
That’s why such devices were also called “CD burners”. Writing on them was achieved thanks to a powerful laser in CD writing devices, which heated their surface to create those pits. Writable discs had a thermo-sensitive chemical structure. The pressure was what created the track and pits on their surface. A laser head in a CD reader could then “scan”that track and, depending on the elevation of each point, “read”data as zeroes and ones.Ĭommercial CDs were pressed, literally, from a master disc. Data was stored on an imperceptible spiral track on the metallic surface as a sequence of pits. Those little discs were a combination of a protective plastic layer and a thin metallic surface. So, let’s see how you can turn your modern MP3s into old-school Audio CDs, just like the older folks did back in the day How Do Audio CDs Work?ĬDs are all but obsolete today. And that upgrading its audio system for the modern era would cost much more than a CD/DVD “burner”and a dozen optical discs. And then you realize your old car’s audio system can only play CDs. That’s why it feels as if you can listen to your favorite tracks from everywhere. Our offline music lives in external drives, USB sticks, or SD cards.

Music-playing devices today support streaming or playing audio files from portable storage media.
