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CD-Rs use an organic dye which fades (or in the worst case the bonds holding it on can delaminate).

They hold up much better if stored in a dark place. A spindle on a shelf that sees sunlight is the worst case and they can become unreadable in years.

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Also don't CD-Rs need a more sensitive detector in the drive to read? I remember seeing somewhere that early drives have trouble with them

I remember reading about drives/players that wouldn't read CD-R, but I've never encountered one in the wild.

Anecdotally, every time I've tried: A burned CD that works well with one reader works with all others.

It was a hobby of mine at that time. I tried a lot of combinations: I was working at a local hifi shop where we had all kinds of stuff rolling through to play around with.

But the above comment said CD-RW? Those are a crystal.

I assumed it was a typo since the topic was burning mixtape discs for folks and I've never heard of anyone giving out CD-RWs like that

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