Battleangel

Gah. I’m going crazy here. And just because my pile of blank CDRs is running low. So, whats the big deal? Most people buy CDs all the time and they don’t make such a big deal out of it.
Well, maybe they should. It’s an investment that can turn really sour if you go cheap or miss the obvious flags. Anyway, here are the brands that are available to me at this time (all are 50 pack spindle):

1. Imation 48X CDR 80min
2. MMore 48x CDR 80min
3. XEED 48X CDR 80min
4. Memorex 24x(?) CDR 80min (local!)

5. Plextor 48x CDR 80min (hard to get hold of .. so it’s not really a contender)
6. Verbatim 48x CDR 80min (also tricky …)

7. 10-pack: Verbatim (local!)
8. 10-pack: Fuji (local!)

The dark horse in this crowd is really XEED. According to new info I’ve received they are actually manufactured by Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. Impressive if it turns out to be true. As for the rest of the crop, I’m disgusted with the dev. on the CDR market. First Kodak bailed and then HP disappeared (at least over here). Now I’m left with these sorry excuses for compact discs.
Either I can get a pack of XEED now or I can wait and buy Verbatim in jewel locally as I run out (a bit more expensive and I get a bunch of pointless jewel cases). I’m down to my last four (4!) HP discs now so I better think fast (not my forte either).
Realistically, there is no sure way of knowing what to buy. The information I rely on is years old and refers to artificial ageing tests being performed on a variety of discs. Of course there are no universal truths here and the quality can be fluctuating quite a lot. This is just something that I can not approach with logic alone. Maybe a good advise to MYSELF as well as others would be to store the discs in an adequate fashion (not hot, bright or humid basically) and stop being so fuzzy about the exact manufacturing plant. As long as you don’t get noname discs, you haven’t really shot yourself in the foot.

See also: Item #10 from last year about the HP disc that I’ve been using up until now.