Read Speed

[ZeroJunk]

What read speed should I use to copy from my hard drive to a CD?

If I buy it online from Walmart and burn it myself, will there be a difference betweeen that quality and actually buying the CD off the shelf?

[OvenMaster]

Do you mean what speed should you write the CD?
This will depend on your results, ZeroJunk. What I did was start from the slowest speed and work my way up one speed at a time until I started hearing errors on my burnt discs. Then I ratcheted the speed down one. YMMV!
This also depends on the quality of the CDs you use. Don't buy cheap junk. Get name brand stuff like TDK, Maxell, Verbatim, etc.

If you're just copying a CD, there should be no difference between burnt discs at home compared to buying a CD off the shelf.

If you're burning files that are converted to .wavs from .mp3s or .wmvs (downloads from Wal-Mart, for instance) and then burnt to CD, most of the time they will not sound as good as the original CD files.

Tom

[Scorpion8]

Let the burner decide. Do a test burn first.

[Elfasto]

Personally I found reading isn't a big deal, but burning is.

Burning I limit to 10X, unless it's something special, then I'll knock it down to 4X. I have burnt discs at 20X (limit of my Yamaha and Matshita) and it's more than listenable and it does play well on 99% of regular home CD players, but they tend to have an edginess to the sound. Slower burns tend to sound better.

As for the imported audio files, the great majority of mine are AAC @ 320 kb/sec, unless I intend to burn a copy, then it's AIFF (1411 kb/sec uncompressed) which I cannot tell the difference between the original CD and the AIFF file.

It's entirely up to your system and your ears. Like Scorpion8 said, do a test burn.

[drknstrmyknight]

Use Exact Audio Copy with error checking on, it will automagically determine the highest speed it can copy without errors.