Re: Writable CDs

Hello,
>What kind of writable CD players do you have? How much did they cost?
>What kind should someone buy if his primary use is to archive music?
>How good are the really cheap ones?

What you need is a CD-R that will write in what's called "Disc-at-once" mode. This is the format that commercial audio CD's use. If it can't do this, but you can write CD-Audio one track at a time, you can still make music CD's. The only problem is that they won't play on older CD players, and you can't get tracks to change without a pause.

I have a fairly cheap one, it's the Sony 926 2x write/6x read, which I got for $399 (external) w/ Toast CD writing software (for Mac). This model doesn't do "Disc-at-once", which I didn't know when I bought it (I got it for mastering my own music to CD, and all of my stuff blends from one song into another). Essentially, I thought CD-Audio was all I needed and that's why I got it. It still works to some extent, but I find it much more useful for archiving computer files because of the 650Meg capacity and cheapness of blanks. (They're about $3 each from the right source). The only drawback is that unlike CD-rewritables, you can't record over anything you've already recorded. However, CD-RW discs are much more expensive than CD-R's, running around $20 each.

Also, I got mine from LaCie, who has absolutely the worst customer service I've ever experienced. When I bought it, I didn't already have a CD-ROM drive, and (imagine this logic) the CD-R driver software comes on a CD-ROM! They refused to E-mail me one, or let me download a driver, and after begging and pleading, they finally agreed to mail it second class to me. In the meantime, I went to Kinko's, rented a computer, copied the software from the CD onto a floppy and got it working. Their floppy finally arrived a week later, and it was the wrong driver!

Well, I hope this helps...
-Ken

From the Office of the Grand-High Muckety-Muck, ASKalice multimedia art exchange network PO Box 246, Yardley, PA 19067-8246 USA

"Working to make this world a more cluttered place" Received on Sun Dec 14 07:43:24 1997