So, matching media and burning speed is critical. Such discs may not give reliable results when burned at low speeds. Most computer media these days is designed for very high-speed burning, usually over 24x. It is generally acknowledged as good practice to burn audio CDs at speeds no higher than 4x, but it is also important that you use good-quality blank media specifically designed for low-speed burning. Depending on how well designed the player is, a jittery output can often throw the rest of the data decoding system into a state of unreliability, leading to a higher error rate and thus a greater number of uncorrected errors. If the bumps have shallow edges rather than nice sharp, crisp edges, the CD player extracts a very jittery signal with ambiguous timing references. But more importantly, the rising and falling edge (the beginning and end) of each bump is also critical, and this is the aspect that is most affected by different combinations of burn speed, disc media and the state of the laser. The spacing between each bump is critical to being able to detect and decode the data signal. The CD burner creates small bumps in the playing surface of the CD-R that the CD player can then detect. Higher burn speeds don't induce more errors in the disc directly, but you have to remember that while the data is digital, the physical process of burning a CD is an analogue one, and that the error protection embedded in audio CDs is much inferior to that of data CDs. Technical Editor Hugh Robjohns replies: Different burn speeds do indeed have a measurable effect on the quality of the signal burned into a CD-R, but it also depends on the quality of the CD burner and the CD-R itself. Surely, since the data is digital, the ones and zeros should be the same whether you burn at 1x, 8x, 24x or whatever else? HHB's CD-Rs provide one example of a range of media designed and tested for audio applications.Ĭan you explain once and for all why the speed at which you burn a CD should make a difference to the quality of the audio on it? I've read that higher burn speeds adversly affect sound quality and that this can be clearly measured, but I don't see why this should be the case.

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