External cd burners

[LincolnDuncan]

This is a what to question, not a how to. My lap top doesn't burn cds. I'm looking to just burn music to disc. Quality is obviously the most important consideration but I'm also looking for simplicity.

Any recommendations from the peanut gallery?

 

[DriftWood75]

This is a what to question, not a how to. My lap top doesn't burn cds. I'm looking to just burn music to disc. Quality is obviously the most important consideration but I'm also looking for simplicity.

Any recommendations from the peanut gallery?

If it is quality you are after it will help if you choose the better sounding file type too.

If you are copying an original disc straight onto a blank disc this should not be an issue.

If you are storing then burning at a later date you want a high format such as wav or better yet flac.

Wav files burn with no issues, but I always have to convert my flac files to wav (320kps is best). Mp3 sound horrible and the lower the file size the worse the sound.

...as for which burner, there are tons on the market now, I brought a few years ago for about £20 (UK here) for burning music it is good, movies on the other hand take forever.

So look for something with a good write speed the higher the better.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

If it is quality you are after it will help if you choose the better sounding file type too.

If you are copying an original disc straight onto a blank disc this should not be an issue.

If you are storing then burning at a later date you want a high format such as wav or better yet flac.

Wav files burn with no issues, but I always have to convert my flac files to wav (320kps is best). Mp3 sound horrible and the lower the file size the worse the sound.

...as for which burner, there are tons on the market now, I brought a few years ago for about £20 (UK here) for burning music it is good, movies on the other hand take forever.

So look for something with a good write speed the higher the better.

Good information. Thank you

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Why limit yourself to just music. DVD burners are cheap and also burn CDs. Blue Ray burners are a little more expensive but will give a better quality movie and probably a better CD and DVD.

Your external drive housing will probably be a USB, limiting the speed at which data is transferred.

USB 2.0 - 480mbps
USB 3.0 - 5gbps

An internal drives transfer rate is at the motherboard bus speed and the speed of memory or hdd speed.

As you can see here there are a lot of inexpensive dvd burners.

And as you can see here there are some fairly inexpensive Blue Ray burners.

Have fun and good luck.

 

[Primalex]

This is a what to question, not a how to. My lap top doesn't burn cds. I'm looking to just burn music to disc.

But...WHY?

Use the money to replace the ancient device that still uses compact discs.

 

[Primalex]

Your external drive housing will probably be a USB, limiting the speed at which data is transferred.

USB 2.0 - 480mbps
USB 3.0 - 5gbps

An internal drives transfer rate is at the motherboard bus speed and the speed of memory or hdd speed.

Considering that even 12x Blu-Ray speed is only 432 mpbs and even a 72x Compact Disc speed is merely 90 mbps (if you could actually find a writer and disc for 72x speed, which I doubt), it would be really a surprise to see a difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.

 

[ReadyOne]

There are very few quality BRANDS of CDs/DVDs. The only one which continually and consistently performs best in every test I've seen is Verbatim.

The actual factory/company that makes the blank is the key. Mitsubishi is generally the best manufacturer, and Ricoh is very often top bracket.

Most brands buy from several different manufactures, so different formats (DVD+R, CD-RW, etc.) and the passage of time determine who made the blanks packaged in a specific spindle.

(I've seen good blanks, same used by Verbatum, packaged by Memorex. And I've seen the same Memorex label on a stack of Ritek blanks, which didn't perform near as well).

Problem is that you can't tell who made the blank until you load it into your burner and have it read the internal manufacture DISKID code from the blank.

A second dimension to this is that some writers do better with some blanks.

Again, the company that made the burning hardware is not necessarily the company who's logo is on the case. Now you're squared the number of combinations...

PS: For software, I like the free Image Burner http://www.imgburn.com/.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

Why limit yourself to just music. DVD burners are cheap and also burn CDs. Blue Ray burners are a little more expensive but will give a better quality movie and probably a better CD and DVD.

Your external drive housing will probably be a USB, limiting the speed at which data is transferred.

USB 2.0 - 480mbps
USB 3.0 - 5gbps

An internal drives transfer rate is at the motherboard bus speed and the speed of memory or hdd speed.

As you can see here there are a lot of inexpensive dvd burners.

And as you can see here there are some fairly inexpensive Blue Ray burners.

Have fun and good luck.

I was looking at those inexpensive burner in the $30 to $40 range. The blu rays cost more than I want to spend for the rare times when I want to share music with someone. Looking online is a bitch. Too many choices.

 

[NightL]

Curious - I never burn audio CDs any more and rarely play them, as I have the files still on computer. The only reason to burn audio CDs is an old car sound system. iPods & iPhones and other smart mobiles and media players easily dock or connect to sound systems. USB storage devices have been connecting to TVs for years. I use an old laptop as a media player for my TV and sound system with a remote keyboard and mouse.

If you are storing then burning at a later date you want a high format such as wav or better yet flac.

Wav files burn with no issues, but I always have to convert my flac files to wav (320kps is best). Mp3 sound horrible and the lower the file size the worse the sound.

Converting an uncompressed Wav file to flac will never improve the sound quality, but will reduce the file size.

Converting a flac file to Wav will not improve the quality, but will increase the file size.

MP3 files can be compressed with varying amounts of compression and other tweaks. Don't always use the default settings that programs such as iTunes offer.

If you can't play a flac file on your computer, download a media player that can. K-Lite Standard and above http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm has a media player included or use VLC Media Player from http://www.videolan.org/. There are apps to play flac files on mobile devices as well.

http://www.cnet.com/au/news/what-is-flac-the-high-def-mp3-explained/

 

[LincolnDuncan]

I like to occasionally share music and for me burning a cd is the easiest way I know of. I’m not a total dinosaur, I’ve had an ipod for about 10 years.
I ordered this today:
Pioneer Electronics USA Blu Ray Combo Drive, BDC-207DBK

I hope it suits my needs.

Thanks to all who gave sound advice.

 

[ReadyOne]

And if you keep your CDs out of direct sunlight and don't throw away your old walkman CD player, your great grand kids will be able to enjoy your music long after you're gone.

Not to mention they will have something meaningful to load into their new-fangled body-implanted direct brain interface total life immersion quantum computer.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

I sold my record collection for about $65. It would be worth thousands today.

In addition to CDs I have my music on my hard drives and my ipod. How do the cool kids share music these days?

 

[NightL]

I sold my record collection for about $65. It would be worth thousands today.

In addition to CDs I have my music on my hard drives and my ipod. How do the cool kids share music these days?

Nanu-Nanu!

 

[NightL]

How do the cool kids share music these days?

Uncle jimbleydrytesticle will be along shortly to inform how he sang to the Koreans

 

[Zeb_Carter]

How do the cool kids share music these days?

I don't think they do...every hear of Pandora? All you need is cell phone, download the app and bingo, music of your choosing.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

Audio snobs say that vinyl produces the best sound quality. I'm not going back to records, turntables and needles. What is the second best method of reproducing music?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Audio snobs say that vinyl produces the best sound quality. I'm not going back to records, turntables and needles. What is the second best method of reproducing music?

Reel to reel tape, with studio quality mics.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I sold my record collection for about $65. It would be worth thousands today.

In addition to CDs I have my music on my hard drives and my ipod. How do the cool kids share music these days?

8tracks.com is one option. Oddly enough, it's even legal!