It's not quite that easy, eru: depends on what you're burning them on: different blanks are better suited to different recorders. The only definitive tip I'll offer is this: if it's important, burn it twice onto two different makes of blank: then if one goes down, you've still got another copy.

I don't know if they do this in the UK, but here in the States CD-R manufacturers sometimes offer mail-in rebates that translate, ultimately, to free blank discs.  Once you come across the brand that works best with your hardware, it's always good to keep an eye out for these deals.

It's not a stupid question at all, but a hard one to answer, though some burner manufacturers recommend specific blanks as the best for their product, either in the documentation supplied or on their website.

The article here, although primarily for photo archiving, gives some interesting pointers. If you're going to be using them a lot, it's probably worth buying in bulk from a web-based specialist who will list what manufacter has actually produced the discs, though some burning software will also have a disc analysing page which will tell you exactly what source you're disc acme from and even its composition. While we're at it, cases are a minefield, too. Last week in London I spent some time with a sound engineer comparing notes, and one of the points he made about CD-Rs was that they have one less layer than a normal CD, and that the internal structure is therefore less stable. Any case which grips them tightly at the centre hole (to the point where one has to wrestle them off e.g.) is likely to create considerable damage. Sleeves, obviously, avoid this problem, but for those wanting boxes - especially slim doubles - this is a real issue. I've just found something that may be the answer: I ordered them late last night, so I'll say nothing more until they arrive. (He also suggested, incidentally, that playing recorded CD-Rs a couple of times after burning might further improve the quality of the recording by reintroducing heat to the critical area.)

If it's any consolation, none of the Verbatims I've used shows any sign of a problem whatsoever: definitely one of the better makes, I'd say.

If you're burning on a PC use the slowest possible speed, that way you should get fewer errors. Who, other than a pirate, really needs to burn a CD @ 48x? I'm currently using imation CD-Rs on the PC which seem OK.

I've got a Yamaha CDR-HD1300 hard disc recorder which I'm sure must produce better burns although I've got no evidence for this. The choice of CD-Rs is more limited since it will only use audio discs, not computer ones. I use TDK or Maxell.

I notice that some manufacturers take care to label their CD-Rs as "audio". Does the presence or non-presence of this word make any difference in quality to the finished product?

Rather than start a new thread it seemed to make sense to ask this question here:

I've recently experienced, for the first time, the problem described above which seems to relate to the ageing of CD-Rs that have been burned too quickly, i.e. a clicking noise which starts not when the CD starts playing but when the actual sound kicks in (does that make sense?).

Now, obviously the solution is to burn CD-Rs more slowly in the first place, which I always do, but some of these are things that other people had burned for me. Does anyone know of any way to 'repair' a digital recording once it's degenerated to that state, other than getting the person with the original to burn it for me again? It would be great if I could rescue a couple of rather hard-to-obtain recordings which I've discovered I can now only hear accompanied by an irritating click-track!

Am I also right in thinking, for future reference, that if I'd had the foresight to make a back-up copy before the degeneration had set in (i.e. by re-burning at slow speed, even if from a CD-R which itself had been copied at high speed), then I could have avoided this problem?