Actually the subject says all......
But for some who still say that 2x speed give better results, some explanation may be necessary....
Modern recordable CD's, DVD's, CD recorders and DVD recorders are OPTIMIZED for high speeds.
And optimized means giving the best results.......
When you need to slow down to 2x speed the laser is forced into something it's not optimized for and only
works better on spam CD's/DVD's that don't give the speed result thay claim on their packages.
The laser stays longer on the same spot when burning on 2x speed, but the laser itself is optimized
for burning at for instance 16x and thus is stronger with modern chemicals on modern CD/DVD's.
Now when you lower the speed, you don't lower the strength of the laser and thus it burns too strong
for 2x speed. This gives a lot more errors on discs than burning at the optimized speed.
All manufacturers of writable media advice to burn at the optimized speed.
There have been tests in magazines where high speed CD's and DVD's were all burned with the highest
possible speed and at 2x. ALL burned at high speeds gave a better result than the ones burned on 2x.
All these results came from testing with special designed hardware only available at an audio testing
room in Switzerland. It's showed graphically the amount of burning errors on every CD after burning.
The best way is to chose the highest speed possible and use verify after burning.
If this gives a problem, then your disc advertized speed is fake ! Go one level lower....
(for instance 52x speed CDR's and a 48x speed burner which faults at 48 : go to 40x...... obviously
the 52x on the package is more wish than reality...... )
The other way is also possible : I use Verbatim 16x speed, but they burn without a problem at 22x !
Another argument I heard was that older CD or DVD players can have problems playing discs burned
at high speeds.......... well, my 78 RPM LP player won't play my 33.33 RPM LP's either
If you still use a player that can only handle 2x speed burned media, it's about time you finally
upgrade to something more modern than more than 10 years old players !!!!!!