CD & DVD Drives: Is it better to record at slow speeds or fast speeds? 

There are many opinions from experts who claim they can hear differences in discs recorded at 1X and those recorded at faster speeds. That is unlikely, but any measurable differences would be due to the design of the drive and the condition of the laser and their compatibility with whatever medium is being recorded. The facts are: a) recording lasers pulse at slower rates at slow speeds but act more uniformly at higher rates of speed; b) more power is required at faster speeds, but the increase in required power is not proportional to the increase in speed; there may actually be less drift in laser power at the faster 4X-12X speeds; c) lasers in drives operated at the maximum speeds all the time will age faster than if they were used at a lower power levels; d) slower speeds will cause vibrations at lower frequencies which may interfere with the transfer of data: faster speeds create vibrations at higher frequencies that may pose less of a problem; e) tests measuring error rates find little difference in results at slow speeds or high speeds, but higher speeds often slow a very slight advantage.