Updated 25 July 2022: I'm adding a "star" to the rating, up to the 3-star "OK" level, since Maxell's discs have been sourced only from Ritek over the past couple years. These are now made in Vietnam instead of Taiwan but performance is the same. Still, while these discs are inexpensive and reasonably free of manufacturing process issues, compatibility with many CD recorders can be poor. This was more of a problem when Maxell sourced them from CMC (Verbatim), and not just an issue affecting us cranks who like to use ancient equipment. Even when those discs were properly burned, some CD players were not be able to read them.Maxell is responsible for cluttering the label side with their logo, but they are not directly at fault for how badly these discs work. They don't manufacture them, and their current sourcing seems to be limited to Taiwan makers Ritek and CMC Magnetics. Compatibility problems with CMC's discs are nothing new; my Philips CDR 560 and CDR 870 didn't like them 15 years ago, when they appeared under the Memorex and (yes) Philips names. But in the past most Ritek discs worked on the Philips machines, while now even my JVC XL-R5000 kicks out both Ritek and CMC, after making squawking noises, not even getting to the "OPC" routine, though the recorder still works fine with most older discs from the two suppliers.Maxell has usually sourced their discs from Ritek, though for a couple years used CMC. The maker can be determined by the lettering in the reflective layer around the hub, best seen from the "recording" side, as shown in the attached pictures; the CMC discs include "CCLAT" in the marking, while Ritek has "RTA80M" mirror-imaged, as viewed from the "recording" side. While performance of the light-sensitive dye gets most of the blame, and is likely a major issue, other factors are involved, including how close the initialization area is to the center of the disc. Defined by the "pre-groove" etched into the plastic, this is where the "OPC" test area, the Table of Contents and information identifying the disc type are located, and was moved inward, consuming space that had been left to cover manufacturing variations, when 80 minute discs first appeared early in the century to get a small part of the extra six minute capacity. 80 minute discs are supposed to be compatible with older drives, but sometimes the laser assembly can't get to the start of the "groove" to read or write data. Other means can be used to get the extra time with less effect on compatibility, and Japanese maker Taiyo Yuden was quite successful at doing this. It is a shame they stopped making discs.While I don't like these discs very much, I don't know of any good alternatives. Discs sold as Memorex, Verbatim, Imation and several "generic" brands come from the same sources, though Verbatim is now owned by CMC, so at least their discs will all be from the same maker. SONY appears to have exited the "Music" CD-R business, and while still listed by some dealers I had poor results with several batches tried over the past three years. The only good alternative was MAM-A, but while most of them usually worked on the Philips recorders they had serious manufacturing quality issues, mostly dye voids and blobs of non-removable "stuff" stuck to the recording side, hard to see and large enough to cause the disc to crash. And in May, 2020: I got a batch of MAM-A discs that were sourced from CMC Magnetics, giving the same results seen with the CMC/Verbatim discs.Aside from some warped discs, which may not be the maker's fault, I've had little trouble from physical defects with Maxell's recent CD-Rs. They aren't compatible with the "classic" Philips recorders, including the CDR 765, though I've found a few in batches of Ritek-sourced discs that work, and from limited testing I've done would likely have low yield on the slightly later CDR 778. But most of them do work on other recorders, even some older ones such as those made by LG Electronics, like the SONY RCD-W1, Harman Kardon CDR 20 and AIWA XC-RW700. They usually work in the SONY RCD-W500C, though that recorder sometimes won't finalize them. I find they record properly in a GPX CDRW3500, though some finished discs aren't recognized by the playback drive of that machine. And the discs should cause few problems on newer recorders, like the TEAC CD-RW890. While they should work in all stand-alone recorders and players, I can't say they are really up to the "OK" level, but they seem to be the best "music" CD-Rs that are currently available.