This is a very good question - just how do you guys test your CD-R masters before sending them off to the CD plant?

Other manufacturers of CD test equipment include Audio Developments AB (Sweden) makers of the CD CATS system, Datarius (Austria) formerly kdg, Clover Systems (USA) and aeco (Germany).

They are all very expensive, but Clover has a number of models that suit a variety of budgets.

All plants will automatically submit your master to an evaluation to determine if there are any digital errors before replicating. This is to try to prevent making an order of beer coasters & have to redo the order at their expense.

In my experience, making an error free master involves matching the blank media to the laser burn temperature on your CD burner. Some burners make masters that have no audible flaws that will not pass electronic QC. Different kinds of CD-R blanks work better with different burners. You might try to make a master on a variety of different brand & type of blanks (gold, blue, green), submit them to the plant for testing. Then find out which one works with lowest error rates & stay with that combination.

I think burn speed depends on the speed that data is transferred off your hard drive & how fast it can be taken in by the burner. Some systems work best at higher than 1x speed. Data transfer is smoother.

Europadisk uses Eclipse test software. We test for 9 main parameters. Some of these have a number of sub-tests. We test EVERY CD-R that is submitted for replication.

An E-32 is an "uncorrectable digital error". Even one E-32 will cause the master to be rejected. A new master will be requested in most cases, or I will be asked to make a new master on the Sonic Solutions system. An E-22 error is a correctable error, same type as E-32 but less serious.

Hi Mr. Don! It is great to have comments from you! Many thanks!
Based on what you have just written, I would like to ask you another question, about a serious problem a client of mine had with the SONY plant here in Brazil.
At that time I wasn´t mastering already, so another guy did the proper thing on a SADIE system, sent 2 reference CDs to the recording/mixing engineer ( me) and my Client ( the conductor of a Nice Camerata Orchestra)

We listened to the cd, it was okas, ready to go.
30 days later, a few days before Xmas sales of that product, we receive from the sony plant 6,000 copies of the wonderful work with track 2 jumping...

Someone at Sony told my client to send them back, but of course they could not deliver 6,000 copies before Xmas.

So my client ended up selling and giving to other people lots of copis with that damn track jumping

a)whose fault was it if like you say, a serious company submit the master to lots of tests?

b) Now I master most of my stuff, like 85%. I always write SUBMIT TO E32 TEST BEFORE REPLICATION, just like Disc Makers suggest us to do at their nice manual.

So, what are your opinions?
Many Thanks Again!

Greetings Alecio,
You can never go wrong insisting that tests be done on your master before replication. You could go one step further & request that the test result sheet be forwarded to you if any bad test results show up. This will pinpoint any problem areas.

I would be really surprised if SONY did not do all the normal tests. They were trying to do the right thing if they offered to take them back. I hope they also offered to replace them for no cost. But I cannot speak for them. It is then up to you to decide if you want to go ahead & sell faulty product.

This is why it's very important to do your replication well in advance of street date: so if you do have a problem, you have time to correct it before panic sets in. Things do go wrong. If the plant acknoledges the bad run, all they can do is replace the bad discs.

Remember, not all problems are audible. Error correction is pretty robust in CD players. It is possible for lots of things to happen in creating a glass master & stamper that will push a borderline situation over the edge. In theory the testing should show problems & a new master will be requested. Why this did not happen here I cannot say.

So the bottom line is to give yourself lots of lead time in case there is a problem.

thanks dear! I DO AGREE with you man!
In fact it is a very bad habit of brazilian clients of mine, they always let everything for the last hours or dates.
seems they do not learn the lesson, it is alway a nightmare if the Cds will come back from the plant prior to release show.
However, sometimes money comes from companied that advertise or help finance or even comes from government projects, so it is a huge delay...