This is an excellent question. Unfortunately, color is not a useful CD-R quality indicator. The human eye sees color in the visible portion of the light spectrum, while CD-R lasers operate in the infrared part of the spectrum. Only the interaction between the infrared laser and the organic polymer dye layer is important to quality, not visible color such as gold or green. Read lasers operate at a very low power level that does not alter the dye. Writers switch laser power to much higher levels that alter the dye during recording. The matrix of CD-R dye types, writers, firmware revisions, and recording software are far more complex than for CD-ROM discs.