I can not tell you how many times I have heard "I want good quality recordable CDs and a cheap price". What does that mean? How do you determine quality CDs and a cheap price? I mean they are polar opposites of each other. So where does this perceived cheap good quality media come from?
Well I can answer that: Nowhere.
Indeed there is always a story behind the "deals" that are out there. Funny how they are not for "name brand CD-Rs" but generic (or store brand) type products.
The truth is there are a very limited amount of CD-R manufacturers left in the world. I don't even think they would fit on five fingers if you get my point: most media is manufactured by three companies: CMC, Ritek and Prodisc. How can that be? you ask. As profits have shrunk on CD-R disc manufacturing more and more companies have gone out of business or switched over to manufacturing DVDs which is perceived to generate more revenue. So all the brands one sees out in the market are produced by "the big three". There are several manufacturers who do not fall into this realm (although some do share manufacturing with the big three). So we have a lot of brands all made by the same companies and quality is defined by the formula holder. So let's say TDK, which has not made CD-R media in some time and is now just a name owned by Imation (at least in the CD and DVD recordable world...they are manufacturing recordable Blu-ray). Imation specifies how the product is to be made. Generally the quality is good when it's based on a known standard but there are many ways that this can become an issue. What becomes of the rejects from manufacturing?
Simple: they are sold as generic or sold to the highest bidder who then turns around and sells it to unsuspecting customers. Sometimes the grade B product is OK and sometimes it's really bad. Inconsistent and from the start a sub-standard disc. Considering it costs .10 to manufacture a recordable CD (I admit that the big three have been dumping at .09 and why they have not made any profit in some time) it would very suspect to be able to purchase shiny silver recordable CDs in the .10-.13 range at a retail level. Unless it's grade B or C. Garbage in, Garbage out. Put a printable surface on it, adds a penny to five cents depending on the quality of the print surface. Now one other issue putting quality aside is that CD recordable media is all under patents. Philips is the major stake holder as well as Taiyo Yuden. There are others too. Royalties have to be paid and most manufacturers pay the royalty except for several Taiwan companies that have been disputing the royalty as unfair because that would mean they would have to compete with other manufacturers who actually pay the royalties. They pay sometimes and other times they don't. Lately they have not so we see a lot of that media drying up. That is not to say that some still slips into the U.S. but the product does not have royalties paid and is a liability to all that sell it and buy it. I remember when several very large "resellers" were fined and several smaller resellers were put out of business when Philips got serious the last time.
That is the real reason why we pay more for "legal" product and less for product that violate US and international patent laws. Again quality aside. Now let's look at the components of a recordable CD so we understand the economics.
The polycarbonate substrate (the plastic disc without anything on it): Optical grade, Usually virgin poly. Of course toss some recycled plastic in and you have a cheaper disc. How thick is the disc? hey look I can make it half the thickness of the standard and I have saved money!
Next comes the organic dye layer. This is the photosensitive layer (sensitive to red laser light) that some people refer to as "burning". This layer when exposed to the correct wave length of light produces a darker spot, imitating a pit that is pressed into a CD-ROM disc. Less dye less dark and then the issue of dye stability (that's what makes or breaks you being able to read a disc 2 weeks from today).
Next comes the reflective layer. This is the "silver" or gold coating that makes it easier (or possible) to read the disc. If the layer is too thin then we start to have issues. This is an engineered spec. balancing readability and economy. As with all manufacturing when economy out ways quality then we have junk (or a store with a lot of smiley faces around...not naming any names).
The possible final coating is lacquer on a shiny silver disc or an additional layer for an inkjet printable surface. Some manufacturers actually put a scratch resistant surface between the lacquer and printable surface or just the scratch resistant surface on the recordable CD-R. This is a step for quality as the most vulnerable part of a CD-R is it's top surface, not the recording side which is the plastic substrate. A scratch into the top surface can destroy a disc.
The higher the standard the better quality the disc is in multiple points. If what you are recording is garbage then by all means use garbage media. Trying to save a penny or two is like buying a retread tire.
There certainly are deals out in retail land for CD recordable media. Understanding what is a deal and what is garbage media is the key to any decision to purchase. If you purchase by price alone then you may be in for a rude awakening one day when you insert your favorite recordable CD (always the one you can't replace) and it skips, or just errors out. If you are like me I store my travel CD discs in the car which goes from zero degrees fahrenheit in the winter to 120 degrees in the summer. I ...
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