Is there any technical sound quality difference between an original CD and it's copied counterpart? I have some rare movie soundtracks that have been going for a nice dollar on Ebay. I was thinking about burning copies and selling the originals. I'm concerned about quality issues but when the kid's download music and burn CD's, they sound pretty good.

Thanks

 

No difference. A digital copy of a CD is a perfect copy. Of course, if you make (and keep) a copy and sell the original, you're breaking the law. But that's not what you were asking...

 

There should be no difference in the audio quality. I do believe that the burned CD will have a shorter life.

 

Yes, the life is shorter, but still about a hundred years...

 

The imprint made by the burner is not as strong as a pressed CD. CD players made in the late 90s and earlier may have problems playing these disks. MP3 has lower audio quality than CDs. Hope this helps.

 

Sounds like he’s talking about burning CD-to-CD not using :U MP3.
There is generation loss even in digital media but it is negligible compared to analog generation loss. You should have no problem (SQ wise) burning a few CD’s from the original. Like stated above, some earlier CD players will have trouble playing a CDR disk. Also, always use CDR when burning music and use CDRW for data.

Hope this helps. :seeya

 

Wouldn't be too concerned about the sound quality. I'd be more concerned about the legality! :confused:

 

*Using that kid from the Dell commercials voice*

“Dude, your going to jail.” :p: :lol:

j/k :)

 

Burned CDs aren't carbon copies and will never match the audio quality of a pressed CD. In some instances, you may not hear the difference, but it depends on the environment the CDR is in when made and if you have a trained ear. Going from MP3 to CDA has its share of quality problems as well. Here's a tread on Google that discusses it. http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Ar...rld.com&rnum=5

As for being concerned about copyright laws, the owner of ANY CD product is legally entitled to make a single "backup" copy for personal use. I make copies of all of my CDs in case they ever get stolen while stored in my car. There's nothing wrong with copying your our CDs.

Here's another interesting thread I found on google referencing your concern after posting. http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...com%26rnum%3D1


[Modified by Reverend Nasty, 4:01 PM 4/12/2002]

 

If you are asking about lost sound quality by burning your own CD-Rs there is some of that tied to the media. SOME CD-Rs are lower in quality and are not good for making music CDs (Don't buy the ones on the spindle). Make sure your CD-Rs say "for music" on them.

The MP3 technology itself, is simply a compression of the music by removing the various sounds we can't hear anyway (background noise etc) and storing it in binary format. Personally, I don't think there is much sound quality loss as long as you stick with a good bitrate 192 +. Sometimes depending on who encoded the song, and the original sound quality of the song you will get a inferior MP3, but I don't think that is the fault of the technology, moreso the person who made the file.

As far as the legality, if you own the CDs, you can make copies of it all day long (LEGALLY), it's when you give it to your buddy or sell them, it becomes a problem. There is a congressman actually arguing this point based on Music industry's paultry attempt to stop burning of CD-Rs. I think the most compelling reason to make a copy of a song is to put it with your other favorite songs to listen to them as a group (Since 16 out of 18 songs are throw aways on a CD) not to backup a song. What's funny is, this isn't a new problem (remember cassette tapes?), what's freaking out the music industry is the Internet. Being able to send a binary stream of data to your buddy 20 states away with the latest unreleased track on it in under 2minutes has made the Music industry try to come up with uncopiable CDs. The music industry is stupid though, they will see as fast as they come out with their encryption, it will get broken (Been problem with software for years). Once again they took a wrong turn instead of embracing the technology they would rather fight it because then they will have to be accountable for crappy music. The Music industry can kiss my **** as far as I am concerned they have been sticking it to us for years, overcharging for the media (CD), overcharging for the product (2 good songs out of 18 on a $15 - $20 CD).
*Gets off soapbox*

So to answer the original poster's question if you are noticing sound quality issues, get better quality CD-Rs somewhere in the neighboorhood of $1-2 each. Its worth the sound quality, vs scratchiness I have heard from some CD-Rs. I doubt you can hear the difference between a factory and "burned" CD unless you are using poor CD-Rs, bad software to do the "burn" or old CD-ROM burner (Although I still have a 1x 2x that works great).

[added]
One more thing, if you go from CDA to CDA (meaning CD to CD) with no MP3 step inbetween, it is essentially the exact same file so the sound quality loss will only occur if you are using poor CD-Rs.


[Modified by tkemory, 7:13 AM 4/14/2002]

 

MP3s and CDA are both written in binary tkemory, not just the MP3 format if that was, in fact, what you were stating. The only difference between the two is MP3s are compressed as you say, but not how you explained. The CDA file is down sampled which equates to signal loss across the ENTIRE frequency band of the song(s) thus the moderate decrease in file size and audio quality. CDA is already formatted to not include background noise or as you put it, "sounds we can't hear". <--- What!? :lol: Tkemory, read the two newsgroup threads I posted. You might be surprised on how complicated the burn process really is and what permanent factors will degrade your CDR copy no matter what you do. Your CDR media, quality of the source media and content of the audio source file, burn speed, burn program, burn program settings, DAE rating of your source CD drive, quality of the CD burner, and environment your burn program is running in all have an effect on the end result. Even if the burn is performed in a "perfect" environment audio artifacts WILL be present. A copy of a copy (Yes, that store bought CD is a copy.) will always have inherent noise associated with its degraded signal more so than the original. If you have a good ear and a moderate to high end stereo system, do an A/B comparison between a CDR and the pressed copy. There is most definitely a difference no matter what the would-be copier does to avoid the signal loss. You can't beat the quality of a pressed CD. :smash: