CD Burning: What Route Should I Go?

It's only an opinion, but I am in IT and have been for 8 years, so.......

I feel a computer burner will meet all of your needs. I use a burner in my PC and have done side by side tests with factory created CDs and could not hear a difference. I really can't see logical reasons why a dedicated burner would record the 1s and 0s any differently than a computer's burner. If anything, the media you use should make the biggest difference as you are burning (literally) the media and how the media reacts to that could affect sound, so use good media.

Now, more to my expertise in computers, unless you are looking to upgrade and buy a new computer, simply buy an external burner. I'm not 100% familiar with Macs that are 6 years old, but if possible, buy a USB 2.0 card for your Mac and buy a USB 2.0 compatible External burner and you'll be set. I'd also recommend the name brand Plextor; it’s a solid brand and isn't the most expensive on the shelf.

If you can upgrade your computer, just about anything you buy these days will come with a burner.

Side note; a burner used on your computer also gives you much more functionality than a dedicated CD burner. Money well spent in my opinion.

Good luck.

m-

Durability's an issue, eh? Good luck with that. Most items like CD recorders are built with the cheapest parts and labor available on the planet. Same thing with 99% of all other electronics.

That being said, I think the stand alone CD recorder is the best way to go, sound wise. Most of the time good parts mean better all over performance and a stand alone would have more to it than the burner in your computer. You may want to check out Harman/Kardon or Marantz SE series.

I have burned CDs using a computer burner with my G4 Mac. The burner is an external EZ Quest 48X. This uses the regular CDR media. I also use a HK CDR2 (uses only CDR “music” media) connected through my Enkianthus DAC and being fed by my transport.

I’ve found that duplicating with a computer burner, at high speed, tends to degrade the sound slightly from the original. I have heard extra brightness and lack of bass focus on the duplicated disc in comparison to the original. Even at the lowest speeds the results are similar. The HK transfers (done at 1-to-1 speed) sound much closer to the original. With some CDs there is hardly any difference at all.

I have experimented with various brands of CDR and CDR “music” software and the results are the same as described above.

I hope this is of some assistance to you.

To some extent the answer depends upon exactly what you're going to burn onto the CD-R. If you're going to burn copies of a vinyl collection, then a stand alone recorder is the easiest way to go. For $400-600 at your local music chain (Sam Ash, Guitar Center, etc.) you can get an excellent sounding, simple to use stand alone recorder. The stand alone models will also do a sonically excellent job of copying CDs, but it does have some drawbacks. Making copies using a stand alone player is very time consuming in that it's done in real time.

If you use a computer with a built-in CD-R the process is much, much quicker and affords you several valuable convenience features. If you use Apple's free software, iTunes, you can rip a CD in 5 minutes onto your hard disk. Assuming your computer has an internet connection iTunes will automatically supply the artist name, album title and individual song titles as part of the ripping process. You can then also use iTunes to burn a copy of the just ripped CD. The burn speed is user variable, but I can't honestly say I hear any differences between the burn speeds, hence I use the highest possible and the burn process takes 10 minutes. You can then use a print screen utility to print a list of the songs you just burned and use it as the CD insert.

Another big feature of using a computer is that once you've ripped a number of CDs onto your computer hard drive it's now just a click and drag operation to make compilation CDs. You can make a compilation of your favorite 17th century Ukrainian folk tunes in less than 15 minutes. Making the same compilation using a stand alone recorder would as a minimum take an hour. Don't underestimate iTunes ability to quickly access songs once they've been ripped, it's an enormous convenience feature.

Computer based systems can also record vinyl to digital, and ultimately they can perform a far more thorough and better sounding conversion process than a stand alone recorder, but you would then require an expensive sound card and/or expensive outboard A/D converter plus the appropriate recording software. We're talking in excess of $1,500 plus the cost of a computer. The big advantage of such a system is that it will allow you to digitally process you music. This can result in a substantial reduction in clicks/pops and other vinyl surface noise. Also, a little EQ can do wonders to what are otherwise sonically annoying albums.

My bottom line recommendation - get a new Mac computer. When compared to a stand alone recorder it's quicker to use, is far more flexible and can be further upgraded for increased functionality. A stand alone recorder is your best bet if price is serious factor and your aim is to make casual transfers of vinyl. A basic Mac with a built-in CD-R costs as little as $799 (including monitor). A new G5 with built-in digital optical I/O is priced at $1,799 (plus monitor). Used Macs are readily available on eBay.

If you add an external CD burner to your Mac, I think you'd want one that uses the firewire protocol rather than USB. Firewire is native to Macs.

Also, you should get better results copying the CD to the hard drive rather than duping straight from a CD reader to the CD burner.