Can't recall seeing a thread on CD Writers, but my old Lite-On got me thinking about this inexpensive piece of equipment in the expensive music chain.  My CD Architect burns were sounding glitchy, so I'm wondering if it's time to get a newer quality buy... not sure if it is the problem, but it's a starting point.  
So do I need a whiz bang drive, or is the new $35 Plextor on Amazon good enough?  I may stay away from the $20 models tho.

May not be the CD Burner.  Try burning with a different program and see how it acts.  May be the CD blanks - try a different brand or batch. 
The $20 models work as good as the high priced ones.  Generally you get what you pay for, but CD burners isn't in that category. 
 
One consideration is the disc burn speed.  Many older drives could burn audio CD's at 8X or 12X speed.  New models will only go down to 16X.  16X is fine for new/newer audio CD players but many older audio CD players will not play audio CD's burned at 16X and some even at 12X.  The discs in these older Audio CD players will either skip or not play at all.  If you at burning discs for clients with older players this can be an issue.  Fortunately, I have some older CD burners that burn at 8X.

thanks fireberd... I listened to the mastered wav source files and didn't notice anything.  I use CD Architect so it has a good history... listening to it through the porgram sounds fine. i did some research and found many recommendations for the Plextor drives over the standard $20 drives.  It may also be a CD issue since they may be abt 5 years old.  I noticed also that a new M disc standard (for dvd) is available that supposedly prolongs the life of the discs, but nothing new about CDs.  I can understand my 5 yr old stack of printable CDs may go bad, but not my Taiyo Yudens.