CDRLabs.com

hi,

im new to this forum, and i find it very useful. thanks to everyone for sharing so much useful information.

i live in california, but soon i will be moving to mainland China to, among other things, work as a DJ. i dont spin vinyl records, so i will be bringing a large collection of CDs with me. however, i dont want to risk losing my music collection, so i want to transfer as much as i can to CDR before i leave.

im a bit worried that my CDR collection wont play properly on some of the DJ equipment that i will encounter in china. i wont be living in a big city like beijing or shanghai, so i cannot count on always having access to the newest or best quality gear that is guaranteed to play all CDRs without trouble.

so, my question is this, and i apologize if it is too difficult or strange to answer: is there a particular brand or type of CDR media that is known to be the most reliable for using in older or lower-quality CD audio drives?

ive heard that in general, it is better to use 74 minute CDRs instead of 80minute CDRs, at least for audio (DJ) applications.

can you share any more advice on this topic? which brands would you recommend for my purpose?

ive read numerous archived threads on this subject, but havent heard much talk about CDRs for audio or DJ applications. unfortunately, i dont know at this point which CD burner i will be using to copy my music collection--i havent decided which of my friends to hassle!

thank you very much for your help!

jon

I would recommend buying some Taiyo Yuden CD-R's and burn them to about 74min at as slow a speed as you can stand. Almost nothing can replace a Hard Drive for long term storage though.

You could buy good 74min CD-R's; Maxell and Verbatim make some good ones and Kodak makes excellent CD-R's, although they are rare. Mitsui makes phenomenal CD-R's, they make superb audio CD's. Only problem with Mitsui...they are expensive. And of course, Taiyo Yuden rocks well.

Listen to TheWizard, he knows media.

Thanks for the compliment, Dave.

One other recommendation for 74min media: Samsung. The discs are a bit old, rated at 12X, but they are manufactured by Ritek and are very good quality.