Cue audio CD vs "file-jamming" CD

[Modinstaller]

Hey

 

Someone has asked me to burn audio CD's, so I turned to ImgBurn. My first burn was done by just simply putting the audio files in, with really nothing else.

 

I asked myself afterwards if there wasn't more to it, and tried again but this time using a cue file.

 

From what I can see, windows recognizes the 2nd CD as audio, and I can read it very simply. The first one, not so much. I can only open it and browse the files ... it works, but it doesn't seem proper.

 

My question is this : what are all the practical differences between both methods of burning ? More specifically, are there any audio players that will struggle to read the first disc ? Will the first disc run on most players ?

 

Thanks for your time

[LIGHTNING UK!]

If you've burnt audio files with the program in Build mode, you've made an MP3 type disc (technically just a data disc with audio files on it).

 

Playback of such discs is down to the individual player. Some will support them, some won't. Some may not support the type of audio files you've burnt either.

 

When you follow the Audio CD guide and burn the audio files via the CUE method, the program creates a proper Audio CD that should be compatible with anything that'll play Audio CDs. There are no 'files' on such discs - even though Windows / Explorer might make you think there are, by displaying a .CDA file for each track.

[Modinstaller]

All my audio files are mp3.

 

So, judging from what you just explained, there is absolutely no reason to make a MP3 type disc instead of an Audio CD, or is there ?

 

Thanks for the help

[LIGHTNING UK!]

mp3 files are tiny in comparison to a track on an audio cd... so you can fit loads more songs (tracks) on an mp3 disc.

 

A proper audio cd will normally contain a max of 74 or 80 minutes worth of audio.

 

With an mp3 disc, assuming each file is around 4mb in size, you'd be able to fit about 160 on a disc. 160 songs lasting say 3:30 each would make over 9 hours of audio.

[Modinstaller]

I see, so an audio CD is limited in length while an mp3 disc is only limited in size. And an audio CD is typically made for uncompressed big files (8.75MB per minute for the CD's I have it seems). Thanks, TIL

 

I only have a few songs that I can't find in any better quality than mp3 (nursery songs) and which unfortunately only use 7% of the 700MB. I figure an audio CD is still the best way to do this, even if it's just for compatibility issues. Kind of wasteful, but my job's just to burn them.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Audio CD uses a specific format (44.1kHz, 16 bit, stereo) and is burnt as raw 2352 byte sectors. There are 75 frames per second for CDDA and 1 frame = 1 sector.

 

So 1 second of audio = 75 frames = 75 sectors = 176,400 bytes.

So 1 minute of audio = 4500 frames = 4500 sectors = 10,584,000 bytes (~10MiB).

 

MP3 can vary greatly in size because of variable bitrates etc.