Must have been convenience over quality

[NAD613]

The only reason I can think of as to why I quit recording on cassettes & started using CD-R's was for convenience sake, or what I thought was convenience. That's it. I never had issues regarding the quality of the cassettes I made. My NAD, Teac, & Sony all made good recordings. I think I was caught up in the instant convenience of CD-R's & ripping/burning on my computer.

Looking back now, it was kind of a pain to use CD-R's. As I've mentioned previously, there were some aspects of using CD-R's that really pissed me off & frustrated me so much, I finally threw up my hands & said "That's it! I'm going back to cassettes!" One of the problems was the lack of editing, i.e. once a disc is burned, that's it. Your CD-R falls on the floor & gets a little ding or scratch? Too bad, unplayable!

If I wanted to record from the computer, I had to first rip your music onto my computer, then burn it onto a CD. If I was using my CD recorder, I had to make sure I had the right CD-Rs, "music CD-R" discs, because the kind for the computer don't work in my Pioneer CD recorder. With cassettes, you just pop it in your deck, decide what source you want to record, and you're pretty much ready to go. I had forgotten how simple it was to record onto cassette. I'm glad I'm back!

[Acoustic]

Great thread. When cassettes started getting some HiFi action in the late 1970's my sources were records, FM and R2R. Cassettes were perceived as convenient but percieved as a low(er) quality source. But when I heard a friends... forgot what he had... in the early 1980's I was kind of impressed since the sound was getting better on cassettes. But at the same time CD's were coming out and I was still very heavy into vinyl. With the high cost of a player and discs I just stuck with records. Then I heard a Nakamichi CR-1...WOW! This was 1988....I ran out and got a CR-2 and was very impressed... but then.... rock was changing then big time.. and I got out of music for a while. Now... with the added spark of getting into jazz in the late 1990's... I am back into music (more than ever), great gear (more than ever) and now over 90% of my listening is from the cassette format. I have taped and listened to tape more this year than, perhaps, all those years past together!! I found my medium! Interesting my experience was quality won over cassette at first... but then the quality won me over.... and the added convienence was a great plus! Post your experiences. *reelspin* *reelspin*

[Des-Lab]

CD recording is definitely a love-hate relationship. Now forget "ripping" on the PC for a second. I don't even give that any respect vís-a-vís being "recording". It requires no effort, much of the material is bootleg or counterfeit, and the quality is atrocious because the files are compressed to within an inch of their life.

What I'm referring to is component CD-R recording. Although most of us swear by tape, CD DOES have its place: It can serve as a safe haven for a weak condition tape. They can work great in the car; many of us only have CD players in there. In short, in the proper context, it can be a SUPPLEMENT to tape as opposed to a REPLACEMENT for it.

Now on one hand, you're right. There is little room for error; CD-R's are record once. And if you do an "oops", you can be stuck with it. The ability to edit is, as you noted, next to nonexistent. Unless you are using the dirt cheap bulk CD's (you wouldn't use generic tape in your Nak. So why would you use generic discs in your CD-R?), we can assume that you would give the discs the same tender loving care you would give your tapes. So to be quite frank. If you end up with a damaged and unplayable disc on your hands, it's probably your own fault. I have Maxell CD-R's that I made in 2000 and they still play perfectly.

Now that said, I think that the positives still outweigh the negatives: A component CD-R shares much of the same hands-on interface that a tape deck does: you set the readings, choose your song sequencing by hand, press the "stop", "start", and "rec". You watch your total time, time elapsed, and time remaining. Just like on a tape. The only thing absent is the visual effects of spinning reels either on an R2R or a cassette.

Perhaps the biggest plus is you don't have to be as watchful and cognizant of the times with a disc as you would a tape. On a tape, as you near the end, you have to choose your closing song(s) carefully lest you leave too much tape leftover that creates excesive blank time. Or else not have enough and end up cutting short. On a CD, it doesn't matter. On a 74 minute disc, you can record 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or the full [usable] 71 minutes. It makes no difference. Once you are finished, any leftover is ignored when you set the file allocation tables (i.e. 'finalize') and becomes unplayable time. You only hear what was actually recorded.

As for editing? Well. It is what it is. If you are doing a 'compilation' (where you cherry pick individual songs from a variety of sources) or a straight dub, it should be a straightforward job requiring little effort. Especially if the presumption is there that you have years experience with tape. On the other hand, if you are doing complex segues, overdubs, or mixes, or otherwise need to maintain continuous recording (with manually set track increments), you should probably do a "test" record on a tape first. That way if you DO make a mistake, you CAN edit out or re-record the take. Then, once you have it the way you want, do a dub onto CD. Trying to do a mix AND set manual tracks at the same time almost requires you have three hands.

So in short, it is largely as easy....or difficult...as YOU make it.

I have my CD-R...the Denon DN-C550R and I absolutely LOVE It. It's a dual well unit that I can either do dubs from or else bypass the source player and pull a feed directly off another source. And if I do create an "oops", I can delete the track from the finalizing process. The good is that on playback, it 'skips' that track. The bad is that the 'error' becomes a 'phantom' track that skews your sequencing. For instance, if track 7 is a mistake, and I edit it out on finalizing, on playback it will automatically skip from track 6 to track 8. 7 is a phanton, even though technically, track 8 is #7, #9 is #8, and so on.

I still love it.

[braxus]

CD-R has its place and I too have a home CD-R Audio deck (Sony) of which to make discs. The only problem with copying digitally by either ripping WAVE files on your computer or duping directly from the disc itself- is that with each generation of digital copying you induce more jitter each time. And jitter has been said to kill the quality of digital music. So its the digital version of loss on the music recording. Lets not mention its not a bit for bit copy either since there can be missing bits during transfer, or the disc was recorded too high speed to accurately get all the info down without errors. So CD copying is not perfect either. At least with analog you can hear what goes on the tape during recording.

[NAD613]

I guess my comments were more towards the computer CD-R's. I agree that CD's have a place. Now I only use my Pioneer CD recorder, not my computer, & I record in real time. In that regard, I can use my CD-R deck just like a tape deck. Usually if a friend wants a copy of an album, they probably won't want it on a cassette.

[MacGyver]

CD-R is my chief recording media. i only get the name brands, focusing mostly on TDK, and a little SONY on the side as COSTCO always has a good price on 100-packs of TDK's "DATA" CD-Rs (which play just fine on that criminally "outdated" DENON DCD-1500 of mine) granted, no CD-R can ever match the physical beauty and engineering virtuosity any good name brand audiocassette, but, of course i feel that i can love cassette without having to necessarily hate the CD. both have their uses: cassettes like the MA-XG and many others allow me to enjoy my choice music on my choice decks to their full potential, and CD-Rs do the same for my cherry CDPs. all is well...o-o:-)

[vinyldavid]

I use CDR whenever I make a compilation for someone other than myself. And for just about everything I do that's not for me. I also use it to distro live recordings that I make to the performers and the other engineers. They do have their place, and when done correctly, can give amazing results.

[niklasthedolphin]

I use CD-R
When I have an option to record music borrowed from friends or library, I evaluate the music quality and the technical quality.

I then have this list (in my mind) showing that the better quality of both music and technic the higher it comes on the list:

R2R Lyrec Frida
Cassette TCD 910
HD digital uncompressed encoding 24/96 on stand alone home studio
DAT
CD made from above HD stand alone unit (much better that from PC)
CD made from recording through PC
CD copied 1:1 on PC
MD

A lot of music isn't even considered recorded on MD.

There's Pro's and Con's for each way to do it.
Editing options, convenience and user friendlyness, compatibility etc.

But when it comes to the quality of the sonical result, I think the list tells it all.

"dolph"

[4tified]

Hey, just curious Des-Lab, is your Denon CD recorder able to use standard CD-R's over music CD-R's? It says "Professional" on your deck, and every other professional deck I've seen doesn't care if you're using Music/CD-R's/CD-RW's or standard burnable media.

[iamhifi]

I use my HHB CDR-800 to make recordings for my car, the media is Ultradisc CD-R 24 Karat Gold. I sometimes make the CDs from other CDs, records and tapes. I have no complaints it works fine and the sound is sweet to my ears. At home is CDs, Records, and tapes and soon the Teac 2000 will do some of the work when ready from repairs. You can safe a headache if you pre-record on your cassette deck or reel to reel and then transfer to CDs.
Enjoy!
Angel

[NAD613]

You can safe a headache if you pre-record on your cassette deck or reel to reel and then transfer to CDs.
Enjoy!
Angel

That's what I've been thinking of doing the next time I make a CD.

[Des-Lab]

My Denon will operate with any kind of CD. And should I ever need it, it can read MP3 and WAV files as well.

The prerecording of the tracks is great and something I've done. When doing "mix" recordings, I devote my initial attention on just switching the discs and running the mixer board, all while the Teac reel is just rolling along capturing it all. Then, once it's done, I do a dub onto CD that way setting the tracks at the critical right points holds my full undivided attention. Sure it takes a lot longer but the results are always impessive.

[braxus]

My Denon will operate with any kind of CD. And should I ever need it, it can read MP3 and WAV files as well.

Interesting Matt. I wonder if being a Pro deck has any difference on the disc types. Reason I say that is my understanding was that home CD-R decks were limited specifically with CD-R Audio discs in terms of what discs you used to make a recording on, and data discs don't work on such decks. I know it is that way with my Sony. It had something to do with the copyright issue. Anyway again maybe having a pro deck allowed data discs to be used.

[MacGyver]

me? i record whatever source i wish, (usually videotape, DVD, LD, cassette or LP) to this, which i have on one of the VSX-D1S' VCR loops linked to it via two pair of identical digital coaxial cables serving as high quality standard stereo RCAs:



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/BR-1180CD1.jpg


when finished, i then have it write the material to a CD-RW. then that is taken to the non-internet library/utility computer (directly beside the internet one, but in no way linked to it) to have anything from a simple peak volume level fine tuning to an entire noise filtering and re-eqalization (only on very bad material, i prefer purity. therefore, a peak tuning is all that is usually nessisary) via this program:



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/audio-cleaning-bx-r.jpg


when finished, the results are saved as WAV, and then usually immediately written to (usually TDK) data CD-Rs (always at least two copies; MASTER disc and PLAYBACK disc) at 8x speed. the results? o-o:-) ALWAYS stellar, and fully playable on my 1986 DENON DCD-1500...

[niklasthedolphin]

me? i record whatever source i wish, (usually videotape, DVD, LD, cassette or LP) to this, which i have on one of the VSX-D1S' VCR loops linked to it via two pair of identical digital coaxial cables serving as high quality standard stereo RCAs:



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/BR-1180CD1.jpg


when finished, i then have it write the material to a CD-RW. then that is taken to the non-internet library/utility computer (directly beside the internet one, but in no way linked to it) to have anything from a simple peak volume level fine tuning to an entire noise filtering and re-eqalization (only on very bad material, i prefer purity. therefore, a peak tuning is all that is usually nessisary) via this program:



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/audio-cleaning-bx-r.jpg


when finished, the results are saved as WAV, and then usually immediately written to (usually TDK) data CD-Rs (always at least two copies; MASTER disc and PLAYBACK disc) at 8x speed. the results? o-o:-) ALWAYS stellar, and fully playable on my 1986 DENON DCD-1500...

Hey Lady Ayeka.

These machines work extremely well.

They don't come easy for most people in user interface but They realy serves the purpose and some of them have build in CD writer of better quality (although noisy in action) than almost all PC's build in and external drives.

But If I were you I would stick to editing internal in the machine and bypass everything except the most needed.
Drop the software stuff.
I mean for highest possible quality outcome.

Stay happy

"dolph"

[Mr. Lin]

I agree with the sentiment of NAD's thread, but for me CD-R's were always about convenience - being able to put an album I only have on my computer onto CD so I can listen to it in my car.

These days I'm much more concerned with sound quality, plus I've gone back to (GASP) buying real CDs, and those are what I record from and play in my car.

I've always been curious about what is now a niche in the audio community, so I stuck my head in, followed your lead (meaning you all on tapeheads) and now I'm completely hooked on cassettes. I put in about one to three hours of headphone listening time per night, and now the majority of that is done with cassettes, or preparing a CD to be recorded onto a cassette.

I'm truly enjoying the world of tape, for all its complexities and minor inconveniences, the payoffs in sound quality and the joy of trying all the different tapes out there make it well-worth the effort.

[NAD613]

I agree with the sentiment of NAD's thread, but for me CD-R's were always about convenience - being able to put an album I only have on my computer onto CD so I can listen to it in my car.

These days I'm much more concerned with sound quality, plus I've gone back to (GASP) buying real CDs, and those are what I record from and play in my car.

I've always been curious about what is now a niche in the audio community, so I stuck my head in, followed your lead (meaning you all on tapeheads) and now I'm completely hooked on cassettes. I put in about one to three hours of headphone listening time per night, and now the majority of that is done with cassettes, or preparing a CD to be recorded onto a cassette.

I'm truly enjoying the world of tape, for all its complexities and minor inconveniences, the payoffs in sound quality and the joy of trying all the different tapes out there make it well-worth the effort.

When I started listening to tapes again, I really noticed how thin music sounded on my computer. It got to the point where I've quit listening to my CD's I ripped onto Windows Media & have started putting them on cassette.

[Mr. Lin]

Same here, I'm putting everything on cassette these days. It's not as if I don't have enough of them. I did a test run for recording lps a few nights ago by recording three songs from different records. I'm getting ready to start taping from vinyl to cassette, then it's really going to be on.