Are Audio CD-Rs worth it?

[greeny12m]

i know the manufacturers say iits worth it bcause they want you to pay the extra money. but do they actualy make a noticeable difference to the sound quality?

Some friends and I at school are recording people using the schools studio and putting together a CD which we are planning to sell in aid of the recent asian Tsunami disaster, would it be worth buying special CDs for this? also i have a printer that can print onto CDs. ive been looking for Audio printable CD-rs but there dont seem to be any on the web. Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[vegasgmc]

For the past 6 years Ive been using whatever disks were on sale and never noticed any difference in sound quality.

 

[viccc]

There are a difference: in the sensibility of the recording material. "Data" CD-R's are optimized for fast (16x and up) burning, while "Audio" CD-R's (while similar otherways) are for slow (1-4x) burning (desktop audio CD recorders burn them that slow). (The intensity-range of the laser just can't be that big to compensate that wide range of speeds alone.)

Moreover, computer data is stored in a different format on the disc than audio-data. Audio is stored in a format (CDDA) that has less error-correction capability, and somewhat lesser tolerate the little imperfectnesses of a fast burning. Because of these, many audio CD-players will only play back CD's with less problems (clicks, jumps) that are burned more slow.

I have numerous "data" CD-R's used for audio (I also use these usually, also for audio - for less important materials), burned slow, that went wrong [clicking, etc.] after a year or two. (Because these are not for slow burning.) There are several brands along them. While all of my "audio" CD-R's are still perfect.

A good compromise for you is perhaps to use the usual ("data") CD-R's, and burn audio at medium (8-16x) speeds on them.