Car audio system not playing CD-Rs

[Acquiesce]

Here's a little note, awhile back I posted a concern I was having with my car audio cd player not being able to read CD-Rs. I looked high and low for answers until I resolved the issue by mistake, I found that the darker the writing side of the CD-R the better audio cd players can read the tracks. Being a DJ, this really helped me out, if you're stuck in the same situation I would recommend either Verbatim or TDK's AUDIO CD-Rs, I had no problems with them because the write surface is really dark.

Hope this helps anyone.

[David P]

Acutally, it did. I'm going to take a big road trip out to CA and I wanted to put together some songs for the car stereo. It would suck to make a bunch of unreadable discs!

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David Peters, CE
Milwaukee School of Engineering
"If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."

[dj-park]

That may have worked. I'm not sure exactly why some CD's work and some don't. Previously, I used Kodak CD's with the gold/green recording layer. They had MAJOR problems in several car CD players.

But, I recently purchased a silver/silver CDR and they have far outperformed the Kodak's with audio. A lighter dye, but still works fine. Maybe somebody can shed some more light on this topic.

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<>< SDG <><

[Acquiesce]

I'm glad I'm not the only one legged man in the *** kicking contest! I agree that it would be nice to have someone share a little knowledge on our problem we've been having. Here's a list of working and non-working CD-R media I have tested so far:

WORKING:
--------
Verbatim
SONY
TDK Audio CD-R* (recommended)
FUJI
Mitsui
Ricoh

NON-WORKING:
------------
Philips
Memorex
Maxell
Imation
Kodak
Quantum

[David P]

I have some Memorex High Capacity CD-R's (Green) and they've worked reasonably well with my 4/4/16 Yamaha 4416s. They've worked at 4x except for when making custom audio CD's (out of .wav's), I had to set the writing down to 2x because of hisses and pops.

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David Peters, CE
Milwaukee School of Engineering
"If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."

[daveyp]

To get the best compatibility for audio cd's, always burn the cd's using the Disk At Once (DAO) method if your software and burner support it...

[rh71]

Making audio CDs for my car on Imation CD-Rs worked for me... copied from audio CD to HDD back onto Imation CD-R. Also did WAVs to Imation CD-R successfully. I still don't know why a backup of Starcraft doesn't execute after a successful install from it, but that's another topic.

Again, I think the main things to remember when doing these audio CDs is to record only to the FIRST SESSION of the CD... don't close the session if you plan on adding more to it. But you must close the session before being able to play it on regular CD players. And copy it to your HDD first. This stuff may be obvious to most of you, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate.

Also, do any of you guys use Hi-Val? It's a blue/dark-blue dye... I just bought a 50-pack... it would be disturbing to find out they're not good for audio. Who actually manufactures Hi-Val? I read on another post it was Philips.

[This message has been edited by rh71 (edited 06-17-99).]

[Dummy99]

I dont know why but I have never had any problem burning CD, brand name or not brand name cds. Maybe because I use an old 2x recorder.

[Acquiesce]

Let's stick to the topic people, I never said I had a problem with WRITING CD-Rs, my only concern was with my ALPINE car cd player not being able to play CD-Rs. I know that it is not just my CD player, I have also tested the CD-Rs in a Clarion and ended up with the same result. The only solution I found was that the darker the writing surface, the better my ALPINE car cd player will play the CD-Rs.

[David P]

Well, in Real-Life conversations, the topic tends to drift from the original topic. These threads aren't all that different.

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David Peters, CE
Milwaukee School of Engineering
"If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."

[naboo]

Hi!

I have an alpine CDplayer too in my car, CDA-7837 and it plays every cdrs, Maxell, TDK, Kodak, verbatin, philips, mitsui, sony..

i don't know why it doesn't work with yours, alpine makes really good car stereo, they are the most reliable IMO

bye!
Naboo

[Missy]

I did research on this issue for my employer.

The problem is that some older, and a lot of newer CD players have difficulty in reading the dark reflective CDRW disks. CDR disks, with their lighter surface read much easier, as do the factory pressed silver CD's.

The way a CD is burned also has a lot to do with it. The speed used to burn, whether or not the session was closed, and the quality of the media may affect a CD players ability to read the disk.

[Falk75]

I also own a newer model Alpine CD player, and here are my results thus far:

Work:
Kodak
TDK CD-R74 (kinda) Track search takes 2-3 seconds longer sometimes, sometimes not.

Don't work:
Sony CDQ-74CN
Memorex
Imation
Verbatim DataLife Plus
HP CDR
Maxell
(What's Next!?)

[This message has been edited by Falk75 (edited 07-03-99).]

[This message has been edited by Falk75 (edited 07-05-99).]

[de]

I also have an Alpine Cd player in my car, CDA-7840, and I have only used the cheap Memorex CDR's...The ones that come in a spindle...50 CDR's for 50 bucks...They all play fine in mine and my friends Alpine...(I sold him my old one so I could get this one)..But I just bought some Maxell's tonight and will see how they do...

[Acquiesce]

A big thanks to all of you for your input on this subject, I'll keep poking around for answers and when I find them I'll be sure to post them here.