Testing the Genesis CD Burning Theory

[aggielaw]

The questions in this (my first) post will touch on subjects crossing forums, so please forgive if this should have been posted elsewhere.

 

I recently began ripping my library of about 800 CDs to my computer. Although the main purpose for this is to download songs to my personal media player to enjoy while travelling or exercising I also want to be able to create demo CDs to both enjoy on my own stereo as well as at audio dealers and shows such as CES and RMAF.

 

Tonight I rediscovered http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Saga_of_the_Black_CDs_v3.1.pdf

which purports to show the reader how to create a CD-R that sounds better than the original CD. I think I'm inclined to put their theory to the test. Unfortunately, the article is now 6 years old. The CD writers are presumably much better now, and I would expect the software to be better now as well. Not so sure about media. I've always used the Mitsui Gold discs anyway, but I've never had a moment where I sat up in my chair upon realizing the MAM Gold sounded better or even different from my silver Taiyo Yudens. I've been upgrading my stereo piece by piece for about 12 years now, and between the resolution of my stereo and my relatively youthful ears I am confident I can hear a difference if it is there. (My system can be seen at: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vdone&1258245716&read&keyw&zzsason)

 

What recommendations do you have in terms of hardware, computer software, and media for me to try Genesis' theory?

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[manisandher]

It's interesting, having never come across this article, I ended up following the exact same path!

 

Around 6-7 years ago I started extracting all my CDs using a Plextor Premium-U with EAC (and using the '-usefua' command to bypass the Plextor's cache). I still do this. Back then, I would burn CDs using black CD-Rs using a Yamaha CRW-F1UX set to its Audio Master Mode. I stopped doing this 5 or so years ago when I started playing back directly from hard drive. Oh, and I would power everything with my PS Audio P300.

 

In any event, I agree with everything in the article.

 

Mani.