black cd-r, multi purpose solution?

[jtan]

is black cd-r the best thing out there? i'm thinking of using them for data storage too, not just audio, but also vcds.

[Telstar]

As far as I know, there is no correlation between the quality of the discs and the color of the dye, although different dye (azo, cyanine, and phthalocyanine) may work differently on different burners.

If you are looking for high quality CD-Rs, what matters is the manufacturer, not the color of the dye.

Taiyo Yuden made discs seem to work well on most burners, and you can find them as Fujufilm CD-Rs in the US. There was a thread discussing highest quality CD-Rs earlier, you should find it by doing a search.

[Pio2001]

I tried HiSpace Carbon CD (24x) (made by MPO), very good, and Memorex Black CDR 16x (Unknown code), bad (c2 errors here and there on freshly burned audio CDs).

[Virtua Trancer]

i've heard supposed *audiophiles* say that the black cdr's give a warmer sound to audio cd's however i never heard the difference so i think thats just a bunch of BS.

[duffy]

I think, that black CD-Rs just look cool and nothing else... I have a few of them (Samsung - manifactured by Prodisc Technologies), and they are not that good. If you quality look for quality manifacturer like Tayo Yuden...

[EatMoreChicken]

Don't ppl use black disc for PS2 back-ups? Something about the black making it easier for the laser to read, b/c the laser on the PS2 isn't very good. Don't quote me on this, but I remember reading something to that extent.

[Seagoat]

Yes, a test of six 48X Memorex Black CDR discs using the Alesis Masterlink copying three different master CDs (Type 1 Taiyo Yuden and Type 5 Mitsui) to Alesis at 16/44 resulted in the warmest, most natural and most similar non-fatiguing copies ever. I have been using Mitsui Gold for 6 years with superior consistent results to other Cyanine type CDs (usually cheaper ones). However, the Mitsui were only occasionally spot on natural sounding copies from the Alesis. The Memorex is a Type 9 ProDisc CDR. It is wonderful sounding and most similar to the original CDR. This is on very high end audio gear, also used by Steve Hoffman, Grover Huffman, etc. and similar in results achieved by Robert Pincus of Cisco Music and Kevin Gray of Cohearent Audio/RTI/Acoustech. What an ear opener (plus much much cheaper).

[Centrilium]

I've bad experienced with Prodisc cdrs though.They just wouldnt play in my regular cd player after burning them even at 4X(dunno about high end audio gear).But the other cyanine type cdrs like the TYs and MCMedia Sonic Azo runned flawlessly.Even CMCs which had (A+) rating did work on my cd player.The other cdrs which didn't work were the Maxell XL-S 48X.

[Halc]

I have tried the black layered (don't think it's the dye color!) Hi-Space Carbon as well.

On three recorders (LG, LiteOn and Plextor).

On all of them, the results were far from "best of breed" (I.e. TY/MCC/Ricoh).

However, some magazines in Germany have claimed superior UV resistance for these discs. This remains to be proven IMHO, but sounds very plausible.

However, on a general note about longevity/storage, I'd look at the following issues:

- stability of the dye (one usually only has mfg propaganda on this, but it's better than nothing)

- manufacturing process quality (does manufacturer have "bad batches" every now and then? Do they have a long history of spotty quality? Or are they mostly known for superior quality like TY is?)

- label layer protection (esp. if you handle the discs a lot and not just store them). Additional scratch protection or lamination on the label layer can improve protection of the data, without severely affecting the initial burn quality

- media stress and/or longevity tests done by trusted 3rd parties (don't trust manufacturer "longevity equations", just the dye stability analysis as a rough indicator)

- reflective layer materials (this can be really tricky, because not only the materials, but the bonding affect corrosion and some manufacturers claim to be using "gold" when in fact they are using a mixture of something that can in practise be worse than aluminium)

- price of the discs (high price doesn't always equate better quality, but among the bests discs it may have some value)

- higher grade usage (i.e. medical grade discs for storage, etc)

Based on these factors I wouldn't be so interested in any "black discs", just because they are black.

However, if they were TY made blacks with good label side lamination, I had tested/burned a few batches and seen low level measurements from them, then why not? One issue to consider is that the black ones do have lower levels of reflectivity.

If you want most reliable optical cd/dvd storage money can buy you, then buy the medical grade discs (e.g. TDK).

Even if they fail, at least you can sue the hell out of TDK, because they charged you an arm and a leg for the discs and promised they would last 100 years :)

regards,
halcyon