READ THIS IF YOU HAVE AN OLDER CD PLAYER

[soundman10]

If you have older CD player that won't playback your CD disk recorded on Audacity or other software, all you got to do is to get RIGHT DISK. My CD player is 18 years old and was not able to playback my CD disk. I found solution on Internet. There is only one company who make CD disks that can playback on ANY CD player. Go to the http://www.cd-lab.com and get MAM-A CD-R Gold Blank Media ( "Gold Disk"). Order one disk for 2.99 /no S+H/ and test it. It worked for me. Overall, don't spend money for new CD player.

[steve]

$2.99 for one disk ! You've got to be kidding. By the time you've bought 50 disks you could have replaced your old worn out CD player with a pretty decent brand new one.

While it is true that good quality branded CDs will often be more reliable, and it is true that some CD players "prefer" one brand to another, the cost of these CDs is really excessive IMO. Personally I've been using some TDK disks recently - I'm about 3/4 of the way down a pack of 50 with no failures (cost around 15 cents per disk).

I don't expect there will be many claims against the "100 year archival rating" - will anyone still have CD players in 100 years time? How many of us will still be alive? Will the supplier still be in business? For "guaranteed" longevity, multiple copies should be stored at multiple sites and the data should be periodically transfered to new media. No optical media has actually been tested for 100 years. There's a lot of reasons why optical media fail well before the metallic layer has oxidised or the dye has faded (including getting chewed by a pet dog).

[waxcylinder]

Yup I agree Steve. I'm a big fan of TDK - I use their CD-Rs and their DVD-Rs and I get very few coasters/beermats (less than 0.5%). I used to use TDK Super-Avilyn cassette tapes for many years prior to digitizing.

An the original CDs that I bought with mmy first deck in 1984 still play perfectly on all my CD players - so that's over a quarter of a century of use without decay ...

I certainly wouldn't shell out 3 bucks for a blank disk

WC

[steve]

MAM-A CD-R Gold Blank Media are acknowledge as being one of the best quality CD-R media available (and the most expensive). The link that you gave is one of the few places where you can buy a quantity of 1. Prices for these CD-R are typically around $1.50 to $2 (each) for quantities of 100 or more.

These CD-R are produced by Mitsui and are available under a couple of different brand names (Sound Labs Gold) and all of them are very expensive.

Another well know brand of expensive high grade CD-R is Taiyo Yuden. They produce different grades of CD-R and there top grade products are very highly rated, though my own experience of them has been disappointing (high grade media does not necessarily mean it will work well with every CD writer). Their top grade CD-R media are considerably less expensive than the Mitsui.

I'll stick with the TDKs.