i've recently stumbled again upon an old and maybe somewhat obscure issue, which is that burning (certain?) mixed-mode bin/cue images with alc120% will produce very loud static instead of working CD audio tracks. apparently, the issue is that a byte order swap is needed for this to work correctly, which still does not seem to be implemented in alc120% as of now. playback software seems to be able to perform this automatically when needed, so you really just encounter the issue after burning. some newer tools like cdrdao are said to implement this with a manual toggle, but i'm not sure how to decide whether a bin/cue image needs the swap, and am still wondering whether some kind of workaround could be out there to apply with alcohol 120%. there is oddly not very much information on this out there.

imgburn may actually not have this issue from what i recall, but the fact is that it does still not support RAW DAO recording and is limited to DAO/SAO recording. in my understanding, RAW DAO is generally considered the best recording method. in my experience, verifying any kind of burned mixed-mode CD with imgburn will inevitably throw mismatch errors. but truthfully, it seems that not even a working alcohol 120% burn with RAW DAO (which by the way won't even let you verify the burned disc) will give a 100% exact copy of a mixed-mode CD: An exact backup copy of games in mixed mode

so i guess the real question is, outside of using old plextor software and burners as is done in the redump community, which method is preferable in regards to mixed-mode CDs, or rather the least flawed?