SEEKING A QUALITY CDR


I have been downloading music from Music Giants. Com for the last two weeks and all I can say is that the fidelity is better than many of the store bought cd's that I own.
Now that I've purchased the music I would like to make a
CD, but what blank cdr to buy? The Mobile Fidelity Gold disk is $95.00 for 50 cd's. Is there anybody out there that could recommend a blank quality CDR for music?
Thnaks in advance. By the way the quality of the music
from Music Giants amazes me. Give it a try, it is $1.29 per song, but totally destroys, I Tunes, Rhapsody and the
rest. By the way, I'm in New York and they are in Nevada,
my only association is that I am a satisified customer. By the way they have nice people to speak to in customer service. Yes, would you beleieve customer service, most members of Audiogon may remember the term.
kjl
The problem is that many companies outsource their cdrs and sometimes you never know who made them. Therefore, quality can vary even within the same "manufacurer". I've read that memorex has 4 different sources providing their cdrs. You might try a small pack of TDK black cdrs and see how they work for you.
If your attracted to the best quality gold discs, Mitsui CDR are the best I've used, although I admit in my case it's to archive images.

The Dutch government did a test two years ago and published some surprising results. Some silver CDR's developed errors by exposing them to just a few minutes of window light.

The Mitsui had the fewest failures and was the most stable. Second place was a special version from Kodak that was sold to commercial duplication houses.
I have tried the following at various points in time:

HHB Gold and Silver
MSFL Gold
Apogee Gold
Mitsui Gold and Silver
Quantegy Gold
Memorex Black

I can say that Mitsui Gold has been the best of the lot on a consistent basis. There are some HHB recordings that have been very good, but others that sounded better direct from the HD. Quantegy is okay and Apogee was the most disappointing. The Memorex black I have never recorded on, but have some test discs that others made for me that sound pretty good. However, go to this link and perhaps you will find some additional information that is helpful:

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/White%20Paper%20on%20Black%20CDs%20ver%203.1.pdf
HHB Gold & Silver are usually made by Mitsui (sometimes Ricoh)
MFSL Gold are made by Mitsui
Apogee Gold & Silver are probably made by Mitsui
Delkin Gold are probably made by Mitsui

Mitsui today is more known as MAM-A

Another excellent brand is Taiyo Yuden. Some (not all) Fuji & Maxell CD-R are Taiyo Yuden (but only if they say "Made in Japan" on the packaging). Or you can just buy unbranded TY discs thru on-line dealers.

I would mention Ricoh discs as well, but alas you can't find them any more (except for some HHB discs).
A good unit is the Yamaha CRW-F1-UX. Use Mitsui Gold media.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer/modder