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Burning better CD-Rs from Mac/rec eternal burner

Before you jump on me about searching the archives, let me say that I have done so exhaustively and have not found what I need.

I want to burn a compilation CD for taking to audio shows and meetings, but I am always disappointed with the sound quality of CDs I burn from iTunes on my MacBook Pro. I rip with Apple Lossless, burn at slowest possible speeds, and have all the settings where they should be as far as I know, but the quality is still inferior. Good enough for the car, good enough to give to non-audiophiles, but sufficiently inferior to the original CD that I would not want to use them on a really good system. (Short story: a guy came to my house a few months ago to listen to some speakers I was selling. He brought a compilation CD he had made. The sound was really mediocre. Over his mild objection, I put on an original CD and he was stunned at the improvement.)

I know many of you do make compilation CDs and then there is the whole copies-sound-better-than-originals camp, so there must be a better way. Is the secret to get an external CD burner? If so, which? Plextor was a favorite, but they are out of that business.

Dan
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jpod
59 posts
 
In my last post I said "I use both Itunes and the Vista CD burner and get the same results either way." I should have said something like "I use Itunes and various other audio software for CD burning and get the same results."

As far as I know, Vista, XP and Leopard cannot burn audio CDs. I believe audio programs such as Itunes, Media Player, Toast etc must be used to burn audio CDs.

Rwwear, was it these types of audio applications that you were referring to as " regular CD burning software"? The reason I am asking is that if one of these OS's have the capability to burn audio CDs I'd like to give it a try.

Any clarification you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
JPO

carl109
134 posts
 
There could be a case for you hunting down a cheap older PC/laptop with a CD-RW burner (not DVD/multi burner) and downloading the free EAC software ("Exact Audio Copy"), which as far as I know wont work on a Mac.

I use EAC on my Dell laptop (Win XP) and get indistinguishable CD copies. Find out more by typing EAC into a search engine.
rwwear
2,692 posts
 
When I said regular burning software I meant the software that came with your burner. I use Nero, Sonic Stage, Exact Copy or Veritas Record Now depending on the computer I am using.
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drubin OP
3,240 posts
 
Does anyone know if its possible to run EAC under XP on an Intel Mac, with good
results?
rwwear
2,692 posts
 
My new laptop which uses Vista came with a version of Easy CD Creater and it works well. It also has Lightscribe which is kinda fun. I don't see anything difficult here.
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