I can confirm, Maxell discs seem to work on a wider range of recorders (Sony, Philips in my case) than, say Verbatim which Philips models reject.
Getting fussy about media is often a sign that the laser is on the way out -- I've revived a couple of decks by cleaning the laser lens (one had been used by heavy smoker).
Curiously, CD recorders seem pretty unreliable compared to computer CD-R and DVD-R drives which cost far less (and are easy to replace when they fail).
Musicians I know have switched to using computers or solid state recorders.