>>>>On that topic, what often appears pretty ironic to me is that many, if not most of the earlier CD players from the times, before CD burners became common or even before CD-Rs existed, have absolutely no problem to play these - and then the drives suddenly became more picky. Just contrary to what one would usually expect...<<<<
Absolutely true! The best player I had (as far as accepting anything) was an original 1980s Sony Discman with am/fm/tv radio from Japan. Gave up the ghost a few years ago, but basically would play anything. Next would be a cheap $20 portable. Those were both before my current Numarks, which also play just about anything. But a fairly expensive Marantz I had (6-disc), a 100 disc player (forget the brand), and several computer drives were very, very finicky. It seems late 90's through mid-2000s were when the machines became "too smart for their own good."
GJ