So what's a good cd burner to get ... ??

I have a cheapo cd/dvd burner in my computer. I've read that a better quality burner would give me less errors on my cd's..so what's a good one to get for making important backups ??

The one I have now seems to work fine for listening and general burning, but are there bunches of errors being printed that I'm not aware of ??

Plextor used to be the manufactuter of choice but I don't know whether they actually make their own drives now or rebadge others. Otherwise most seem to be much of a muchness and around similarly priced. Samsung, Sony Optiarc, LG, Liteon and HP appear to be the most common. Having tried several different ones in different systems they all generally produce similar results though in terms of build quality Sony are better than Samsung. I have had several Samsungs develop tray position sensor switch problems.

Plextor used to be the manufactuter of choice but I don't know whether they actually make their own drives now or rebadge others.

At one stage they were rebadging TEAC drives - and it's TEACs that are used in most standard BLER test systems. What they are doing these days, I don't know either.

Just stick to names you know - I bought one for a few pounds equivalent, and have no problems whatsoever. If your burner is working, keep using it, these "errors you aren't aware of" weren't a problem before you read about them were they? So forget them until you notice an actual problem!

If your burner is working, keep using it, these "errors you aren't aware of" weren't a problem before you read about them were they? So forget them until you notice an actual problem!

That's generally a bit too late if you are sending off CDs to make glass masters from...

these "errors you aren't aware of" weren't a problem before you read about them were they?

They were for me. I had an old Plextor burner which produced discs of marginal quality as it got older. I didn't know about it until a CD broker rejected one of my masters after testing it on his Clover tester. Fortunately Plextor brought out the Premium drive around that time and I could then easily see how bad this burner was.

James.

these "errors you aren't aware of" weren't a problem before you read about them were they?

They were for me. I had an old Plextor burner which produced discs of marginal quality as it got older. I didn't know about it until a CD broker rejected one of my masters after testing it on his Clover tester. Fortunately Plextor brought out the Premium drive around that time and I could then easily see how bad this burner was.

James.

My point was, if he isn't aware of any problems, then maybe there aren't any!

[Every CD ever produced (no exceptions) has errors!]

My point was, if he isn't aware of any problems, then maybe there aren't any!

So exactly where is this utopia where CDs have no errors, then? Every CD ever produced (no exceptions) has errors! The real question is - at what point do the errors become unacceptable? And the answer to that is that if you are preparing Glass Master CDs, or even CDs for playing in players with limited correction, possibly sooner than you might realise. What it seems to come down to is that if you can't determine where all your CDs are going to be played, then the only thing you can do is to make sure that you use the best blanks you can get, determine the optimum speed for writing them, and that you've got the best CD writer that you can lay your hands on, and replace it frequently....!!

At least with the decent Plextor drives you get a utility which gives you a pretty reasonable idea of how well you are doing, and although it's not a definitive BLER test, for most things it's good enough.

I think the newer Plextor drives are indeed rebadged - but from memory I think they're Pioneers. They no longer have the ability to proper low-level error checks.

As for no-error discs, the closest I've ever seen to this is from Taiyo Yuden Weathershield discs - when I last tested a batch of these they were significantly better than even TY's regular discs, which themselves were quite a lot better than those from other manufacturers. We now use them all the time - probably got through about 5000 last year with no complaints.

[Every CD ever produced (no exceptions) has errors!]

My point was, if he isn't aware of any problems, then maybe there aren't any!

So exactly where is this utopia where CDs have no errors, then? Every CD ever produced (no exceptions) has errors! The real question is - at what point do the errors become unacceptable? And the answer to that is that if you are preparing Glass Master CDs, or even CDs for playing in players with limited correction, possibly sooner than you might realise. What it seems to come down to is that if you can't determine where all your CDs are going to be played, then the only thing you can do is to make sure that you use the best blanks you can get, determine the optimum speed for writing them, and that you've got the best CD writer that you can lay your hands on, and replace it frequently....!!

At least with the decent Plextor drives you get a utility which gives you a pretty reasonable idea of how well you are doing, and although it's not a definitive BLER test, for most things it's good enough.

No doubt you are right, but the guy is talking about backups - he has read that there may be error - he hasn't experienced problems. I think the answer is to consider an external Hard drive for backups and not CDs at all.

Well I haven't experienced any errors and would not even know about them save for Steve, but I'd hate to be making inferior back up cd's if there's something I can do to improve the quality.....so is a better quality cd player a thing to have ?? I have an old Tascam CD-RW 5000 that I bought for around $900 years ago and that thing is a dog. Many cd's won't even work in it. Tascam admits there's a problem and will sell you a new one for $350 and your old unit, from what I've read on the internet. I'm not giving Tascam any more money period.

So as it looks now, I'm gonna be making cd's with my cheapo Samsung that I got for $25. The cd's sound good enough for my use, and good enough for backups. I'm not gonna give the BLER  situation any more thought.

Thanks for all the responses.

If you just want to make backups, then almost certainly the best bet is to use RW discs, either DVD or CD. It's not a dye technology, so sunlight doesn't bleach them. They use quite a complex multilayer technology, but as a consequence they appear to be rather more stable in the long term.

Thanks for that information. I usually back up important things to cd's and my Windows Skydrive which is a 25 gig internet hard drive supplied by Microsoft for free. I like having a secondary location back-up, that I could retrive stuff from in an emergency. The Sky Drive is accessable anywhere.

Plextor drive, Taiyo Yuden CDs or DVDs stored in a cool dark place.  That's the most reliable combo I know of at this time.

No argument that TY discs are among, if not the best available.  You may not be aware that with the recent purchase of the JVC media division, TY is now marketing their discs under the JVC brand.  No change other than the name.  While TY branded discs will probably be available for a while, don't be surprised if at some point you no longer see them, or receive JVC media instead.

Here's a link to some info from one of my favored (US-based) vendors:  http://www.tapeonline.com/info/taiyo-yuden-name-change-to-jvc

Don't know for certain, but I would presume that this change will be effective world-wide.