What is the size or time limit on audio cds?

Audio CD vs Data CD:

• A true audio CD can be at most 79 minutes in total play time but you should try to keep it less than 74 minutes (see notes below). 
• If your recordings are more minutes than that, either break them down into multiple disc sets or modify your project and make it a Data CD.  
• It does not matter how large the files are. Audio CDs are limited by time, not file size.
• A Data CD is not limited by total play time.  It's limited by file size only.  
• For example, a Data CD of .mp3 files can play for hours in a computer, some car cd players, some game systems and some bluray or DVD players. The drawback is that a data cd is not going to play in an older CD player. A Data cd of mp3 or wav files can easily be imported into iTunes from your computer for example.

Audio CDs (This section is credited to  audacityteam.org guide:)

There are two main types of CDs that you can create with CD burning software: audio CDs and data CDs.

• To ensure that you create a CD that will play anywhere it is important to choose Audio CD, not Data CD. A data CD containing for example MP3 or WAV files will play happily on your computer but is unlikely to play in a standalone CD player or in-car CD player (note that some modern CD players will play data CDs). An audio CD will play on any standalone or in-car CD player and in your computer and in modern DVD players.

Audio CDs do not have files or a file system like data CDs and other computer storage media, but consist essentially of a stream of bits on the disc in a single spiral "track" with a TOC (Table of Contents) index.

• Audio CDs are generally limited to 74 minutes playing time on a 650 MB disc ("Red Book Standard") or 79 minutes on a 700 MB disc." 

In any case:  You should try to make your discs 74 minutes or less to be compatible with most cd players.  The problem is that some audio files can be burned to high capacity discs like ours, but the last track or the last part of a track might not fully play in all cd players.  To be most compatible, try to keep it under 74 minutes.  If we try to burn your audio cd and our system gives us an 'insufficient space' error, we'll have to inactivate the project and you'll have to edit down and shorten the disc, or add a 2nd disc to the set (split it up into another disc - we offer multi disc sets).

File Format: When you make your .WAV or .MP3 files, they must be in exactly the following format (there are no ranges or options).   Then, add them to the zip file in alphabetical order (we recommend you name your files with leading zeroes such as 01aaa.mp3, 02bbb.mp3, 10ddd.mp3, 11eee.mp3 so they sort properly). 

Audio CD players read in this format, thus you need to have your .wav or mp3 files in this format:
Audio Sample Rate: 16bit
Channels: 2 (stereo)
Audio Sample Rate: 44 khz
Bit Rate: 1411 kbps  (does not matter for .mp3, but we recommend 192 or higher)


Most newer dvd players, game systems (xbox, ps3), cd players, bluray players, car cd players can read mp3 data cds as audio. You can get hours of audio on an mp3 data cd.


keywords: music, band, audio, .wav, mp3, format