New Cyberian was among the first few companies to define the subtle difference between CD duplication and CD replication.  The purpose of such distinction was to help our customers decide which way of copying best suits their needs.  When we wrote the articles at that time we didn’t have the SEO intention but with the unselfish desire to help our customers. Today, articles address the difference between CD duplication and CD replication mushroom everywhere as our competitors are writing articles just for the sake of SEO without the concern of the needs of the readers.

Let’s reiterate what CD duplication and CD replication are.

A good analogy is when you need to make copies of brochures.  When the number of copies is small, you probably will just use your color printer to print them. That’s fast and quick but the quality probably will not be very impressive. When you need to make 1,000 copies, your color printer can still handle that but simple economics tells you that the opportunity cost will be pretty high, meaning you will need to spend a great deal of time to do the repetitive copying by sacrificing the valuable time that may reward you with higher value.  In that case, hiring a professional printer to put your printing job on the press will make more sense.  By the same token, compact discs, be them CD or DVD, can be copied using home or office computer one by one, or in large quantity by dedicated machines in a factory setting.  In our industry, we call the former duplication and the latter replication.

With the terminologies elucidated, you now should have a better grip on when to do duplication and when to do replication. When the ordered quantity is small and the lead-time is tight, CD duplication usually can meet the urgent need.  But when the quantity is big CD replication should be used for better quality and more cost-effective on the unit price. Now you may ask at what quantity is considered as big.  In the past 1,000 was considered as the threshold to have replication.  But with competition on the rise, replicators have reduced the replication entry-level.  Most replicators will accept 500 to start a replication job.  New Cyberian goes one step farther by making 300 as the minimum for CD replication with a super-fast 5-day turnaround.  So when you have a disc copying project next time, consider using replication instead of duplication.