non redbook CD's


Seems as if Audiogon contributors get all agog if a CD player
satisfactorily plays Red Book grade CD's. Shouldn't that be a Minimum criteria; that the ability to play burns and other non Red Book discs is really what we need to know about ?
garn509
Garn - To answer your question, in my case I don't really have or play any "burns" so whether my CDP plays them or not is of no concern. Maybe most are like me which is why reviewers don't mention it.

Just curious - What do you burn, from what, why? It's just something I haven't done much of so I dunno, maybe I'm missing something.
"Also, MP3 is more of a problem than RW"

CD-RW is a problem with older CDP that have weaker lasers since CD-RW has about half of reflection of CD.

Most of DVD players have inherent MP3 playback. They usually have poor sound but decent transport with good tracking. I use cheap DVD player as an addition to Benchmark/MacMini music server.
Kijanki,

I was made aware of the reflectivity issue in a forum here.
Where, I also was made to know that NAD payers are fussy. I get better results with RW in the .wav format with a loss of info trade off.

All said, it seems absurd that ones computer plays aftermarket discs better than ones component CDP or transport. I heard of a new Meridian that balked at "factory" new sealed discs !! So, we just accept this situation with "quiet resignation ", that burning is beneath Hi Fi and proper discs will play properly ?
Garn509,

Agree, it is strange. It is even possible that copy plays and sounds better than original since poorly printed CDs make CDP to skip (pop) or interpolate missing samples, while perfect CD-R copy of the same CD can be achieved using programs like EAC or MAX that read the same sector multiple times until they obtain proper checksum.
Gee, CD-R's are cheap. Buy a 100 and burn away. I've never hear a player that wouldn't play them.