Upon further investigation I am able to use cdrecord to burn discs from
the console.
for I in *.mp3
do
mpg123 --cdr - "$I" | cdrecord -audio -pad -nofix -
done
cdrecord -fix
Seemed to work OK. No change with K3B.
--
External cdburner not usable for burning
https://launchpad.net/bugs/47800