This isn't what you're thinking. It's not at all about visuals, or contrast, or whatever. Not about grooves either.
Discs must have a prescribed reflectivity. This is achieve by the foil layer, in conjunction with the dyes. That's why, for example, azoic (metallic) dyes are best.
The laser pickup must also be strong enough to recieve the reflected data. Lasers weaken with age, and often fail within 10 years. That's why "100 year discs" are just stupid, considering that "100 year players" do not (and are unlikely to be produced at that far-away date).
There is no "silver dye". All CD-R dyes are shades of green or blue, even if pale. What you visually see is immaterial anyway. You're eyes do not see in the wavelengths used by the CD-R format or the laser.
Overall,
- pthalo is crap, always has been. Cheap Mitsui/MAM-A (rebadged by Kodak, few others)
- nobody uses cyanine anymore, not in decades. Taiyo Yuden was the last cyanine user, deep color dyes, but I'm not sure what they're doing these days; TY is owned by CMC now
- azo is Mitsubishi/Verbatim, now owned by CMC, licensed out to several defunct manufacturers in 00s/10s
All CD-R are now
- cheap (or "expensive" yet actually cheap) pthalocyanine
- quality azo
All CD-R look the same now, very pale green (phtalo), or very pale blue (azo). To the untrained eye, all look silver now.
Essentially, buy Verbatim discs, nothing else.
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