The music industry didn't like this technology! "CD-R Audio?"

A really weird thing came up after I had repaired a Philips CDR-775 Recorder. In the comments there was mention decks of this age and ilk would only accept certain CDRs. Nonsense I said!
Well, turns out its true!
A short investigative video and discussion about a forgotten media.
Original repair video of the deck:
• Philips CDR775 CD Play...

[@kevinh96]

The reason for the separate Audio CD-R format was at the insistence of the major record labels who were terrified of people being able to make perfect copies. This was a compromise, you could make a copy with a small levy on the cost for the labels, but there will then be a flag on the disc so that the recorder wont then allow that home made disc to be recorded again (not every recorder implemented this though). You can of course just stick in another blank and record the original CD again but you'd be using yet another Audio CD-R where the recording levy has been paid for. That Philips recorder also has analogue line inputs and can record onto CD from tape, vinyl etc. or even from Spotify.

[@petermason1747]

CD-R Audio costs more because a portion of the price goes to a fund for performers and songwriters.

[@pwrestoration]

I've just had a good search, you're right! Copyright levies applied. Such an odd setup!

[@Zalgol]

You need to remember that when this format was introduced, computers were generally not capable of recording audio to disks. The record industry (mainly in the USA) had objected to allowing consumer straight digital copies, which were perfect copies and indistinguishable to the original. It was feared this could reduce the record companies sales as people copied. The industry persuaded the consumer hi fi companies to only allow copies to preformatted Digital Audio disks, on which a levy was charged for blank media. The recorder when it copies disc to disk direct does not decode the source to analogue, and then recode it, it simply copies the digital pattern across. Consequently there is no meaningful analogue programme material to display. If you were to to record from the line input, then yes the input analogue signal would be displayed.

[@pwrestoration]

Great info thanks!

[@stevesmith3990]

I had a single drive one of these 20 years ago. I used it for copying my old vinyl, cassettes and for my own music. Sadly it died after about 10 years but I still have all the discs that I created. Great video, thanks.

[@bricks312100]

TDK DA9000. Still using mine but part of the hard drive is bad.

[@JamieMcAlley]

Fascinating! I had a CD-R audio recorder, a Pioneer, and just used to copy from the analogue audio input which it did well. Your device is doing a direct digital copy without two lots of DAC processing so will be superior. Nice bit of kit if you wanted a copy of a CD for the car.

[@WansbeckBikecam]

I have 2 Pioneer PDR609 decks. Similar to that one. I used it mainly to record vinyl and 78's or cassettes onto CD which isn't that easy to do onto a PC unless you have a very good sound card. I would then rip the recorded CD onto the PC and edit it as needed. Very handy and good quality. I usually used Audio RW which can be erased and used many times. Also just a, good CD player for the hifi.

[@ANTandTEC]

I had no idea either and I have burnt many a CD. I have certainly created audio copies in the past but could not say if they were 'audio' discs or not! 😵‍💫

[@paulb4uk]

I never knew about cd audio disc so something learned .

[@createdezign1840]

These Philips CD recorders have a reputation with the laser burning out apparently. I did post about copyright tax being applied when you posted about this last time.

[@robturner3065]

I remember these well, I had a Philips CDR796. As a CD duplicator it was excellent. However, if like me you were sitting there for 90 minutes digitizing 45s, as you selected 'finalize' it would simply crash, every time, without fail. The only way to overcome this was to give it a chinese re-set (pull the mains plug). This would leave a nasty noise at the end of the final track. You could not opt out of automatic track increments, which sensed quiet passages. I once had to copy a spoken word LP by mixing in a 22kHz tone to prevent it introducing a new track every time someone paused for breath....

[@pwrestoration]

Haha I had a similar issue with minidisks registering tracks in silence. Not easy to get right, but great idea on the tone!

[@seacampal1425]

It is possible to disable the SCRS system directly on the circuit board and restore all non-audio CDR recordings, but no technician could legally do this when these machines were still on sale. Today? This device has an excellent AD converter for digitizing vinyl. The levels display will appear and if you record strong enough peaks at 0 DB and even sometimes very brief passages above (Over) the device compresses slightly and avoids digital clipping. Doing a few tests on CD-RW Audio beforehand is preferable because often the recording does not start immediately but with a half second delay when the button is pressed and it is easy to miss the beginning. Recordings from vinyl to CD via the Analog input have stunning sound quality. On some models produced by Pioneer, it is possible to initialize the player by first inserting an Audio CDR and once initialization is complete, open the top cover, take out the Audio disc manually and insert a computer CDR without pressing no button, the CDR Audio initialization remains in memory and the player is in waiting mode. Recording will start but the optical calibration of the recorder (OPC) may be of poorer quality since it was carried out on the Audio CDR and not on the CDR.

[@pwrestoration]

Well, it's on eBay right now if you want a dip in it! That's some really great info though!

[@dxer22000]

back when I owned a philips CD recorder, there was a bootleg IC one could buy that was supposed to bypass this SCRS. I got one but the mod didn't work

[@Ricky-cl5bu]

It’s a pain that’s the government again at there work

[@Terry.W]

I have an old Pioneer deck that records any CDs...I transferred a lot of my cassettes to CD with it..

[@pwrestoration]

Maybe you got lucky if you could use normal CDRs 😁

[@sergiobisonte]

back in the day there was a lot of cdr and cdr music cds.. but no one knew the diference because we recorded on the computer. and recording on a computer it does not make any diference... only makes a diference on some cd-r recording players.. people said, the music will sound better on those cdrs, but it looks like this is why there are normal cdrs and cr musics... I remember having games and other suff on cdr music cds...

[@pwrestoration]

I can vaguely remember there being 'plus' and 'minus' disks and burners but can't really remember why. Some consoles like the GameCube only liked playjng disks that were recorded in / on 'minus'.. I think!

[@sergiobisonte]

@@pwrestoration + - those were the dvds.. and its not minus.. its dash.. the - was the standard I think, and + was sony only... I think they had diferent methods of burning

[@NoMoreHeroesPunkPostPunk]

.. also be aware that the industry standard was CD-R (that’s not a MINUS, kids .. that’s just a dash). Philips added the rival format: CD+R .. which considerably muddied the water. .. and both formats were ‘Write Once’ formats .. whereas CD-RW and CD+RW were ‘Write Many Times (re-recordable). Confusing as the ‘-‘ and ‘+’ formats were incompatible with each other .. and there weren’t many recorders that could handle both types of disc.

[@bartekkucharski3880]

What I've found, audio cd-r had copyright 'tax' included in price ow them discs.

[@hsjmusic]

The reason for the digital audio disc was for the royalties.

[@jasejj]

They aren't common, but there are still a couple of Chinese companies (including I think the same people behind that Polaroid) who are making discs with the "header" burned in but don't pay the royalties. Problem is these Philips decks were always very picky with media and don't write to them properly. The main use for these, these days is as a good quality ADC rather than using a computer. I still have a couple of TEACs which ignore the header (even though the manual sata they don't)...

[@robturner3065]

True! Mine only really liked the TDK blanks

[@YouTube4Rudy]

Also called CD-R Music. My TDK CD Recordable uses this format too. They also make CD-RW Music/Audio (which are much better if you mess up). I use my TDK Recordable when I mix music in real time. I'm not that great on beat matching songs, so I use DJay AI to do the work. Once on a disc, I copy on to a cassette tape using various formats (Dolby S, dbx, Metal w/ no NR, etc.). BTW, I really enjoyed the Sony TC-K611S video. I own a TC-615S (several actually), trying to get these to work. Hopefully you can do a video on one of those in the future. If not, I'll probably just pick up a 611S since you gave such an excellent tutorial. Anyway, new subscriber, looking forward to watch more of your videos!

[@bricks312100]

DA9000?

[@dean6816]

I had a Phillips CDR 880 and all you did was load a CD audio disc, when finished loading, you pulled the draw open without pressing the eject button and swap out the audio disc with the computer disc and you could record on it as normal. Only thing you had to finalize before ejecting or turning the unit off!!

[@beotheguitarist]

I've been burning CD's since the early 2000's and I've always known that there was a difference. Stand alone CD recorders such as the one in this video only take CD-R Audio or Music CD's. A regular CD data/video disc never works because the lasers are probably different. Computer drives will take both type of CD's so that's the difference. I'd buy the a few Audio CD's just to record my band's music from the 4 track down to the CD recorder. And I'd purchase regular CD-r data's to burn the copies on the computer drive because they are less expensive. To make copies on the CD recorders is a very slow process so it wasn't worth doing it that way. Audio/Music CD'S are widely available on eBay, so they aren't scarce.

[@bobBob-yg9br]

Yes I do!

[@raythomas4812]

I hd a HBB CD reorder and that could use both PC CDs and audio ones

[@amarmoussa7416]

hi, i have 2 TDK CD-R Audio can i copy Playstation 1 Games on it or is it only for Music? Please i need fast Answer

[@pwrestoration]

Yes only for audio. They have a small piece of coding at the start of the disc to ID it.. I think your ps1 will think it's an audio cd

[@amarmoussa7416]

@@pwrestoration thank you for your answer

[@bricks312100]

Look up the TDK DA9000.

[@txerapng]

What year is this player/recorder from? I’m just trying to understand why one would use a piece of equipment like this instead of using a computer to do the copying of a CD, since a computer wouldn’t have these restrictions.

[@pwrestoration]

It was from about the year 2000 approximately. I guess it's more for the less computer savvy. But that method would be a lot more technically involved - rip to lossless FLAC or similar, then record onto a blank cd again ensuring there was no data or quality loss? On this you just press a button.

[@kevinh96]

I can think of one main reason, ease of use, put a blank disc in, put a pre-recorded CD in the other drive and press DUB. Other reasons are that using a recorder like this makes it very easy to record direct from tape, minidisc or vinyl onto CD in one step. Going via a computer is more time consuming and for many, more complex dealing with recording software like Audacity, then splitting tracks, loading your burning software, selecting tracks and then burning to disc. Not to mention you need a computer with an optical drive in the first place.

[@txerapng]

@@pwrestoration That makes sense, in the year 2000 computers were probably already very expensive, and having a computer with 2 CD drives, was probably something most people couldn't afford...

[@CBitsTech]

Sell it and keep the money (towards future projects), this KZbin lark is expensive. At first I had assumed it was the old CD R/RW and +/- thing. I've never heard of 'Audio CD' blanks.

[@pwrestoration]

I'm going to list it on eBay later and donate it to charity. I got it donated to me, so seems like a good thing to do 👍

[@CBitsTech]

@@pwrestoration It is a good thing to do. I'll remind you that you're a top bloke when we're broke and living on the streets 😁

[@JetmanUK]

So weird, whay splinter the market with another disc type? 🤷🏻🤣 EDIT To keep record companies happy as this enabled users to make perfect digital copies. They take a cut. Still stupid. 🤣 Ah, that might be my Sony deck referred to in this video. 🤟🏻👍🏻