The syntax of the /etc/default/cdrecord is really tricky and non-documented (and it's really useful)... Maybe you could copy cdrecord.dfl (which comes in the cdrecord tarball) to /etc/default/cdrecord (at least a commented file) ... I really haven't found instructions on configuring it anywhere besides the source. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
The cdrecord.dfl will be copied to /etc/default/ with cdrtools-2.01_alpha27-r1 and later. Thanks for your suggestion.