Kodak used to make some brilliant blank media. Their gold CD-Rs used to be brilliant and would work on even the fussiest CD player/drive. They used to use actual gold within a metal based dye to give much better reflective properties, hence the reason they worked well in most drives. Sadly Kodak pulled out of the media manufacturing market years ago.

I'm surprised imation discs work so well as they are really cheap branded media. Do you know what the dye type is they use?