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Burning a Music CD
#27071 10/15/13 04:01 PM
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deniro Offline OP
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I'd like to burn a music CD. For some reason, I've never done it before.

I use iTunes 7.6.2 and all my music has been ripped from CDs at AAC 128. I have Burn, but I've never used it.

1) What kind of CD should I use? CD-R or CD-W? Any particular brand?

2) Can I burn AAC files to a blank CD or do I need to convert them to mp3? Is there a loss in sound quality in converting and then burning?

3) I have Burn. Is that adequate for my needs?

4) Are there any web sites you like that talk about these matters in depth?

5) How many songs can I fit on a blank CD? Will Burn tell me this?





Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27072 10/15/13 06:42 PM
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1. I use CD-R discs. The difference between CD-R and CD-RW is that you can erase a CD-RW and start over.

2. A music CD does not contain "files" at all. It is actually just a straight stream of 16-bit, 44kHz sound samples with a primitive index that says where each song starts. You do not need to convert AAC to MP3; in fact, if you do, you will degrade the quality of the audio CD. When you burn an audi CD, whatever kind of file you're recording is uncompressed and written out as a simple stream of bytes.

3. Burn will do it. So will iTunes; there's no reason to go outside of iTunes.

4. I don't use any Web sites, but burning a music CD is pretty simple.

5. You can burn as many songs as you like. With a standard audio CD, the limitation is in total length of the music, not in number of songs; a CD is limited to about 70 minutes (total, including gaps between songs).


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Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27077 10/16/13 01:50 AM
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There are (at least) two ways of making music CDs. One is the kind you can buy in music stores, and is called 'Audio CD'. The store-bought variety tends to be stamped, but is otherwise identical to an Audio disc you burn yourself. Audio CDs contain uncompressed audio data at a certain sampling rate formatted as .AIFF (called .WAV under Windows). This is the kind of disc tacit is talking about.
If you want to burn them yourself, you either need the data in AIFF/WAV format, or your burning program has to (be able to) convert from whatever format you have (AAC, MP3 etc.) to AIFF/WAV. If it has to do that conversion 'on the fly' (while you're burning), your Mac may have problems with it. If so, it may advisable to convert first, then burn. Note that when you start with lesser quality audio files, your Audio CD will reflect that, and not necessarily be of the quality it is capable of.

The other kind of disc is essentially a data CD containing audio files, usually formatted as MP3 or AAC. This makes practical sense, since many current disc players can handle these audio files in addition to the standard AIFF/WAV variety. You burn MP3 and AAC files to CD or DVD as Data; utilities like Toast and iTunes have settings tailored to this. Because the file types involved are compressed (lossy), you can put a lot more music on such discs than on standard Audio CDs, and even more so if you can use DVDs in your player. Alternatively, you could burn music files recorded at a very high sampling rate and 'beat' Audio CD quality.

As to which brand to use, my personal preference is Verbatim, although some claim it now makes a difference where they are manufactured. I have Verbatim CDs that are 15-20 years old and still readable, while some other brands (notably Memorex and Maxell) have long since bitten the dust in that respect.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
alternaut #27082 10/16/13 04:18 PM
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What do you think of the other formats and bit rates? Higher Mp3 rates, higher AAC rates, FLAC and so on. Ever listen to these different rates? A friend of mine swears there is no audible difference between CD and MP3 quality.

Can you tell me a little more about getting "better than CD quality"? Can my Mac handle higher rate/better audio than my stereo CD player?

A long time ago I was tempted to get a rare DVD-A album, but I wasn't sure the difference would be audible on either my mac or my Marantz cd player. Same goes for recent SACD/Hybrid releases which supposedly contain higher fidelity even on the CD layer (I don't have a SACD player).


Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27085 10/16/13 08:39 PM
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Let me start by saying that your age matters a great deal with appreciating audio. With increasing age your audio-response graph gets shorter and flatter. If you've suffered hearing damage because of exposure to loud noises, that adds to the age-related losses. That's not to say you won't be able to hear and appreciate higher quality audio, but it won't be the same as it would have been in your teens, and you may decide it's not worth it in your case. Also note that any loss may be subjectively less with familiar vs. unfamiliar tracks, as your memory may fill in the gaps.

Once you get interested in higher quality audio, you may prefer to ditch the 'lossy' compressed audio formats like MP3 and AAC for lossless varieties like Apple Lossless or FLAC etc., at least for your main audio 'venue'. But since these lossless files are larger, you may not want to deal with them when storage space is at a premium, as may be the case with iDevices etc. If so, then that's where the MP3 or AAC return in the picture, albeit perhaps at higher bit rates.

To assess whether higher sampling rates or higher bit rates work for you, I'd recommend testing this with one or a few tracks you're very familiar with. Only you can do that, and my or anyone else's opinion is just that: an opinion, and one from people with different ears and different brains to boot. Ideally you'd do your testing with decent quality in-earcanal headphones or with a good set of stereo speakers in an audio-balanced room. If you don't normally use any of these, you may find you don't want to bother with those higher rates after all. If you do, purchase your test track(s) in higher quality, and find out what that does for you, compared to the lower quality. Then base your decision on that experience. I have to add here that different kinds of music gain differentially from higher sampling and bit rates, so pick your test track(s) carefully.

I put the word 'beat' with CD quality in quotes, because you may not notice the difference. And if you do, you're a lucky person!


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Re: Burning a Music CD
alternaut #27090 10/17/13 08:45 PM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
There are (at least) two ways of making music CDs. One is the kind you can buy in music stores, and is called 'Audio CD'. The store-bought variety tends to be stamped, but is otherwise identical to an Audio disc you burn yourself. Audio CDs contain uncompressed audio data at a certain sampling rate formatted as .AIFF (called .WAV under Windows).


That's a common misperception, but it's not true. The information on an audio CD isn't formatted AIFF (the Red Book standard for audio CDs was invented in 1980; the AIFF file format was invented in 1988, and the .WAV format was developed in 1991.

The music on an audio CD has no files. It's just a stream of bytes, with each pair of bytes representing the volume of the sound at that instant in time. Early audio CD burning software could only handle WAV or AIFF sound files, and these sound files had the headers stripped out, all the metadata removed, and were written to the disc as a bytestream containing only sound information and no other information.

Originally Posted By: deniro
What do you think of the other formats and bit rates? Higher Mp3 rates, higher AAC rates, FLAC and so on. Ever listen to these different rates? A friend of mine swears there is no audible difference between CD and MP3 quality.


There are people who say there's no difference between a TIFF and a JPEG too. Those folks might not NOTICE the difference, but it's there.

MP3 files, like JPEGs, use "lossy" compression--the quality of the sound is deliberately degraded in order to make the file smaller on disk. Some people can't hear the degradation until it starts to get pretty bad; some people can. The quality of your amplifier and speakers will also make a difference.

Originally Posted By: deniro
Can you tell me a little more about getting "better than CD quality"? Can my Mac handle higher rate/better audio than my stereo CD player?


CDs store music as a stream of 16-bit, 44.1kHz samples. That means one second of sound is divided into 44,100 slices. The volume of each slice is measured on a scale from 0 to 65535, where 0 means "silent" and 65535 means "maximum volume."

In 1980, when the CD standard was released, that was about all the electronics of the time could cope with.

There are many modern audio standards that are higher resolution. DVD audio, for example, can sample at 44.1KHz all the way up to 192KHz, and can store each sample as a 24-bit number rather than a 16-bit number.

So where CDs divide a second of sound into 44,100 slices, and each slice is stored as a number ranging from 0 to 65,535, DVD-audio can divide a second of sound into as many as 192,000 slices, and each slice can range from 0 to 16,777,215. DVD Audio therefore captures the sound with much higher fidelity.

On Mac OS X, the computer's operating system can handle audio at 32 bits and almost any sample rate up to 192kHz. Whether or not it will PLAY at that resolution depends on the audio hardware in your Mac. By default, sounds will be played at CD quality through your Mac's sound hardware--44.1kHz, 16-bit. Your Mac's hardware is capable of 48kHz, 24-bit output, if you use the optical audio connector on your Mac--better than CD quality, yes, but you won't likely hear the difference unless you're using some really high quality, top-end speakers. There is audio gear you can attach to your Mac that is capable of even better quality (which is part of the reason the operating system supports such high quality sound).


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Re: Burning a Music CD
tacit #27108 10/20/13 04:48 AM
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afaik, FLAC is the generally recognized standard for lossless recording of a CD. Free Lossless Audio Codec.

Though when I pop in a CD, finder shows me some tracks, and I can drag and drop the to my computer. I assume that's a direct file copy, not a transcode taking place?


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Re: Burning a Music CD
Virtual1 #27112 10/20/13 08:59 PM
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When you drag and drop from a CD in the Finder, you're taking the pure bytestream from the CD and producing AIFF files from it. At least by default; I seem to recall that there is (was?) a way to copy off the CD in MP3 via some preference somewhere. I could be wrong, as I don't normally do this.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
Virtual1 #27118 10/21/13 01:28 AM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
I assume that's a direct file copy, not a transcode taking place?

Originally Posted By: tacit
At least by default; I seem to recall that there is (was?) a way to copy off the CD in MP3 via some preference somewhere.

AFAIK, there's neither 'file' copying (in the literal sense) nor transcoding involved in capturing raw PCM audio data on an Audio CD to an AIFF file. According to Apple, the audio data in a standard AIFF file is uncompressed pulse-code modulation (PCM). (More specifically, the AIFF format used in Mac OS X is AIFF-C/sowt, which only differs from the original AIFF in byte-order, but is not compressed as the C- suffix might suggest. The name refers to the (compressed) AIFF-C format from which the AIFF-C/sowt format was derived.) As Wikipedia states: 'When audio from an audio CD is imported into iTunes or by dragging to the Mac OS X Desktop*, the resulting file is [also] an AIFF-C/sowt.'

*) In both cases the CD 'Import Settings' are determined by iTunes, and default to AIFF (Prefs, General tab). However, you can change them to AAC, Apple Lossless, MP3 or WAV. All these options, including AIFF, have 'Encoder' in their name, but in the case of AIFF and WAV this doesn't actually involve transcoding the PCM data, but (re)packaging it from the PCM stream into PCM data chunks.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
alternaut #27131 10/21/13 07:27 PM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
According to Apple, the audio data in a standard AIFF file is uncompressed pulse-code modulation (PCM). (More specifically, the AIFF format used in Mac OS X is AIFF-C/sowt, which only differs from the original AIFF in byte-order, but is not compressed as the C- suffix might suggest. The name refers to the (compressed) AIFF-C format from which the AIFF-C/sowt format was derived.)


Yep.

The information on a CD is a plain byte stream, recorded as 16-bit unsigned integers in pulse code modulation. An AIFF can also contain the same kind of data (a raw 16-bit PCM bytestream); the difference is that an AIFF file wraps the stream of data up in a package that contains things like a header (which describes how the data are stored, what the byte order is, what the sample rate is, whether or not there's compression, and so on), and breaks the stream up into chunks, where each chunk contains information about how large the chunk is, what kind of chunk it is, and so on.

The music on the CD has no header information, no information about the kind of compression (because there is none) or the kind of sampling (because music CDs are always 44.1kHz 16-bit), and it's just a raw stream of sound bytes with no ordering or chunking.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
tacit #27182 10/25/13 01:46 PM
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So it's being repackaged, but not transcoded?


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Re: Burning a Music CD
Virtual1 #27184 10/25/13 07:53 PM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
So it's being repackaged, but not transcoded?


Exactly. If you're importing it as an uncompressed AIFF, it's being wrapped up in an AIFF wrapper, but no transcoding is taking place.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
tacit #27221 10/30/13 07:51 PM
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FWIW: Some playback machines will not accept AIFF recordings.

Example: I have an AIFF disc which will play on my home CD clock/radio, but it will not play in the car stereo system. However, any discs I burned in MP3 play on both machines.

Note: Perhaps this is not an issue on equipment which is less than 5 years old. smirk

Re: Burning a Music CD
MG2009 #27222 10/30/13 08:23 PM
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Is this a "burned" disc or a commercial "stamped" disc? If it is a burned disc it is not unusual that it will play on one device, but not another due to variations in the strength and frequency of the write laser it was created with and the read lasers in the different device not to mention the specific dies used in the CD-R/CD+R/CD-RW/CD+RW. The commercial "stamped discs on the other hand are far more universally acceptable.

I have have half a dozen CD players around the house and in various vehicles and only three of them are MP3 or MP4 capable but all are AIFF capable.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
joemikeb #27224 10/31/13 07:33 PM
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This is unrelated but…

I have a CD that I bought during the past year as soon as it was released, Sunken Condos by Donald Fagen, that will not play on my Marantz CD player/burner in my home audio system. Won't play, won't read, just spins. The player is at least 10 years old. But the Fagen CD does play on my Mac. It is the only CD that will not play on the Marantz.

I had this problem before, many years ago, when my Marantz CD-60 player (a different one) wouldn't play a new, store-bought CD, The Police Live. I replaced the CD a few times from Best Buy, who became increasingly suspicious and irritated with me, but I could never get that CD to work. I eventually bought a new player. Again it was the only CD in my collection that wouldn't work.

I knew a guy who sold stereos who told me it had something to do with how the CD is pressed. Or that there were different recording standards. I really don't know or remember the terms he used. There was something about the disc recording or manufacturing process that had changed and rendered the new CD incompatible with my old CD player.

Does anyone understand this? I am not going to buy a new CD player this time. But I have always wondered why I had this problem and whether I can expect more new CDs down the road to fail.

If I should post this somewhere else, let me know.


Last edited by deniro; 10/31/13 07:36 PM.
Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27225 10/31/13 07:40 PM
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Have you tried ripping it and then burning it to another disc?


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Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27230 11/01/13 11:17 AM
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Originally Posted By: deniro

I knew a guy who sold stereos who told me it had something to do with how the CD is pressed. Or that there were different recording standards. I really don't know or remember the terms he used. There was something about the disc recording or manufacturing process that had changed and rendered the new CD incompatible with my old CD player.

Does anyone understand this? I am not going to buy a new CD player this time. But I have always wondered why I had this problem and whether I can expect more new CDs down the road to fail.

You are almost on track. Audio discs (notice that is spelled with a C not a K) are read using a laser that either reflects or does not reflect back from the disk to a photocell in the drive. There are two methods for generating the non-reflective areas on the disc. Commercial discs are almost always "stamped" mechanically to form small pits that will not reflect the laser. Home made, "burned", and some low volume commercial discs use a dye in the disc media that when subjected to a higher powered "write" laser will change colors thereby creating reflecting and non-reflecting areas on the discs.

Mechanically stamped discs are pretty straightforward and in general can be read on up 100% of VD/DVD readers.The major factor in their readability is primarily in the reflectivity of the reflective layer of the media.

Burned disc readability is subject to the reflective layer of the media, the specific dyes used on the disk, the strength of specific frequency of the write laser user in the drive that created the disc, the strength and frequency of the read laser, and the cleanliness of the burner. At one point is was estimated that a burned disc would only be readable by only a little over 80% of the readers. In my experience that number is a bit low on todays market.

So the answer to your questions
  • Yes you can expect discs to fail in the future
  • These failures are a function of the blank media used to create the disc, the dies used in the media, the read lasers in the read drive, the write lasers used to burn the disc, the age of the drivel, etc


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Re: Burning a Music CD
joemikeb #27231 11/01/13 01:36 PM
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I'm not sure exactly what you're driving at, as your final comments seem to suggest that Deniro is dealing with a burned disc, while the info he got about two different ways of manufacturing pressed discs suggests he has one of those. confused Fortunately, both types are readily distinguishable, and Deniro can easily put this particular uncertainty to rest by telling us what he's got.

I agree that a burned disc stands a much larger chance of not being read by a particular player, but I have yet to come across an undamaged stamped/pressed one that won't work on a particular player (although I have heard about it). Apart from physical damage and data type, disc readability depends largely on the signal strength 'pulled' from the disc. The signal from stamped discs usually exceeds that from burned discs. Things get even worse for the latter when the player's laser lens is dirty or damaged (scratched), which attenuates any signal and may push that from a burned disc below the drive's sensitivity threshold.

When (the reflective layer of) a stamped disc deteriorates, this tends to be clearly visible, and I'm sure Deniro can comment on the condition of his disc. However, in this case the disc works fine in one drive and not in another, which argues against both deterioration and manufacturing defects. The combination of a dirty drive lens (increasing the player's sensitivity threshold), and/or an uncharacteristically low signal yielded by the problem disc may explain this particular phenomenon, which might be alleviated by the use of a laser lens cleaner disc.

Artie's suggestion to rip the disc and burn another copy might be a solution, assuming burning an audio disc from the rip works OK (I've had quite a few issues with that myself), or Deniro's player can handle MP3s or other non-AIFF files.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
joemikeb #27233 11/01/13 07:36 PM
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P.S. I am referring to my BURNED discs using iTUNES to make these (i.e. AIFF and MP3 formats).

Re: Burning a Music CD
MG2009 #27246 11/02/13 04:31 PM
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Just to be clear, I was referring to discs that I bought from Best Buy, not blanks but sealed, recorded CDs for about $10, the kind no one buys anymore. The store-bought CDs I mentioned, Donald Fagen and The Police, would play on my computer, so I could rip them, but they would not play on my stereo system's Marantz CD player. I would have thought my Marantz would be able to play CDs my Mac can't, but it's actually the other way around. Which leads me to wonder what distinguishes one CD player from another besides feature.

I hope that this—failing, new, store-bought CDs—does not happen more in the future. It certainly is a clever way to get people to buy new CD players. But then, most people don't buy separate CD players like I do because they download their music in the form of mp3s.

The old stereo days are over. I'm old school. I still have my vinyl but my turntable is broken—and I still prefer CDs, unless the CD is a remaster. You've probably read about the loudness wars, or whatever they call it. I find it very depressing. Music is being destroyed and so few people seem to mind.

I was looking for a book to discuss how music is recorded, the history, and so on. I found one by Greg Milner but I haven't bought it yet.

Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27247 11/02/13 04:43 PM
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How old is your Marantz CD player? It may not be able to cope with the encoding on that CD.


Jon

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Re: Burning a Music CD
jchuzi #27248 11/02/13 06:29 PM
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Probably 15 yrs.

Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27253 11/02/13 09:37 PM
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I take it you haven't tried to play burned audio discs* on the Marantz, have you? I'd guess they'd be more likely to cause problems, particularly since I suspect the problem might be a dirty or damaged drive lens, at least in part. The older the drive, the more likely lens issues are, but having them manifest with a stamped disc is still odd. Then again, you may also have an odd disc copy... Anyway, if you've got lens trouble, the only thing you could try is run a lens cleaner disc. That won't fix scratches, but might help with dirt that's not yet burned in.

*) I mean AIFF-file based; if it can handle MP3s you could try that too.


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Re: Burning a Music CD
alternaut #27254 11/02/13 10:00 PM
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I've never burned a disc with my Mac.

Interesting thing is, my Marantz DR700 is a burner. It was the second Marantz player I bought after my CD-60, which is now gone because it was skipping CDs and the guy I gave it to for repair has never returned my calls. He isn't a shyster, I don't think, I've known him for a long time and he's a good guy, but the replacement part just wasn't available. Still, I will not be doing business with him anymore.

I bought the DR700 burner after I had the CD-60 for a while, because it was a good deal and because I thought I would be burning a lot of CDs. Not quite. I did burn some for a while, converting some of Dad's vinyl for example. The DR700 actually seemed to improve upon the source sound being recorded.

You would think that the DR700, as a burner itself, would be able to play all kinds of CDs. I even had some of the DR700-burned disks (onto blank TDKs) go bad after a few years.



Re: Burning a Music CD
deniro #27255 11/02/13 11:38 PM
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Awhile back, I was looking to replace my old JVC CD player and investigated Marantz. I saw a lot of comments about questionable quality control by that company and I ended up buying a NAD, with which I am completely satisfied.

My 2¢.


Jon

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