Sorry to hear about the "lost" CD-Rs. You did not mention
what type of CD recording device you used to make your
CD-Rs. I own a media duplication company; and we only use
standalone, commercial CD recorders for duplicating audio
media. And we rarely use recording speeds over 4X; though
we have the option to use faster speeds with our equipment.
We have used various types of CD media - including Mitsui
and T.Y. - with pretty decent results. Personally, my favorite CD media for recording audio is the Maxell CD-R
80s, which are optimized for recording music.
I am pretty much convinced from numerous past experiences, that most computer-based CD-R units are low-ball junk. Virtually every time our company gets a CD that
will not play properly on our commercial CD players (we use
Denon and Sony), it was "burned" on a computer or at very
high speed (usually 20X play speed). Not sure if this info
is any help - but do consider that this is what works for a
12+ year old company.