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Topic: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs (Read 487495 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #125 –
Posted by Treetrunks - 22 April, 2013, 01:47:20 PM
Quote
I am also looking for an external USB drive for ripping audio CDs to FLAC via EAC.

A USB drive is usually just a SATA drive with a USB<-> SATA media converter.  You can buy prepackaged USB drives or make your own with an enclosure which often includes the USB<-> SATA converter.

Quote
All suggestions are very welcome. Are there any known drives which give good results?

I have had a high performance ripping PC with 4 DVD-ROMs that EAC will run concurrently. There does not seem to be an obvious speed loss due to running 4 drives at a time.  The 4 drives run off of their own low cost 4 drive PCI-E SATA controller card.  The net result is much faster ripping, if you keep the beast fed.

One consequence of having 4 drives operating concurrently is that there are about 4 times as many single-drive failures. The failures are often soft failures, where  the failing drive just gets pickier about the condition of the media that it rips error-free. 

The last time I checked my drives out I had a number of CDs on hand from estate sales that tended to cause little tummy aches. I also had a number of different brand new drives. At the time I had 4 different brand drives in use including Asus, LG, Optiarc, and Samsung. Testing with damaged and dirty discs showed the Samsung/TSSTCorp  SH 224 (various submodels) to be far and away the most capable, often giving error free rips where other drives stumbled and even locked up.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #126 –
Hello to all proffessionals :)
I have an external LG GSA-E10N DVD writer, which is capable of X4-48 speeds in writing CDs.
I ordered some Verbatim music CDs, which are X1-X48 capable.
I burn audio CDs not so often, and hope to get a good result when I do so. My question is: is writing in x4 speed good enough, or should I try to get a writer that can write x1?
I like music a lot, and have a good ear for qualities, like the rest of the guys here I guess :-)

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #128 –
We should make a Wiki page about how slower, doesn't mean better.

Quote from: idankanfi on
Hello to all proffessionals :)
I have an external LG GSA-E10N DVD writer, which is capable of X4-48 speeds in writing CDs.
I ordered some Verbatim music CDs, which are X1-X48 capable.
I burn audio CDs not so often, and hope to get a good result when I do so. My question is: is writing in x4 speed good enough, or should I try to get a writer that can write x1?
I like music a lot, and have a good ear for qualities, like the rest of the guys here I guess :-)

If you're worried about an exact digital copy, just check whatever you've recorded. Red Book audio CDs (which I assume what you're referring to) contain Reed-Solomon ECC, small errors do not have an audible effect at all, from the mathematical correct value. When the error is large enough to be audible, or so large that the ECC fails, the CD is either nor playable or the audible artifacts are so huge, they become the prominent feature (very loud squeaking, static, etc)1. Almost all optical recording software offers some sort of checking.

Note that all optical media recorders have an optimal speed, which is almost never at the lower end of the speed band. The mechanics and control electronics are geared such that they cover a relatively large area of the speed-spectrum, which is mainly really just for marketing reasons ("4x-48x" sounds "better" than "30x-40x"). The optimal speed of a recorder, is defined by its block-error-rate, which can be tested, some computer journals used to carry out reviews based on that test. Your "4x-48x" recorder can certainly create optical media within that speed range, but the optimal speed, is in the upper 30's speed factor2. This is also the one speed recorders are tested width at the factory, using a specific disc, with its own speed spectrum.

Now, about recording media. Same thing applies to some extend to record-able optical discs. The substrate is optimized for a specific speed, based on some standard recorder they used to test their discs with. Saying a disc is "1x-48x" means that at "48x" speeds, their substrate is still light sensitive enough to produce a relatively reproducible result. Speed ranges on optical media doesn't make sense at all, all record-able discs start at "0x"3: put a disc into sunlight for a couple hours and see what happens.

There seem to be two fallacies at work here, though I'm not exactly sure were they originate from.
One seems to be coming from the time where recorders were becoming faster and faster, so "faster capable speeds is better". That is a clear case of "bigger is better", in this case referring to the maximum speed. It is in part due to how ever increasing numbers have been used in marketing to sell recorders, etc. An interesting misunderstanding stems from that: quite often, people assumed the maximum numbers must match between media and recorder, in order to be compatible. so when you have a "48x" recorder, you should use media which also has a "48x" printed somewhere on its case.
The other fallacy is I think coming from audiophile narratives, in that recording CDs at a lower speed, improves the copy, or creates a better copy. I guess the mental model is such that if the machine runs at lower speeds, it is possible to be controlled more accurately, the microprocessors have "more time" to adjust the mechanics and henceforth create a more accurate recording - i.e. focusing the laser "better" onto the disc, etc. In practice lower recording speeds are usually just assumed based on a testing speed, but there is a margin. Hence most recorder manufacturers rather play it safe and claim a speed-range of "4x-48x", because they can't be sure at "1x" the recorder will be able to do proper focal control, etc.

If you can detect "quality degradation" between playable and error corrected CD audio streams, your brain is playing tricks on you. If you cannot distinguish static from music, or silence (i.e. a not-playing CD) from music, you have other problems...

  • 1: How error correction is applied to each CDDA frame is described in short here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio#Frames_and_timecode_frames
    If the CRC of your data checks out. you're good.
  • 2: Telling the speed of recorders and media as a speed factor is bullshit, IMO. We should tell the speed of something by it's bitrate, at which it is capable of putting data into the disc.
  • 3: The one counter example to that, is called "M-Disc": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
    It is something I've come across only quite recently (within the last 12 months or so), but I'm not sure it comes in an audio CD format. As far as I know, M-Discs are only available as Blue-Ray variants.

If you can detect "quality degradation" between playable and error corrected CD audio streams, your brain is playing tricks on you. If you cannot distinguish static from music, or silence (i.e. a not-playing CD) from music, you have other problems...

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #129 –
For ripping, I'd suggest buying several inexpensive drives just in case a particular drive and CD combination doesn't work. For example some of the "top drives" in this list:
https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?37706-CD-DVD-Drive-Accuracy-List-2016

For burning... sorry, I have no idea why it is necessary to burn any Audio CD in 2017, maybe giving the CD to someone who only have a CD player but have nothing to play a 16/44 audio file?

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #130 –
Thanks for linking to spoon's list bennetng; I think it may be time to invest in a Lite-on iHAS124 (#1 on the list) before they discontinue it.
My Samsung DVD-RW is failing, and a $20 replacement (with the highest recorded CD ripping accuracy) will be much superior.
 
Quote from: bennetng
For burning... sorry, I have no idea why it is necessary to burn any Audio CD in 2017, maybe giving the CD to someone who only have a CD player but have nothing to play a 16/44 audio file?
My newly purchased used car only has a standard CD deck, with no line-in, I've been to lazy to replace it, and I'm not always carrying around the music I like on my phone (FM transmitter). As such, I've got a bunch of burned mixes.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #131 –
What about the Lite-on iHBS112? Did it even place anywhere in the full article? Or is it too out of date for consideration?

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #132 –
I'm not seeing your Lite-On BD drive in the "complete list" spoon posted in the link, kode, so it may indeed be too out of date.

It is apparently an incredibly fast drive for CD ripping, and the Nero DAE results look excellent, so here's hoping!

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #133 –
Quote from: Audible! on
Thanks for linking to spoon's list bennetng; I think it may be time to invest in a Lite-on iHAS124 (#1 on the list) before they discontinue it.
My Samsung DVD-RW is failing, and a $20 replacement (with the highest recorded CD ripping accuracy) will be much superior.
I have an iHAS124 "F" purchased in 2015. Don't know if the letter make any significant difference or not but so far so good. However, for such a mature technology I guess it is pretty hard to get a really bad drive.

Quote
My newly purchased used car only has a standard CD deck, with no line-in, I've been to lazy to replace it, and I'm not always carrying around the music I like on my phone (FM transmitter). As such, I've got a bunch of burned mixes.
At least it is a valid reason, unlike those who wanted to write at the slowest speed with some "audiophile" grade blank discs and $$$ CD transport with dedicated external DACs and atomic clocks.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #134 –
What's a good USB Blu ray burner drive for ripping audio cd's?

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #135 –
Quote from: RancelDoom on
What's a good USB Blu ray burner drive for ripping audio cd's?

I recently needed a 4K-friendly internal Blu-ray drive and went with the LG WH16NS40. So far it seems solid at CD ripping and burning, with my limited testing. (FWIW the read sample offset correction is +6, the lowest I've encountered.)

According to this list, these LG-made USB drives should have equivalent functionality:

Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK, UHD Official, External Slim 9.5mm USB 3.0
Archgon MD-8107S-U3-UHD, UHD Official, External Slim 9.5mm USB 3.0
BP60NB10, UHD Official External Slim 9.5mm USB 2.0
BP50NB40, UHD Officialish External Slim 9.5mm USB 2.0

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #137 –
I don't know about that one, sorry. From some quick searching, it looks like it's from a different hardware family than those I listed.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #138 –
The lite-on ihas drives are not that accurate in my experience. Bought an ihas624 (all indicators seem to point to it being the same drive as 124, but with more “unlocked” features) and it failed my CD ripping tests. LG Blu Ray drives (eh 14ns40) were able to read flawless discs that the lite-ons continually choked up and produced errorneous reads on. Though the lite-ons are faster in secure mode thanks to the fact that they do not cache audio. So at least they have that going for them. This method of testing and ranking drive accuracy is very flawed and not indicative of how it will handle tricky discs in real-world scenarios, such as discs with strange EFM patterns, or degraded CD-R media, etc.


Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #139 –
I consider the best is a Pioneer with PureRead 4. I used the Binary Comparator from FB2K with a damaged CD and equal new and it rebuild correctly the damaged tracks.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #140 –
LG WH14NS40
I found that it does an excellent job of handling errors.
It's an internal drive, but you could use it externally just as easily.
EZ CD Audio Converter

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #141 –
Quote from: soundping on
LG WH14NS40
I found that it does an excellent job of handling errors.
It's an internal drive, but you could use it externally just as easily.

Interestingly, I have one of those LG drives.  I also alternate between an ATAPI DVD-A DH16ABSH and a Pioneer BDR-205.  All 3 of those are in my desktop computer.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #142 –
Another +1 for the WH14NS40

One of the best, if not the best drive I’ve ever used. Not perfect (no drive is) but it accounts for 99% of my usage. I have 2, as well as a WH16NS60 which is basically the same drive but officially “4K capable” (the same can be done to the 14NS40 by crossflashing firmware)

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #143 –
Can all modern drives rip copy-protected audio CDs ? It used to be a criterion for choosing a drive in the early 2000s (with Plextor being recommended :D ), I wonder if that's still an issue ?

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #144 –
Quote from: bennetng on
For burning... sorry, I have no idea why it is necessary to burn any Audio CD in 2017, maybe giving the CD to someone who only have a CD player but have nothing to play a 16/44 audio file?
Burning backups to DVD/Blu-ray is good because it's a write once operation, so they can't be corrupted / encrypted later. Still a relatively inexpensive way of externally backing up an audio library.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #145 –
Discs can rot as well. In different generations of disc some products often advertise durability, like the earlier Kodak CDRs and the later M-Disc, with dozens or even hundreds of years of life. In reality quite a number of discs I have are already rotted after several years, and my HDD backups are still intact to the point they become obsolete (e.g. PATA > SATA). External adapters are available, though.

Don't know if tapes like LTO are good or not, looks like the tapes are inexpensive, but the drives are.

For important data one may consider backup in distributed locations as well, in case of natural disasters and such.

Also, this topic is about burning CDDA format disc, it is not a very reliable format anyway, so kind of off topic.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #146 –
Quote from: bennetng on
Discs can rot as well. In different generations of disc some products often advertise durability, like the earlier Kodak CDRs and the later M-Disc, with dozens or even hundreds of years of life. In reality quite a number of discs I have are already rotted after several years

True, but to my knowledge I am not aware of any of my Verbatim/TY(Taiyo Yuden) discs rotting which are good/reasonably priced recordable DVD's and should still be a decent option for backing up data (like FLAC etc). but I have seen all of my Memorex DVD+RW discs rot (I got some Memorex CD-RW discs which are largely/mostly still okay and these are older) as you could actually see light though small little holes on it etc as all of these I had are shot (but I never expected much from these anyways). but within roughly the last handful of years or so I bought some new old stock of Verbatim 2.4x DVD+RW (bought a 10-pack) as these discs are probably early-to-mid 2000's. the jewel case has a '2002' date on them and these work great as expected.

basically between hard drive backup and Verbatim/TY media, short of more of a extreme situation (like house fire or natural disaster etc), my chances of permanent data loss should be at a minimum ;)

personally I would not put too much stock in things claiming to last hundreds or thousands of years as no one is going to care by then anyways. so even if that's true or not, don't really matter. but I figure decent media should last 'at least' 10-20+ years and that's a decent portion of a persons lifespan. but who knows, maybe even good quality media like Verbatim/TY might last for a long time and then drop off rapidly. but assuming that does not happen, and that media degrades at a more natural/slower pace, that probably means a person will get a fair warning before any major problems occur reading the data off of it and I would imagine would take at least years to occur from my best guess. but just in my opinion I expect pretty much all of the Verbatim/TY media I have to last at least 20+ years at the minimum given they are still going strong after 10+ years. I have been into DVD burning I think since 2005 and CD burning since I want to say 2002. I still have my good ol' Lite-on 24102b CD-RW drive and my first DVD burner which is a Lite-On 1673s as both are IDE and are currently installed in my backup computer.

but personally... putting hard drive backup aside (since this is typically going to be the all-around best for general data backup), I tend to prefer DVD media (Verbatim or TY branded) for my higher importance backup as I am confident it's reliable enough for at least 10-20+ years as I got discs over 10 years already and are still going strong.

with that said... I realize with even good media there is no guarantee that you won't at least occasionally have ones with disc rot etc. but hopefully that's at a minimum. but even if I overestimate their longevity a bit, between using two different quality brands of media for backup in my higher importance data, there is probably a pretty good chance both won't fail at the same time, which should further lower the chances of data loss.

hell, even if we assume DVD media is pretty reliable for semi long term data backup (call it 20+ years)... there is always the factor that in 20+ years time it might be hard to find drives that can read the media etc. but as long as SATA ports remain standard on desktop computer hardware for the foreseeable future, chances are it won't be too difficult to find DVD drives to read burned DVD's in say 20 years or so. but predicting beyond this, who knows. but I am confident it won't be a problem to find DVD readers/burners for at least another 10+ years.
For music I suggest (using Foobar2000)... MP3 (LAME) @ V5 (130kbps). NOTE: using on AGPTEK-U3 as of Mar 18th 2021. I use 'fatsort' (on Linux) so MP3's are listed in proper order on AGPTEK-U3.

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #147 –
If I wanted to backup a large cache of data to optical media I would use nothing less than 100gb Mdisc blu rays. You can get spindles of 25. That’s 2.5TB of storage for a little over $250. Cost effective? No. Time effective? No. Easy? Well, that would be a lot of disc swapping. But it would be a fairly good way to follow the 3-2-1 rule.


There are still situations where burning a redbook audio CD is called for, but getting rarer by the day. I plan on buying another spindle of CD-Rs, but I am guessing it may be my last. My most recent pack of discs, bought right at the end of the mainstream “CD-R era” lasted me nearly 10 years.
 

Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs

Reply #148 –
Quote from: MrRom92 on
If I wanted to backup a large cache of data to optical media I would use nothing less than 100gb Mdisc blu rays. You can get spindles of 25. That’s 2.5TB of storage for a little over $250. Cost effective? No. Time effective? No. Easy? Well, that would be a lot of disc swapping. But it would be a fairly good way to follow the 3-2-1 rule.

While I can't say for sure, I am not sure how reliable general BluRay recordable media is vs DVD as, without knowing the details, I would tend to trust DVD media more as, just on the surface, DVD appears to be less likely to act up given there is less data crammed into the same amount of physical space. so DVD seems less susceptible to failure.

still, even that aside... $250 is just too much as I would rather invest that into a couple of decent sized hard drives etc which is more practical (sure, I get there is a chance of accidental data deletion but if one has two copies on two different hard drives, the risk of this should be minimal enough). sure, I get that storing on non-hard drive media for higher priority data is a good idea though for extra insurance, but there comes a point where initial cost is a factor.

but then again, the amount of higher importance data I backup is still practical for using standard DVD media. so between a couple of copies there between Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden media and backups on hard drives, my chances of data loss should be minimal short of a house fire or natural disaster and the like.

while you mentioned 2.5TB of optical media storage for $250... while that's better than using standard DVD media, DVD media (Verbatim brand which tends to offer the best value/longevity combo) is generally in the ball park of $25 per 100 DVD's (and tends to be much less $ up front for a fair amount of storage space (i.e. $25 or so for up to 470GB of optical storage space)). so one could say for about $150 one could have 'up to' 2.82TB of storage space, which is a little cheaper...

...but... I could easily see you making a counter argument that it's a lot more practical to use twenty-five 100GB recordable media vs roughly 500-600 4.7GB discs since it will take A LOT less time and A LOT less discs. but it pretty much comes back to how much high importance data one has to backup and in my case I don't burn much to DVD media anymore besides that "can't afford to lose" kind of data which pretty much boils down to family pictures and the like of which I don't have tons of this to burn to optical media which makes DVD the overall better buy for me and I spread it across a couple different brands of DVD (Verbatim/Taiyo Yuden) which further minimized my chances of losing that data. but to be honest, I have been slacking on backing this stuff up to DVD media although I am still pretty good at keeping up with the bare minimums (i.e. two different copies on two different hard drives as a bare minimum rule).

hell, come to think of it... to further lessen the amount of DVD's ill use I might try to limit the family pictures/videos I backup to more higher quality stuff (since I think we all have taken a bunch of random family pictures that are nothing special to us and once you weed-out the typical generic stuff to only the higher quality stuff, that tends to narrow the field down quite a bit). but only negative side effect of this is having to go through and fine tune things which can burn quite a bit of time. but maybe ill try to find a balance of tweaking what I burn to DVD to a degree but not spending too much time on it.

but generally speaking... to keep it simple/practical, short of a very select amount of data, one is probably 'safe enough' by doing the simple thing of having two copies of ones data on two different hard drives (or at least two different storage devices) as just doing this simple thing will greatly lower ones chances of losing data. sure, one could get into more details of leaving one generally not connected to ones computer after copying data to it which would generally protect it against potential viruses and the like, but without over-thinking it, the two hard drive backup is a easy/practical thing to do to give one a solid level of protection against data loss as even people who slack off should be able to do that much if they even remotely care about their data.

Quote from: MrRom92 on
There are still situations where burning a redbook audio CD is called for, but getting rarer by the day. I plan on buying another spindle of CD-Rs, but I am guessing it may be my last. My most recent pack of discs, bought right at the end of the mainstream “CD-R era” lasted me nearly 10 years.

Yeah, I still have quite a few CD-R's (Mitsui brand with some sort of coating on the discs etc. I think I paid $50 for 100 of them) from probably early-to-mid 2000's or so unused. but I am sort of using these only for a bit more higher priority stuff over the years otherwise they would have likely been gone by now as when I was burning CD-R's occasionally over the years I was using up my generic ones which are either gone or pretty close to it at this point.

hell, I still have enough DVD recordable media (basically most of a100-pack from both Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden(TYG02 media code, which is basically 8x DVD-R)) to which I only use for higher priority backup like family pictures etc.

so basically... I probably won't need to buy CD-R or DVD recordable media for years. if I burned more AUDIO CD's I would seriously consider buying a standard Verbatim CD-R 50 or 100 pack though. but in general I don't really use many devices anymore that require standard AUDIO CD's. so usually if I do burn a standard AUDIO CD it's going to be a limited amount as if I want to backup FLAC to optical media, ill probably just opt for standard 4.7GB DVD's since one can fit quite a bit on those and I don't have a massive collection either, especially of higher priority songs I care about, so storing them on DVD is still quite practical for me if I needed to as, to ball park things, I probably would not need more than 10-20 DVD's TOPS, and could easily be less if I trim-the-fat so to speak to remove songs from albums I don't really listen to etc, which really cuts back on the amount of storage space FLAC takes. I get some people like to keep albums intact, and I do to some degree, but in terms of burning to DVD I would probably want to take more of the higher priority music approach to keep the amount of data needing to burn at a minimum.

but come to think of it... some music/artists may still get more music added to the FLAC collection as time passes, so I am less likely to want to burn this to permanent storage, but some artists who are either dead or don't really make any music anymore, that's much safer to burn since the collection basically won't need to be updated. but it's easy enough to only burn FLAC music to DVD that won't change while leaving the stuff that may change to only storing on hard drive backups.

ill stop babbling now ;)
For music I suggest (using Foobar2000)... MP3 (LAME) @ V5 (130kbps). NOTE: using on AGPTEK-U3 as of Mar 18th 2021. I use 'fatsort' (on Linux) so MP3's are listed in proper order on AGPTEK-U3.