I'm ripping several music-only, isolated audio channels from some bluray dvds with HD Blu Stream Extractor (to edit later & burn to cds). The audio is raw/pcm, and am ripping as waves (cant seem to use "raw" if I rip that type). Anyway, I'm pretty sure the music is mono, but there are two channels. Is there any reason I should keep both channels instead of one? I wont be creating fake stereo, and one channel would save space on my PC.

I wanted to compare 1-channel vs original 2-channel on cd player, so I burned them to a new Verbatim CD-RW using my new bluray read-only drive*. The audio sounded the same so I'm thinking 1-channel might be fine. But the cd-rw stalled (hicupped) 30 seconds into the 2nd track. Played in another cd player, same thing. Burned the same disc with same tracks in my other dvd drive, same issue at that spot. My PC can read the hiccuping area fine off the cd-rw.
Tried burning two different tracks. Same problem at approximately that point in the cd-rw. So it seems like the disc has at least one defect.
Is there a disc diagnostic which can check CD-RW for issues?
Is it possible the bluray drive screwed up the disc? I ask because I burned a dvd and it looks like it has radial scratches somehow inside the disc. Wondering if it's burning too hot. If it would be better to post my cd-rw question at another site, let me know.

*SAMSUNG Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-/+R 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Combo Model SH-B123L