What to look for in purchasing CD-R's for recordin

Thank you everyone for the great replies. What if I am simply making copies on my PC? I would only be making a handful of CD's so I don't want to purchase a large number of blank CD's.

What if I am simply making copies on my PC? I would only be making a handful of CD's so I don't want to purchase a large number of blank CD's.

Memorex black CD-Rs in Best Buy will do the job just fine. $20 for 50-disc spindle. You can use them for data as well and they sound very good.

Thanks Audphile1. Most likely any recording I would be doing is making copies for people who are not audiophiles or making CD's to use in my Van.

Another question - I notice that CD's state a record speed, such as, "up to 48x". Does this speed have any bearing on quality?

Contrary to popular belief, burning high speed discs at slow speed can cause errors. But, it seldom happens. It is hard to find slow speed discs but HHB has them. I use them with my HHB stand alone because HHB warns against using high speed CDRs in their recorder. I use Taiyo Yuden 48X in all of my computers.

And surprise... Guess who makes HHB CD-R's? Most of them are by Mitsui, a few by Ricoh. Except that they are low-speed discs rather than the usual 52x (which is fine with me, because I can't stand listening to CD-R's burned faster than 2x anyway). I would guess that Mitsui makes Apogee discs too.

The best-sounding discs I've heard (because they produce the least amount of jitter upon playback):

Mitsui/MAM-A
Ricoh (hard to find)
Taiyo Yuden (Maxell PRO and some Fuji are TY if made in Japan)
probably Kodak & Apogee too, but haven't tried them.

As for the person above who uses nothing but TDK - are you aware that TDK no longer makes any of their own discs? They are made by cheaper companies in Taiwan and TDK stamps their name on them. TDK discs are not what they used to be.

There are other factors that improve the sound of CD-R's:

1. Always burn at slow speed (1x-2x) if possible.
2. Use demagnetizer to reduce static charge on the plasic before burning.
3. Clean the disc with isopropyl alcohol or distilled vinegar before burning.
4. If using a computer, get rid of the cheap ribbon cables inside and replace with premium shielded/grounded round cables. The best-sounding ones are IOSS Gladiator RD3XP but I think they are now discontinued. Also use a premium power cord.

And yes, I actually do all of the above to my own discs. I use an old 4x burner to burn at 2x, since I don't think there's any newer burners that burn slower than 4x.