If I burn audio to a CD-RW, is there any particular format best for older CD players that might not play a CD-RW? A spool of CD-RW discs is all I have on hand.

Many CD players will not play CD-RW's. You can try CD-R's. Newer players usually handle those just fine. Older players, well, that depends on the specific older player.

CD-ROM is the original format that CD players were designed for. CD-RAM's are totally different. Stay away from those.

CD-RAMs? Never heard of them anyway.

Probably a good reason for that. I had a brain-fart and was thinking of DVD-RAM. There is no such thing as CD-RAM, only DVD-RAM. Sorry about that!

If the CD player will not play CD-RW then there's noting to do but use regular CD-R.

I no longer use CD-RW or DVD-RW. They burn much slower than CD-R and DVD-+R media. And they are more expensive. And less compatible moving between different players. I find it significantly cheaper just burning regular CD-R's (or DVD-R's) and if I made a mistake, oh well, just throw it away and grab another one to try again. The RW ones would not require you to throw them away after a mistake since you can reuse them. However, it's cheaper and faster to just use the regular non-RW ones. If you screw up the burn on one, they really DO make good drink coasters. And throw one in each car to use as an emergency signal mirror in times of disaster. They work good for that too (not as good as a real signal mirror, but pretty darn good anyway).

I agree, they are less compatible, although I've had decent compatibility with CD-RW, not so much with DVD-RW. Burn quality is also an issue. I mean I can burn a DVD-R, and I know it will play properly, while a DVD-RW may stutter or stop playing. Certainly you should never use there rewritable media for backups.

HDD platters make the best signal mirrors, super smooth surface, won't break like a mirror.

Ehh, not if you find a good deal--that's why I have them. I was looking for blank CD-Rs at a store, and found spindles of 50 Memorex CD-RWs on a clearance shelf for, I think, US$12. Some CD players in my house won't take RWs, but most will. And I see that they burn slower, but not slow enough for me to mind.

When I'm burning something that is important, like data backup or a backup copy of one of the DVD's I own, I always burn at a slow speed anyway. Typically burn quality is better at slower speeds, but that depends on your particular burner and media. For CD's, I just let them burn as fast as possible and have had good results, even with off brand blank media. But for DVD's, I've found it's better to slow down a bit and use high quality blank media (Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-R in my case: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A17VCJR7EZEX3Z ).

There isn't if the CD player will not take CD-RWs... or am I misunderstanding the question. For those that will it depends on their capability, I would guess MP3 or regular CD audio. Not enough information to know what is best.

Older CD drives were never meant to read RW disc's. The difference between the mark and space on them is very much less than a pressed disc. There is also an issue with how the spacing is on some burns. You have to burn at the very slowest speeds to be sure the spacing isn't off.

So, yes, you can get a lot of older drives that simply won't read CD-RW disc's with any amount of skill or settings. You may even find some drives that won't even read CD-R very well.

Best difference between mark and space is pressed, then CD-R and the lowest is CD-RW. There used to be some CD-RW's that were 1-4X that may read better.

Yeah, I'm aware how important this is, because Linux users told me years ago to burn at 4x if possible. It continually annoys me that most new drives can't burn that slowly. But I lucked out last week, in finding a new CD-RW drive that can.