Im not as technically oriented as a good amount of the posters here
I only know what Ive done, and what I can audibly feret out over a fairly lengthy time of ripping and burning comps and dupes.
I have no decent path just yet to compare HD tracks via USB just yet
I will have an outboard dAc soon however with which to compare non CD/CDR music, shortly.
That being said, I've personally found that there are audible differences in copied & burned CDR vs. Store Bought (origrecorded) CDs. Many times the orig, store bought is better
. But not always.
Sometimes the noticeable diffs one expects to hear in a duplicated disc arent there at all. Occasionally, the diffs are so subtle as to passs without detection for a good while
so remote a quirk or slight is the change in the dupe.
Ive found some conditions play a fair enough part in the reproduction of CDRs too, such as ones choice of blanks, ripping speed of the orig disc onto the HD, burning speed, and the burner as well. In fact after adding my PC to an inexpensive PS Audio power filter another level of improvement occurred. Using some isolation devices under the tower helped too. Cooling the CPU also is a real gainer.
BTW Physically heavier orig CDs do better overall during the whole of the process. IMO.
All of these changes played either marginal, or just couldnt help but hear it changes. A nagging notion for me is Ive always used Sony CD rom drives, or DVD rom drives to rip and burn with. One of my PCs has a different type burner and Ive done some comparisons between the performance of both in various fashions, rip with one, burn with the other
same same
different CDRs, etc.
It didnt take much to discern which was the better unit. All else being the same during the process, the Sony DRU 800 won hands down over the Optiarc 3750A DVD burner. The Sony DVD 510A was I believe better still
. But I did that one in finally some time back.
Using the Apple Lossless codec, using error correction, ripping & burning at 4X, and simply sticking to the blanks acceptable to the burner in question have served me very well.
Much of the audible diffs or losses, occur in the lower regions delineation or articulation. When noticeable losses occur it usually is in that area. It does seem to depend upon the bass info being burned. Very busy or synthesized tracks which contain subtle shifts can be blurred now and then during copying.
Trust me here, I cant recall how many times Ive played a disc and wondered when or where I had bought it, only to find out I had made it myself!
Also, dedicating the PC more so to burning, via eliminating background services, processes, and closing out apps normally running in the sys tray helps, as does ensuring the burned tracks are all the same file types. The bit rate of them doesnt seem as important. Chalk that up to the software most likely. Separating drives onto differing IDE channels was a positive move too, but only just.
When I rip or burn, its a dedicated event. Im doing nothing else with the PC.
Making exact copies using NERO has proven repeatedly the best path
either to HD and then CDR, or marginally better, CD to CDR immediately, using two drives at once.
Mixing up varying file types such as mp3, WAVE, etc, during a compilation, does seem to mess up things now and then at the initial opening of the track. When two differing file types follow one another, for example things have a better chance of going south. Ive completely quit doing that sort of arrangement altogether now.
Does Oppo make a CD burner? They should if they dont.
FYI
. Much of these tests are really blind tests
. Though not by choice.
