CD burnt fromiMac not as good as original?

[gregvet]

I had a very interesting demo with the Arcam AVR600 in stereo with PMC DB1i and GB1i speakers yesterday.To say I was impressed (especially for an AV amp) would be an understatement. However, it raised an issue that I was not aware of previously.

I use an iMac, all my music is ripped into apple lossless. I burnt a CD of demo music from my computer, and was merrily listenig away when the guy in the shop stopped the music and said the quality of the music was very poor (he asked how compressed the original files were, and did not beleive me when I said not at all!). So he then went upstairs and came back with the shops own copy of the same track, and the difference on the same system was night and day. Why would this be? Could it be related to the quality of the CD I burnt the music onto? I am just worried now that when streaming music from the computer I will never accheive the quality I heard in the demo room!

Any ideas why else it could be?

 

[chebby]

Compare the quality of the CD you burnt on the Mac with playing back the lossless file from your Mac's HD via your DAC.

If the lossless (streamed) file sounds better than your burnt CD (played on your CD player) then maybe something is going amiss with the CD burning process. (Check your iTunes settings. I don't burn CDs so I cannot advise on these.)

Compare the streamed lossless file via your DAC with the purchased CD played on your CD player also.

Stick with what sounds the best to you.

You did say you only burnt the CD as a one-off demo, so presumably this is not how you are going to regularly listen to your lossless files.

 

[John Duncan]

It's harder to burn a CD than rip one, as the number of coasters I have in my house testify. Use the slowest burn rate you can bear.

This bears no correlation to the quality of streaming music from a Mac......

 

[gregvet]

I dont have a CD player as my music as streamed frmo the computer. I didnt think I needed one!

 

[chebby]

gregvet:I dont have a CD player as my music as streamed frmo the computer. I didnt think I needed one!

OK that's fine. You don't. Most people who have 'switched over' still have one lurking somewhere, which was why I suggested you compare just to re-assure yourself that your lossless files are better than your burnt CD. (Thought you might have one lurking too.)

If it is any reassurance, John has found streamed lossless files superior to his £800 Primare CD player and I have found them superior to the CD player in my Solo-Mini. (Both using iTunes lossless). This is not uncommon. Many people have found the same improvement.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Seems to me the problem lies with the burning software your using, or your burning at too high a rate (Or both)

 

[Mike_Schmidt]

Im going to sneak in on this one, what about mobile sound fidelity gold cd's that are priced higher than actual gold. Do you think they sound any better. I have a couple of there disc's and do think they sound much more natural.

 

[chebby]

Yes Mike. I have the MoFi "Roy Orbison All-Time Greatest Hits" Ultra Gold CD.

I ripped that to iTunes in lossless. Sounds superb. (The transfer from original master tapes is what makes the difference not the colour of the metal layer in the disk.)

 

[Craig M.]

could it have been possible that the shops version was from a different cd, and had maybe been mastered differently? i have 2 best of the doors compilations, one sounds bad, the other great.

 

[Anonymous]

I found this to be the case years ago, even with my old system it was noticeable, the original was always better.

No idea why but hey I don't use CD any more!

 

[The_Lhc]

IDLE SPECULATION ALERT!

CD-Rs and CD-RWs are not written in the same way as original audio CDs are. CD-Rs are burnt, audio CDs are pressed. I *think* that the pits are deeper on a pressed CD than a burnt one, which means the difference between 1s and 0s is much more pronounced. I believe that prbably means that a CD player has to work a lot harder, and do a lot more error correction to read a burned CD than a pressed one.

I don't even think that the material the audio is written to is the same in a CD-R as it is in an audio CD. Remember it wasn't that long ago the most CD players couldn't handle CD-Rs and CD-RWs.