Do CD-R's sound the same as originals

I'm not sure anyone else feels like any fuss is being made - this seems to be a conversation amongst several people interested in understanding what the results and effects of CD copying are and, more importantly, what the critical aspects of the process are for getting "acceptable" performance. I don't think anyone has tried to convince anyone else of what they're hearing for quite a while in this thread. I'm certainly not trying to convince anyone here that they're not hearing what they claim. In fact, I absolutely believe everyone who says they hear degradation. I'm interested in hearing about the types of degradation they're hearing so I can go back and listen more specifically for myself. What I'm really interested in is in trying to understand why they're hearing degradation. It's possible that it's fixable immediately, and it's also possible that, while it may not be immediately fixable, we'll collectively understand what it is we're waiting for that will fix the problem. In the meantime, it seems that one thing that is indisputable is that it is possible to make bit-perfect copies of CDs to CDRs, and yet you keep saying they're not. I'm having trouble understanding what you're basing that on - If I can read and write 650MBytes of data and calculate a checksum across them all and do this over and over and over and repeatedly get the same checksum which has, literally, one in many billions of a chance of matching without the data being exactly the same, and since I do it over and over and over and get the same answer, and the odds of that are therefore billions to the N power - at what point does it become illogical to argue that they're not "truly perfect"? They're not truly perfect from CD to CDR because the way the bits are physically stored is different, but from an information standpoint they're identical. To state that there are no "perfect" copies in the face of these odds doesn't seem to do anything but attempt to cloud the discussion indefinitely, and it would be much more interesting to discuss what is making the CDR copies sound different to those who are experiencing the degraded sound. -Kirk

Kthomas: YES you are sure any fuss is being made, or you wouldn't be disputing one point of view over another. Look, you are being closed minded, to my point of view, and my experience. Read above what my experience was. I don't care if you claim you can make a "perfect copy" 100 vigintillion times over (and you can look that number up), I still had trouble just getting ONE image file without a glitch, from a Mobile Fidelity Gold CD. The glitch showed up in the same place in the same track "time after time after time", as I read the CD over and over, and made image files that were "bit perfect". It then proceeded to write this glitch onto two separate CD-R's, from two separate image files. My gripe? My highend CD player played the original CD many times over, WITH NO GLITCH WHATSOEVER. It WAS a read error, and it made the CD-R copy NOT indentical to the original....besides the fact that the rest of the CD-R was more dynamically compressed, more distorted, and had much less air in the top octave...than the original. THOSE LATTER ASPECTS HAVE OCCURRED EVERY TIME I'VE MADE A CD-R (and also thusfar in my comparison with Ejlif's CD-R, copied on a Meridian/Tascam setup), even when the "data" DOES get "copied perfectly". ALL I'VE DONE IS DEFEND MY POSITION IN ANSWER TO THE ORIGINAL QUESTION AT THE TOP OF THE THREAD. And that is what I consider to be FACT: that a CD-R does NOT sound exactly like the original, and DOES INDEED seem to lose data in the process of creating one, in some fashion. IF YOU'RE SO INTERESTED IN WHAT WE FEEL THE SONIC DIFFERENCES ARE (between original and CD-R copy), WHY AREN'T YOU RETAINING THIS INFORMATION AS YOU READ IT? I've stated it over and over again, I don't know how many times. Just read what I say above. Others are even in agreement with me. I'm not saying that there aren't other factors at play with CD-R's, but please don't tell me this debate is about "data", because it's only "data" BEFORE it gets READ the first time. After that, it's a PROCESS called digital audio...To argue any other view than that is utter foolishness. AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THE SONY-PHILLIPS CONGLOMERATE EVEN WANTS PROS IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY TO MAKE "ABSOLUTELY PERFECT COPIES", USING THE CD-R PROCESS...much less CONSUMERS?? Can you be that naive, to think that "there ought to be a simple/easy way to make unquestionably perfect copies of CD's"? GET REAL!

The thread question is inherently subjective, so everyone's opinion is valid for them. Personally, I've participated on a number of threads with Ramstl, regarding making recommendations on CD-Recorders, and considering his experience (2000 hrs. of tape is a LOT-- c'mon people), he is the "expert" on this thread. And by now I've come to recognize and respect his experience and judgement on this subject. Even if we had a "digital expert", post on this thread his opinion as to differences in sound quality of CDs vs CD-Rs would just that-- opinions, just like the rest of us. Having said all that I will state again that the CD-Rs (consumer audio CD-Rs) sound excellent to me, and I have no problem mixing them with my originals. Further, in A/B tests I can't reliably tell them apart. No, I can't hear the top octave, but my hearing is excellent in the "presence region". If you people want to go on and on arguing about unprovable minutia count me in-- I'm retired:-). We're audiophiles we live for this kind of gritty obsessiveness. My opinion regarding sound differences between CDs and CD-Rs is as valid as Carl's or Ramstls or any one elses, but if I wanted someone to teach a course in CD to CD-R recording, I'd ask Ramstl.

eber, half of your arguments are flawed and convoluted, and therefore your credibility is near-zero. I have no reason to believe that what you think you hear is accurate or just a figment of your imagination. In my system, which is a very good system, properly recorded CD-Rs are indistiguishable from CDs. If you want to convince other people with your views I strongly suggest you tone done your message, quit "shouting" at people with your large-caps, stop threatening them physically (and minimize the risk of getting bashed) and read you posts before hitting that return key to check the logic before you say foolish things.

Okay, I'll quit saying that I fully believe / agree with everyone stating that they hear differences. I'm also more than happy to grant anyone who has the opinion that CDRs sound worse and that's just a fact of life the right to do so. As any of this pertains to audio, I'm just an enthusiast and like to discuss the various topics. In my professional life, I run a software development department responsible for the collection, processing and delivery of financial information from and to around the globe. Centrally, we handle transaction rates into the tens of thousands per second, and experience data rates in the tens of megabits per second of data. If we miss a single trade on Intel, we hear about it from the clients. If we were to screw up a price and deliver it to clients, we're in deep doo doo. All of this done in an environment that is loaded with every acronym audiophiles have come to fear. What's more, when something does go wrong, we can find exactly where and what went wrong and preclude it from happening again. The same concepts apply to getting a price from the East Timor silk futures market and delivering it Scandanavia as do to reading a CD or CDR and delivering it to a DAC even though the engineered solution is different. For anyone who's curious about the handling of digital music and is wondering how best to spend their money over the next few years, these are important concepts to understand. I'm totally convinced that in some short number of years, the notion of current transport technology will be obsolete, replaced and bettered by something costing a small fraction of a current high-end transport. In the meantime, that solution doesn't exist today, and being an audio enthusiast I want the best I can have today while understanding that money spent today is money that I could spend tomorrow.