TDK

[Kurayami]

I understand that for tdk, the best cd-rs are the CERTIFIED PLUS ones and the Ritek Taiwans are the worst of the TDK.

But does this mean that ALL "Made in taiwan" TDKs are bad? I found some that are made in taiwan, but they are CERTIFIED PLUS. Are these good ones? are these manufactured by ritek although they are also certified plus?

[Fire_Burner]

This year, the RiTEK Corporation has taken over or taken over productions of many minor and major CD-R manufacturers.

RiTEK Corp. are making Ricoh Company Ltd, Postech Corp, Lead Data Inc, and Prodisc Technology Inc, among others.

As for TDK Corp, they are either Made in USA or Japan. I've heard rumours that the USA factory is closing down soon, so I'd stock up on these if it were possible.

RiTEK have been making excellent CD-Rs this year, with a much-improved Cyanine or Phthalocyanine dye layer. Personally, I find their Cyanines burn well at speeds of 1x-16x and the Phthalocyanines at speeds of 2x or greater, but that's my experience.

The only manufacturers I suggest you stay away from are Gigastorage Corp and CMC Magnetics Corp. Don't buy these CD-Rs in unbranded spindle packs unless you want to end up with hundreds of coasters. On the other hand, CMC's rebranded media, such as Mr. Data Gold and Imation 4x and Uncertified 8x are actually quite OK to burn with, but I would only use CMC media for temporary data storage and not VCDs, audio, or backups.

Note that Imation Certified 8x CD-R media is made by Taiyo Yuden Co. Ltd in Japan...