The brand of CD-R (and CR+R) has an affect on the amount of dropouts you might experience. But price is no guideline and I've had problems with all prices of blank discs. Some seems to be a combination of my recorder and the particular disc since I can change to another recorder and have no problems or put in a second disc of the same type and not have problems where a second ago I did.

There was a tweak marketed a short while ago that touted a one to one transfer as sounding better than the original. I could not confirm that with my recorder and wasn't going to spend $700 to find out it wasn't true with theirs. On the other hand, I've saved scratched discs by copying at 52X and letting the recorders's error correction do its job.

Posssibly someone here will give better advice but I would say you are just as likely to be successful buying in bulk as you are buying top price CD-R's (and CD+R's). I would shop at a store that hires employees who might be able to give you some guidance on which discs they've had problems with in any particular batch lot.

Inexpensive CD-R's, store name (such as Office Max), and similar can sound poor. It is easy to measure the increased number of errors with such CD-R's.

I have tried a couple of black CD's as a result of the hype. All of those I tried do not sound good and had many measurable errors after burning.

I find that good, solid brand name disks typically work well.

I find Taiyo Yuden CD-R's consistently to be the best. They sound better than all others I have tried and their quality control is wonderful. They are used by many mastering engineers and other professionals. You can find them on-line at good prices.

I am not sure what you mean when you are interested in knowing differences "copying Redbook CD data from a computer hard drive" as I don't know any other way to burn a CD-R (unless one has software that keeps the data in RAM between reading the original CD and burning the CD-R). I am generally burning CD-R's of my own recordings using CD mastering software. The files are on a hard drive prior to burning.

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I am not sure what you mean when you are interested in knowing differences "copying Redbook CD data from a computer hard drive" as I don't know any other way to burn a CD-R

Possibly on a dedicated CD recorder. In which case most require a CD-R labelled "audio" so as to pay the royalty to the musician's union. Or so they would have you think.

Ahhh...I hadn't thought of this.

No opinion here on "audio" CD-R's.

Record a file to disk. Do a data compare between the two files. If they match then any differences are in your head.

I use EAC, it is a free-ware program, and it does data comparison from CD to hard drive and from hard drive to CD-R.

I’m a very frustrated audio cd recorder.  I have an old Marantz compact disc recorder, Model DR6050.  (I’m an old timer but I still record audio CD music onto blank discs.)  I play the recorded cd's on my Yamaha disc changer (Model CDM-900) and in my car cd changer (Alpine 5630) as well as the Marantz.

Trying to find blank audio cd discs that work has been an ongoing frustration.  I’ve tried almost every brand and never know what I’m going to get.  Some will read and record, some won’t.  Some will record and play but after some continue play will no longer read or then skip, stick, etc. 

Many years ago, I found Fujifilm 80 minute CD-R Audio blank discs that worked.  They were made in Japan.  At the time, I bought 200 blank discs and over time I used them up.  Now Fujifilm audio blanks are no longer made in Japan.  I bought the non-Japanese Fuji audio blanks (made in Taiwan) and they don’t work.  So here I go again.  I contacted several online internet CDR media stores and surprislngly no can give me any answers.  I did my own research and found Taiyo Yuden CDR audio blank discs.  Everyone raves about them and the descriptor states that their blanks are compatible with all CD Recorders.  I bought them (Taiyo Yuden CDR80WPP600SK CDR 52X) and they don’t work - message reads not audio cd - ugh! 

I’m looking for 74 to 80-minute cd-r and/or cd-rw audio blank discs that are guaranteed to work. I’d prefer cd-rw because they can be erased if I mess up a recording.  (Unfortunately recorded cd-rw's don't play on my Yamaha disc changer.)  I’m looking for quality so willing to pay a little extra for something that is guaranteed to read, record and last and work on the for mentioned equipment. My concern is I don’t record frequently so I can’t test every disc to ensure they work.  Two or three months from now, if one or several blank discs don’t work, I’m screwed.

I’m retired on a fixed income and this is my enjoyment.  I don’t record everyday but when I do, they need to record and last.  I can know longer afford to throw money down the toilet.

Any help or guidance is greatly appreciated.

Art Moore
 

having burned many a cd and experienced your similar troubles, what I end up doing is buying a few single disc samples from a mass-market store (ex: Best Buy) and testing them out for most functional.

Verbatim (the blanks that look like LPs) and the Maxwell cd-rs have been reliable, but then again, I don't know your cd copier.

best of luck.

right now I'm on my second spindle of 100 CD-R "music" types by Memorex, and I have had zero problems with them.

I also use the "MAM-A" "archival high quality" music CD-R's, and zero problems with them also.  However, I don't know the brand name, sorry.  Found them on Amazon.