Cyanine (type2) CDR dye, is it good or bad ?

[jaytone]

I used the cdr identifier for a spindle of Maxell cdr's I bought. They say manufacturer is Hitachi Maxell and the dye type is Cyanine Type 2
Are Type2 good, bad or average ?

 

[Mark R]

Cyanine dye is fine - the first dye used was a form of cyanine.

Cyanine isn't as stable as metal azo[1] or pthalocyanine dye. It also has a lower reflectance than pthalocyanine. But it has the advantage that lower quality writers can do a better job of recording it than they can record on pthalocyanine.

[1] - the ATIP info on the CD-R only tells the recorder how best to write to the disc. It doesn't contain information about the dye itself. Usually, types 1 - 4 are cyanine dyes. However, metal azo is recommended to be recorded as type 1, therefore it is identified (incorrectly) as Cyanine.

Additionally, different type numbers don't seem to mean much. I've got a large pile of CD-Rs made by Ritek, but OEMed by different companies, the discs are identical to the naked eye, even the batch numbers are virtually consecutive. However, some discs are Type 1, and others Type 2. I wonder if due to natural variablity in the dye, the manufacturers test the dye, and then make discs with the appropriate type setting to maximize compatability.