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should i? or can i use the usual speed i do on data cd?

if you use a Yamaha drive or a Plextor drive with special audio burning abilities, then use those. If you have any other type of drive then burn the CD-R at 12x or 16x...unless your drive is too slow for that...

actually, what kind of drive are you using??? and what kind of media? this can make a big difference

Lite-On LTR-48125W
and
Lite-On LTR-52246S
and
Lite-On LTR-48246S
and
Sony DRU-500ax

stick with 12x or 16x for the LiteON drives. And I would suggest NOT using the Sony DVD Writer to burn CD-Rs as it will only be added wear and tear on an expensive device.

Use good media too. Older media will do better on slower speeds then newer media, so if you have old 24x media, it will perform better at 8x then it would at say 32x (probably), but in most cases I'm sure you'll find that 12x or 16x will yield the best results.

There's no particular reason not to burn audio at the same speed as everything else. Your drive(s) have an optimal speed, with any given media, that produces the lowest error rate. So test your media and use that speed. Here, it's 40x for everything on TY media, YMMV. Anybody who tells you they can hear the difference between a disc burned at low speed and one buyned at "optimal" speed is full of beans. Many drives will produce higher error rates below 24x on high speed media, test yours and see.

The one point that needs to be made is how are you burning it: Track at once (TAO) or Disc at once (DAO).

If DAO, you can burn it just like it's a data disc. Just like rdgrimes said.

TAO: I'd slow it down some what. Your drive has to spin up and down for each track, which is added wear & tear on it.

dolphinius_rex wrote:stick with 12x or 16x for the LiteON drives. And I would suggest NOT using the Sony DVD Writer to burn CD-Rs as it will only be added wear and tear on an expensive device.

I'm sorry but that is the biggest pile of shit statement I've ever heard. You think there is some kind of very short, finite limit to DVD burners? No, MTBF is the same as most CDRW drives. Are they just supposed to sit in your computer and look cool? No. You use them to burn and read media.

DVD drives are made to spin up, spin, down, spin round and round... DAO, TAO isn't going to drastically reduce the life expectancy of the drive.

As grimes said, burning @ a slower speed isn't going to make a better burn unless you try to use crap media and burn at faster than its rated speed.