are more expensive because they include royalty fees. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/10 "2002-07-11T00:21:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mblackwell \* > \*\*Do cd writers even burn pits or do they simulate pits by changing the reflectivity of the dye? \*\* I assume that that’s a rhetorical question, judging from how it is phrased. Indeed, there are no “pits” on a CD-R. > [@](#): > > A CD-R doesn’t have the same bumps and lands as a conventional CD. Instead, the disc has a dye layer underneath a smooth, reflective surface. On a blank CD-R disc, the dye layer is completely translucent, so all light reflects. The write laser darkens the spots where the bumps would be in a conventional CD, forming non-reflecting areas. From \*[How Stuff Works\*](http://www.howstuffworks.com/cd-burner2.htm). It’s kind of absurd to think that photosensors would be subjected to “eyestrain” from trying to read a “lightly burned” cd. Maybe if it was obliged to read a substantial number more 1’s than 0’s, it would wear a _tiny_ (read: practically unmeasureably) little bit faster owing to there being more photons hitting the sensor. Since they’re pretty much evenly-distributed. **M80** , please check your facts before posting in GQ. Signal-to-noise, and all that. 🙂 [previews] Damn, too slow. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/11 "2002-07-11T00:24:35Z")
Uh, that’s “Since they’re pretty much evenly-distributed, _it’s something of a moot point._” ---
**Author:** ![Mikahw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Mikahw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikahw)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/12 "2002-07-11T00:32:26Z")
Are they evenly distributed? A google search isn’t offering much help, but I remember reading a book about CD technology a while ago. IIRC, CDs always have one land, then a series of about 1-7 pits (well, they’re all 1 pit, but they’re 1-7 units long), then another land, then another series of 1-7 pits, etc. As to the original post, most CD writing programs try to change MP3s into CD audio format while they burn. Unless you have a really fast computer (or a really slow CDR drive), it won’t be able to do it at the full speed of your CDR drive. You have the choice of either burning at a lower speed, or encoding before your burn. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/13 "2002-07-11T02:18:26Z")
Everybody in this thread who hasn’t already read the [CD-R FAQ](http://www.cdrfaq.org/) should do so now. Note [Section 3-31](http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq03.html#S3-31), titled “Is it better to record at slower speeds?” The answer was written in October 2000, but the first sentence is still true. Still, burning audio CDRs at 1x is audiophile mysticism. You should burn audio CDRs at the highest speed your burner is capable of and the disc itself is rated for. If you don’t know the rated speed of your media, your burning software probably can tell you what it is. -fh ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/14 "2002-07-11T02:59:52Z")
- - - Most audio production facilities will only cut glass masters at 1x or 2X, and most recording technical info sources will note that there are more bitwise errors made at higher speeds than lower. ~ - The reality-bite here is that studio-level audio CD-R decks and (gold) CD-R’s aren’t quite the same as typical PC hardware: gold discs have to be burned hotter, and burning hotter takes longer. PC’s are supposed to use silver+green/blue disks, which burn cooler and faster. Also in practical terms much of what shows up as bitwise errors on high-speed-written discs isn’t audible to the human ear anyway… -but as professionals with paying clients, recording engineers like to get as close to perfection as possible. - For a PC, use a silver disc, and speed it up until you start getting warning messages. You will probably never be able to hear the difference between an audio CD burned at 1X and one burned at 16X. - DougC ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/15 "2002-07-11T03:39:12Z")
What do you mean exactly by “gold discs?” I use Mitsui gold reflective layer/phthalocyanine dye CDRs in my home burner and they’re fine up to at least 16x, probably higher. Mitsui says the advantage of phthalocyanine dye is that it reacts more _quickly_ to the laser, not more slowly… the metal used in the reflective layer has no bearing on the burning process, it’s used when the disc is being read. -fh ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/16 "2002-07-11T09:51:03Z")
Nobody has yet answered the real question- at what burning speed can I make **Barry Manilow** sound good??? 😃 😃 😃 Okay, sorry to those Barry fans out there. If there is a difference between silver and gold ( and, I’m not sure I get that there is at all ) then explain how a friend sent me two CDR’s that her son burned for me on their PC. It is a [Memorex Black CD-R](http://www.techadvice.cc/info/item.asp?cid=437&pid=55&iid=7859). If a silver CD-R is less “hot” than a gold CD-R, then would this thing…have…no…sound at all? How can a laser affect a dye layer where there is no apparent color at all? \>Whimper\< I’m confused. All I DO know is that the two black CD-R’s I was sent sound flawless, like they oughta sound. I’m not an audiophile and perhaps there is more sound quality loss in the black CD-R’s than in silver or gold ones. Then again- it’s that 20 year old debate. How educated do your ears have to be, for you to realize you’ve lost or gained 5 or 10% of audio quality in a medium where the range is so incredibly long? Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/17 "2002-07-11T11:10:20Z")
Depends a lot on the quality of the disc, but I have had better copies at max speed. The best discs for burning audio that I’ve found are made by Taiyo Yuden (FujiFilm 24x is one brand of Taiyo Yuden discs), which I can burn at 40x with no sweat and get perfect copies. My 40x burner puts out an 80 minute audio CD in under 3:30, and they play perfectly…even in my car CD player, which is definitely the pickiest one I own. Hmmm…80 minutes vs 3:30…which would you take? Jman ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/18 "2002-07-11T12:19:57Z")
There isn’t a big difference between silver and gold, other than the fact that CD-Rs that use gold tend to be higher quality. Not because of the gold, but because gold gets paired up with phthalocyanine dye which is better than other types of dye. When people talk about CD-Rs as being “gold/green” or “silver/blue” they’re referring to the reflective layer and the dye layer respectively. So your black Memorex CD-R is probably a silver/blue… silver reflective layer, blue (cyanine) dye layer. It just happens that they are encased in a black plastic sandwich. The laser your CD player uses to read the disks is infrared so it doesn’t care if the protective plastic layer is translucent or black (and those “black” CDs aren’t truly opaque black anyway). Temperature only matters when you are _writing_ to the CD-R, not when you are reading it, and the reflective layer doesn’t matter at all during the writing process… the writing laser of your CD recorder is heating up parts of the _dye layer_ until they’re opaque. That’s how CD-Rs mimic traditional store-bought CDs. Most CD-Rs will sound great because it’s a very forgiving medium compared to cassettes or reel-to-reel… you’re essentially making perfect copies. -fh ---
**Author:** ![Jdeforrest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@Jdeforrest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jdeforrest)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/19 "2002-07-11T15:31:06Z")
Geez, I can’t believe one person didn’t mention buffer underruns. The reason some people get more errors when burning at higher speeds is because information has to be supplied to the cdr burner at a constant rate and fluctuation and you get a buffer underrun error and a new paperweight. Basically, on some older computers they don’t have the necessary resources to supply say 1.2mb/s (which is 8x) to the cdr burner either because of a lack of RAM or other tasks their computer may be performing (such as a virus scan or something). So when they switch to a lower setting, their computer doesn’t have to work so hard to supply the information, so no errors. Cappice? P.S. These errors are getting less and less frequent with the increasing speed of computer and especially faster bus speeds and more RAM. ---
**Author:** ![M80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@M80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/M80)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286/20 "2002-07-11T16:53:20Z")
Mmm… I quite feel like any attempt to make my unconfortable position any better will only manage to make it worse, but let’s go ahead and try. Of course, I won’t deny a thing of what I’ve said, but I still think that my post has been slightly misunderstood. Since I’m no electronic engineer or anything, I can have made some mistakes in quoting a piece of thecnical advice that was once given to me by someone who knew what he was saying. As a matter of fact, I was just talking about my own experience. There are a few points I would like to explain better: 1 - I’m aware that you pay a tax upon audio media, but there must be an explanation for the great differences of price which still exist between CDs of the same kind and of the same “max recording speed” rate and the one I wrote makes sense to me. 2 - Everything you can buy comes in many quality and price categories, so why recordable CDs should not? 3 - Maybe you guys are right when you say that there’s nothing wrong with high speeds, but since there’s nothing wrong with low ones either, I think it’s wise to choose the latter, just to be sure, provided that you aren’t in a hurry. “If we didn’t have any pride, we would not complain about other people’s one.” - La Rochefoucauld [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-cdr-burn-speed/118286.md?page=2)