I can't remember the exact numbers, but I took a CD transport that was audiophile grade (based on the Philips CDM12.2) but intentionally four generations old — because it wouldn't do much to eliminate disc-borne jitter yet would introduce little of its own. I fed it through a good-quality DAC (with twin-PLL clock recovery) into a Paul Miller jitter measurement card. This showed about 2-3ns jitter from a real CD, and a few tenths of a nanosecond lower a Plextor/TDK CD-R recorded at four times speed. More importantly, the jitter spectrum was whiter from the CD-R.
I verified the result using Audio Precision and Neutrik test instruments in the S/P-DIF domain, then listened (no, not double-blind, but I think I was neutral) on the best passive analogue system I could easily set up. The difference was definitely in the CD-R's favour, but quite slight, comparable to the differences in the Pink Floyd/EMI mastering jitter tests of the mid nineties. I think this means the very best CD pressings will beat CD-R, but the average doesn't.
A Verbatim disc was just as good in the Plextor drive, and I suspect most "name" brands would be, too. An unbranded cheapy CD-R wasn't even error-free (the TDK and Verbatim burns, however, all compared bit-for-bit identical when ripped using an old Samsung read-only drive), and jitter was very bad.
HP drives made copies just a little inferior to the original. I can't remember which other drives I tried, but they were all noticeably worse.
Quality deteriorated negligibly as burn speed was increased with the Plextor drive, but very seriously on the HP.
The best CD-RW discs sound inferior to the worst CD-Rs.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-04 11:05 am (UTC)I can't remember the exact numbers, but I took a CD transport that was audiophile grade (based on the Philips CDM12.2) but intentionally four generations old — because it wouldn't do much to eliminate disc-borne jitter yet would introduce little of its own. I fed it through a good-quality DAC (with twin-PLL clock recovery) into a Paul Miller jitter measurement card. This showed about 2-3ns jitter from a real CD, and a few tenths of a nanosecond lower a Plextor/TDK CD-R recorded at four times speed. More importantly, the jitter spectrum was whiter from the CD-R.
I verified the result using Audio Precision and Neutrik test instruments in the S/P-DIF domain, then listened (no, not double-blind, but I think I was neutral) on the best passive analogue system I could easily set up. The difference was definitely in the CD-R's favour, but quite slight, comparable to the differences in the Pink Floyd/EMI mastering jitter tests of the mid nineties. I think this means the very best CD pressings will beat CD-R, but the average doesn't.
A Verbatim disc was just as good in the Plextor drive, and I suspect most "name" brands would be, too. An unbranded cheapy CD-R wasn't even error-free (the TDK and Verbatim burns, however, all compared bit-for-bit identical when ripped using an old Samsung read-only drive), and jitter was very bad.
HP drives made copies just a little inferior to the original. I can't remember which other drives I tried, but they were all noticeably worse.
Quality deteriorated negligibly as burn speed was increased with the Plextor drive, but very seriously on the HP.
The best CD-RW discs sound inferior to the worst CD-Rs.