LP to CD

February 2, 2006 2:48 PM

LP to CD; good blanks; big dots

I'll be putting LOTS of LPs on CDs, and I'm concerned about how long they will last, since I've read that at least the cheap blank disks will be unreadable within a few years. So, several questions:

(1) I've been told that Fuji makes great blank disks. What do the mavens recommend. I know about the gold ones, but I'd rather not lay out the substantial extra cost if they're no better.

(2) There was an article in, I think, the NY Times about a CD (or maybe a DVD) burner that made the "dots" 20% larger than standard, giving more room for error or deterioration. I can't find the article, though. Does anyone have a link to it, or have any experience with the drive?

(3) Is there an affordable CD burner that uses the same process as commercial CDs, pits instead of phase changes?

(4) Has DVD audio reached the point where it's as reliable as CD?

Thanks.

posted by KRS to technology (6 comments total)

1. Taiyo Yuden.
2. Can't help, sorry.
3. No.
4. The question is really "which substrate lasts longer?" And I can't help there either.
posted by plexiwatt at 3:01 PM on February 2, 2006

How will you be making these transfers? Although your question refers to LP --> CD, are you doing this with a standalone recorder, or a computer?

Assuming the latter, and if I were to be doing this, I would want to maintain backup copies of all the audio as lossless FLAC or SHN files on a hard drive somewhere. You'll be capturing the uncompressed audio at some point in the process.

The answer to question 3 is no -- commercial CDs are made from a glass stamper; all burners that I am aware of use lasers to induce phase changes in the media.

Re #4, I know nothing about DVD audio on discs. However this brings up the issue of the quality of the audio you will be capturing. If your turntable and preamp are hardcore audiophile, you may want to capture your audio initially at a higher rate than CDs (44.1 kHz, 16 bit).
posted by omnidrew at 3:07 PM on February 2, 2006

Forgive me for not directly answering your question but, have you considered hard disk storage?
Since you are concerned with reliability and given that the prices of large capacity hard disks are quite low, it could prove to be a useful solution for you.
Aside from the reliability factor it is much more organized, saves space, portable (depends on type of HD of course) plus you can save additional info (cover scans and whatnot) and when you want to listen to a record you could simply burn it from the HD or dump it to you portable player.
Also, in case of disaster you could backup that drive easily compared to burning LOTS of cd's.
posted by sierra13 at 3:18 PM on February 2, 2006

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the cdfreaks.com forums should cover a lot of the answers to this question. If you don't get enough answers here, you might try browsing through their site.
posted by fishfucker at 3:21 PM on February 2, 2006

Yamaha marketed a CD burner with "Advanced Audio Master Quality Recording", in theory it burned with reduced jitter, I don't know anything about how effective it is - Tomshardware on the CRW-F1.

There are many threads on backing up LPs to CDs, I will leave those links for someone else to find.

The issues of archiving audio and the reliability of burned media have also come up: Safely storing mp3 files and Is recorded media such as CD-R completely permanent. If I recall correctly, both of those threads are great reading. If you still have questions about those topics, please ask.
posted by Chuckles at 4:05 PM on February 2, 2006

sierra13: In my experience, burned CDs are far more reliable than HDs. I have burned CDs from 1999 that are still working, but I no longer have access to any HDs from that period (ie, some have died a horrible death full of pain and regret (bad backup skills), others are just too old and small and worthless).

KRS: I assume you don't own these LPs and will no longer have access to them???? As long as you make new copies of copies you shouldn't have any significant mutations within your lifetime to render the CD process useless. As long as the CD process lasts you should be fine.
posted by johngumbo at 7:27 PM on February 2, 2006