cd recorder vs. computer burner

I've done the comparison burning at 4X vs 24X and on my computer it does make a difference. I think the stand alone burners usually sound better because of their slow burn times which produce fewer errors.

I don't think I've ever heard a CD recorded on a computer, especially one made at a high burn rate, that sounds as faithful to the source as one made at 1X speed on my Tascam CD-RW700. And I've heard a lot of them. 'Course this could all be "audiophile madness." :-)

I have compared CDR's burned on my computer vs. my Pioneer Elite burner, both by my own ears and with blind tests with audiophile friends. The discs burned with the Pioneer definitely sound better. The difference is noticeable, but not dramatic.

My personal experience was that even basic stand-alone CD recorders outperform my crappy computer's sound card. Note that ripped and burned CDs made on my computer are fine, but digitizing analog sources (cassette tapes, for example) resulted in very noisy CDRs. I have been using a "prosumer" Marantz CDR-632 for about three years with pleasing results.

Stand-alone CD recorder is best for a simple one-box solution, with everything already designed to work a certain way (which can be good or bad). Disadvantages are slow burning, and very limited editing capability . . . and usually you have to use special "CD-R music" discs, rather than "CD-R data" discs.

The computer route is far fussier for acheiving high sound quality, as you have to personally take responsibility for finding a good audio interface ("sound card"), setting up the software, making sure the drivers or OS doesn't screw things up, organising and taging the music files in a way that preserves the audio quality and makes them easy to find, using a reliable cd burner drive, etc. A real pain, but if you want to easily edit the contents or quickly burn multiple copies, it's very much worth it.

These days, I use a computer for live recording . . . but sometimes the editing still seems like more of a hassle than in the days when I could simply cut and splice analog tape. But I definately don't miss having to quickly swap reels between pieces, or the cost of the tape itself.