HydrogenAudio

CD-R and Audio Hardware => CD Hardware/Software => Topic started by: CiTay on 2006-06-11 02:03:16

Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-06-11 02:03:16
In their previous issue, the noted german c't magazine (http://www.heise.de/ct/) had an interesting article about different drives and their usefulness for ripping and burning of audio CDs. So good in fact that i want to post some of the results here. I encourage any german reader to buy c't magazine, it's by far the best around. I don't want to spoil anything with these excerpts. Please order the mag and read the full article. Germans can also order the article for 0.80 Euro here (http://www.heise.de/kiosk/archiv/ct/06/12/214/).

So anyway, they had several DVD and CD burners for the roundup. The read tests were done with EAC (in secure mode). For the write tests, they sent the media to Audiodev (http://www.audiodev.com/) in Sweden for detailed CATS analysis.

Keep in mind that these results are for (audio) CDs only, not for DVD ripping/burning.

Scores, worst to best: -- / - / o / + / ++

Quote
BenQ DW-1640
- Burn quality: +
- Read speed: +
- Read quality: +
- Reading copy-protected CDs: o  (no CDS100/CDS200B/DocData2/Key2AudioB)

LG GSA-H20L
- Burn quality: o
- Read speed: -
- Read quality: o
- Reading copy-protected CDs: +  (no CDS100)

LiteOn SHM-165P6S
- Burn quality: -
- Read speed: --
- Read quality: ++
- Reading copy-protected CDs: +  (no CDS100)

NEC ND-4551A
- Burn quality: +
- Read speed: ++
- Read quality: --
- Reading copy-protected CDs: o  (no CDS100/DocData1/DocData2)

Pioneer DVR-111
- Burn quality: ++
- Read speed: o
- Read quality: o
- Reading copy-protected CDs: o  (no CDS100/DocData2/Key2AudioB)

Plextor PX-760A
- Burn quality: +
- Read speed: + (note: with Plextools, was slow with EAC)
- Read quality: +
- Reading copy-protected CDs: ++

Samsung SH-W163C
- Burn quality: o
- Read speed: +
- Read quality: o
- Reading copy-protected CDs: o  (no CDS100/DocData1/DocData2/Key2AudioB)

ASUS CRW-5232A3
- Burn quality: +
- Read speed: o
- Read quality: -
- Reading copy-protected CDs: o  (no CDS100/DocData2/Key2AudioA/Key2AudioB)

Plextor Plexwriter Premium 2
- Burn quality: +
- Read speed: +
- Read quality: -
- Reading copy-protected CDs: ++

Plextor PX-230A
- Burn quality: +
- Read speed: +
- Read quality: ++
- Reading copy-protected CDs: ++




They also tested different CD-R media as to which can offer the best burn quality. They were burned with the NEC ND-4551A and the Plextor PX-760A, sent to Audiodev, and the results were averaged. They were also subjected to 100 hours of 80°C and 85% humidity to simulate aging, for 20 discs of each brand ("durability").

Quote
Plextor CD-R 48x (Taiyo Yuden / cyanine dye / silver)
Quality: +
Durability: ++
Compatibility: ++

Primeon Gold CD-R 48x (C.S.I. MAM-E / phthalocyanine dye / gold)
Quality: --
Durability: o
Compatibility: +

Sony CD-R 48x (Sony / phthalocyanine dye / silver)
Quality: +
Durability: +
Compatibility: +

TDK CD-R 52x (CMC / phthalocyanine dye / silver)
Quality: -
Durability: +
Compatibility: -

Verbatim CD-R DLP 52x (Mitsubishi / azo dye / silver)
Quality: +
Durability: --
Compatibility: ++

Verbatim CD-R Audio 16x (Mitsubishi / azo dye / silver)
Quality: --
Durability: --
Compatibility: --



And to top it off, excerpts of a test on how burn speed affects burn quality:

Quote
Plextor CD-R 48x (TY) burned with Plexwriter Premium 2:

4x speed - burn quality: +
4x speed AMQR - burn quality: ++
16x speed - burn quality: +
48x speed - burn quality: o



Some more results are here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=35977&st=0&p=317468&#entry317468) (older drives).
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Zoom on 2006-06-11 03:15:30
These results make me feel less crazy for ripping and burning audio CDs at 8x my Plextor Premium. Although it makes me happy that I only buy Taiyo Yuden media, because it's cheap, easy to find and I've yet to have a problem with any disc burned.

On a side note, I wish there were an excellent magazine in the United States like c't magazine. I always hear about excellent articles and coverage from this magazine.

Good info CiTay.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Andavari on 2006-06-11 03:58:21
Very interesting, and I apprecitate the information. Thank you CiTay.
I wish there were an excellent magazine in the United States like c't magazine. I always hear about excellent articles and coverage from this magazine.

You aren't the only one wishing there was an equivelent here in the U.S., but even better if the original c't was just translated to English and sold here as well.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-06-11 11:44:59
Very interesting, and I apprecitate the information. Thank you CiTay.

I wish there were an excellent magazine in the United States like c't magazine. I always hear about excellent articles and coverage from this magazine.

You aren't the only one wishing there was an equivelent here in the U.S., but even better if the original c't was just translated to English and sold here as well.


Glad you find it useful. About the translation, i don't think it's feasible. Substracting the ads, you're looking at roughly 150-200 pages of pretty technical text every 2 weeks. It would take an armada of tech-savvy translators to cope with that amount of text within a week or so. They do have an english section (http://www.heise.de/ct/english/), but honestly, it's not worth a look.

It's a pity, because there certainly aren't any better mags i know of and not that many website reviews can be trusted (sponsorship & impartiality issues, testing practices, etc. Another good read for germans: reading product tests the right way (http://www.orthy.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1614&Itemid=85)) But don't despair, i will try to inform you about any groundbreaking results concerning audio topics. I obviously can't post complete articles or results, but you can expect summaries of the most important points like in this thread.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: evereux on 2006-06-11 15:04:23
Another vote of thanks for that information Citay.

I was also going to ask if anyone knew of a publication like this in the UK. c't really seems like a quality magazine. 
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: vinnie97 on 2006-06-11 15:51:59
As far as websites are concerned, http://www.cdrlabs.com (http://www.cdrlabs.com) is a pretty good source for drive and media testing.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: rudefyet on 2006-06-11 16:12:26
Yep...I can attest for the "-" quality and compat. rating of CMC media

my Toshiba dvd player won't even read them anymore, but the Sony works fine...*sigh*
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Demetris on 2006-06-11 21:46:47
Thank you, CiTay. Really appreciated.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Hollunder on 2006-06-11 22:13:25
looks interesting, how many drives have been tested? Are they cd-only or dvd-drives too?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-06-11 22:49:33
looks interesting, how many drives have been tested? Are they cd-only or dvd-drives too?


Ten (as you can see), the last three are CD writers, the other ones DVD/CD writers.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Hollunder on 2006-06-12 00:07:46
I thought the ones you have postet are just a few of the tested, thanks anyway
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-06-12 01:12:34
I thought the ones you have postet are just a few of the tested, thanks anyway


No, those were all, but the review and the results were a lot more detailed. I only posted the most important bits.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: spoon on 2006-06-12 08:52:55
Plextor Plexwriter Premium 2
- Read quality: -

That is not a result Plextor will want to see, although the Plextor PX-230A comes top for reading alone.

Does it go into detail about the copy protections? (I suspect 95% are false 2nd sessions, where the other 5% might be intentional uncorrectable noise).
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-06-12 11:45:03
Does it go into detail about the copy protections? (I suspect 95% are false 2nd sessions, where the other 5% might be intentional uncorrectable noise).


There was a previous article that elaborated on the most popular copy protections. Let me give you an example, the CP called Key2Audio.

CDs protected with this CP are multisession CDs, which in itself is already a violation of the Red Book standard.

- First session: Contains the audio tracks. Several violations of Red Book audio CD standard: The Pre-gap is 10 seconds long (standard: 2-3 seconds). In the main-channel of the first pause, there's ROM-data in Mode-1-format (specified in Yellow Book), in all frames from 00:00:00 (MM:SS:FF) till 00:02:00, but the Control-Nibble has the value 00, which would be 2-channel audio. The frames all contain the same ROM-data 0x00. EFM-coded and interpreted as audio data, the frames 00, 86 and 97 of each subcode frame contain non-null audio samples, and the frames from 01 to 85 contain null-samples (digital silence).

These audio samples can contain a 24-bit sequence which is inserted in illegal places, to prevent the detection of the beginning of each frame by a PC drive. They can also contain certain bit patterns which prevent a clock retrieval from the data stream. This doesn't affect a stand-alone CD player, since it normally skips the pre-gap.

- In the gap before the first track, the subcode-Q data 'Amin', 'Asec' and 'Aframe' (also called 'Atime') is faulty. Atime is sometimes a constant 00:00:00, while it should increase continuously. This can mean that the drive can't find the first track.

- The copy bit of the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS) alternates every 6 frames, signaling that no digital copies are allowed.

- Second session: Mode 2 data session, all data bytes '0x00'. The subcode-Q-data is in the invalid mode 6, and doesn't repeat three times, as stated in the spec. This can lead to an abortion of the read process.

- Third session: Mode 2 data session, all data bytes '0x00'. The Program Area (PMA) is truncated, and the lead-out is missing. The TOC has entries of tracks which are already referenced in the TOC of the 1st and 2nd session. These tracks are now assigned different start times on the CD. Those start times are completely wrong and all point to the single data track of the third session. According to the multisession-CD standard, each start time must be different, there can't be several tracks with the same start time. If a CD drive tries to read an audio track, it receives the wrong start time and jumps to the data track of this third session. The TOC contains a recursive pointer which can lead to an infinite loop.



The other CPs work with similar tricks. They are all multisession-CDs. Some of their tricks are:

- invalid Lead-Ins
- invalid subcode data
- missing frames during pre-gap
- wrong start times of the tracks
- symbol errors in the audio data of the lead-out
- wrong P-Bits
- wrong TOC (Table of Contents)
- uncorrectable C2-errors
- shifted Sync-positions
- faulty ZERO-field
- missing post-gap
- Lead-out containing a mix of data and audio
- Lead-out containing only audio
- Index switching from 00 to 01
- symbol errors in the main channel of the lead-out
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Firon on 2006-06-12 12:42:36
How nice that the Pioneer drive has excellent burn quality. I have a DVR-110D, and I've recommended it and the 111D to a lot of people.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: spoon on 2006-06-12 13:04:29
Thanks for the info, it is a shame I dont speak german, CT seems a good resource...

Pretty much any CD drive should be able to read the first session TOC (with the right calls) - it is then upto the drive. I think this article is showing is that modern drives will see though these copy protections without the need for special programs, which is good (although I am suspect of the Plextors needing Plextools - this test should (perhaps they did) have used one program for reading).
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Pio2001 on 2006-06-12 19:22:18
To complete what Citay said, in the last versions of CDS200, the sectors are 99 blocks long instead of 98.
The CD player is supposed to read all of them, while the computer drives stops at the 98th block of the last sector of the burst read command. Then it restarts at the first block of the next sector, missing the 99th.

Actually, my hi-fi CD player also skips the 99th block sometimes (http://perso.numericable.fr/laguill2/smileys/mad.gif) And it's a pure hifi stereo player from 1991 !
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Andavari on 2006-06-12 19:46:53
That's pretty involved from them to CP a disc like that.

Being sarcastic:
An easier solution- they could use the crappiest CMC discs ever made.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CSMR on 2006-06-12 19:58:10
(although I am suspect of the Plextors needing Plextools - this test should (perhaps they did) have used one program for reading).

Lookes like they used EAC for everthing except where noted. I would have been happier if they had used the best software for each drive, which would be plextools for plextor, EAC for everthing else.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: LaserSokrates on 2006-06-18 12:29:31
If you can point me to the issue of c't, I'll try to translate the article. I have too much free time on my hands nevertheless.

Edit: Is it the article titled "Konservatorium digitale"?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-06-18 13:25:01
If you can point me to the issue of c't, I'll try to translate the article. I have too much free time on my hands nevertheless.

Edit: Is it the article titled "Konservatorium digitale"?


I don't think that's a good idea. I'm already stretching the limits with those small excerpts of the results here, not having a written consent from c't. For a full translated article you definitely have to get an approval from c't first (and please don't mention this thread  ). I'm sure some c't people have seen this thread already, they definitely keep track of the stuff on HA. But so far it has been a deal of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". They also get some nice stories from here. 
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: LaserSokrates on 2006-06-18 13:50:48
IMHO, there wasn't too much new in the article about ripping - the only interesting part were the tests. Most of us here already know about accuraterip, accurate stream, lossless formats etc.

Man, I'm bored. Just finished my Abitur and now I've got nothing to do...
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-06-18 13:53:14
Man, I'm bored. Just finished my Abitur and now I've got nothing to do...


Hehe.. there's always the World Cup.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Triza on 2006-06-18 20:57:10
Guys! I did my own independent test and I reached a very same conclusion about the Premium. The old version, that I bought half a year ago. Read this (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=43754&view=findpost&p=384253).

I sold my Premium shortly after my tests. The fame of Plextor is one of the biggest myths on the internet. I owned the Premium and also the PX-716A and I am not planning to buy any more Plextor product. The ridiculous thing is that cost was never a consideration.

Triza

PS: Just another anecdote: Last week my new Plextor PX-716A, which was RMA-ed before not being able to read 10% of my pressed CD-s, failed to even recognize a spanking new CD that has zero (nada!!!!!) scratches. Despite the fact that it is a new HW model (TLA#03xx). I admit that the CD had some pressing errors because even my Liteon CD-RW did not read it with the lightning speed it used to, but it could not just recognize it, but read it. I read it twice with it and I got identical copies. So it is likely that the rip was bit perfect. Again Plextor "The King of Quality" could not even recognized it. I got those stupid blinking error codes.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: JeanLuc on 2006-06-18 21:37:10
To complete what Citay said, in the last versions of CDS200, the sectors are 99 blocks long instead of 98.


The record labels should be forced to clearly verbose on the cover artwork what they are doing ...
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: soulsearchingsun on 2006-06-19 09:41:29
I read this article, too.
A slight drawback in significance of the "read quality" and "read speed" results is that I doubt that they disabled c2 when measuring reading speed and quality with any other than plextor drives, although they do know about this issue.
Unless they used accuraterip for those tests too (which I don't know) these results aren't worth a cent.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: ShowsOn on 2006-06-19 13:42:19
But is AccurateRip a cure all?

I usually do a Test and Copy, I get matched CRCs for all the tracks. But then AccurateRip may say that most of the tracks were ripped accurately, but one or two weren't.

Does that just mean that there is some unreliable data being sent to AccurateRip?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: spoon on 2006-06-19 17:12:56
> unreliable data being sent to AccurateRip?

If the CD is popular, ie the confidences are > 2 then it is likely your rip had the error.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: ShowsOn on 2006-06-19 18:31:27
> unreliable data being sent to AccurateRip?

If the CD is popular, ie the confidences are > 2 then it is likely your rip had the error.

Unfortunately I rarely rip popular CDs, the discs are only in the database less than 40% of the time... well, the particular pressing I happen to own.

What I'm confused about is that I get say 8 or 9 tracks that say accurately ripped, but 1 or 2 say not accurately ripped. Even though I'm ripping usually from brand new CDs, and Test & Copy isn't showing any errors.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-06-20 04:05:43
If the CD is popular, ie the confidences are > 2 then it is likely your rip had the error.

What would you say about track 9 of this rip?

Code: [Select]
Track    Ripping Status        [Disc ID: 0010d81d-7d0aa90a]

1    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [9967ee84]
2    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [f026293c]
3    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [66c2c300]
4    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [34c71828]
5    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [dc466aa9]
6    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [20d52b53]
7    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [22bd51be]
8    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [782cc51e]
9    ** Rip not accurate **   (confidence 2)     [25e73e29] [770c64ab]
10    Accurately Ripped    (confidence 2)     [a55033a8]

_______________________

Track(s) Accurately Ripped: 9
**** Track(s) Not Ripped Accurately: 1 ****
Track(s) Not in Database: 0
------------------------------------------------------------
Used drive  : PLEXTOR DVDR   PX-716A   Adapter: 3  ID: 1
Read mode   : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache

Track  9
     Filename C:\Unknown Artist\Unknown Title\09 - Track09.wav

     Peak level 87.7 %
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 0B56F8A3
     Copy OK

PlexTools Pro rips this track exactly the same way and a C1/C2 test indicates that the track has no CU errors at any selectable speed.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: spoon on 2006-07-12 16:35:49
With a confidence of 2 it is not really high enough to be sure where the problem exists. If you have a different cd drive then rip that cd if the crcs are the same then it is right.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-07-12 21:23:23
Is the PX-230A able to overread into the lead-in or lead-out? Something makes me think it's a BenQ and therefore cannot do so.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2006-07-12 22:17:18
I was about to ask the same question...My Premium is dying and I need a new reading drive. Going to import the PX-230A is thats the case. I only do my rips in burst mode, with T and C
Cheers
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-12 22:24:55
This seems like a bizarre amount of concern over 17 ms of audio that should be silence.

Edit: Why isn't the same question posed about whether a drive can overwrite its offset samples?
Sure a (edit: real) Plextor can correctly read the last samples of a disc but the irony is that it can't burn them.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2006-07-12 22:47:43
should be silence is the question...Anyway, instead of  critisizeing, why comment if you cannot answer the question?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-12 22:59:27
Quote
should be silence is the question...
At the end of the disc???

I should certainly hope it isn't audible.  If it is, are you really going to miss those 738 pairs of samples?

Pardon me for sounding overly-critical but I have to laugh at basing a purchase on something as trivial as 17 ms of data at the end of a disc.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2006-07-12 23:07:46
Then why bother coming here? or commenting? Many people are interested in preserving 100% of the original disc..Get over yourself and move on!
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-12 23:19:25
Then why bother coming here? or commenting? Many people are interested in preserving 100% of the original disc..Get over yourself and move on!

And what value have you brought to this discussion other than a ditto to what Sebastian said?

Look, I'm really not interested in getting into a flame war with you.

I'm here to let people know that overreading is a feature not to be taken anywhere near as seriously as the ability to read a disc accurately.

Whether you see it or not, my suggesting such a sanity check is beneficial for those who might think that not being able to overread is some mysterious and horrible thing after reading some of the earlier posts.

If people are interested in preserving 100% of a disc here are some other factors that are necessary besides overreading (and this is not a complete list):
Ability to retrieve HTOA
Ability to overwrite
Ability to securely extract subcode data
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2006-07-12 23:26:27
Why bother commenting? I stated I am also looking for a new drive and wanted to know the same thing..You had to go on about how not to worrt about offsets. Many people wish to..Your the one that needs a sanity check!
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-07-13 06:00:16
I am listening to music on my PC anyways, so a drive which can overwrite its offset isn't important for me. If I need to recreate an audio CD, I can burn using an older LG drive I got from eBay which has a 0 samples write offset.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Martin H on 2006-07-14 01:04:35
I have decided that i won't buy a Plextor drive ever again. The fact that Plextor want's to rip their customers off by trying to seel them an extra piece of software, which only use is to be able to use the features of the drives that we have allready paid a lot of money for, is just to much to stand. Also the attitude towards Open Source developers like Alex Noe with his PxScan/PxView tool, and the other one that ported it to Linux(can't remember his name, sorry). Also the drives are way to expensive compared to the compatition, and PlexTools 2.32a must be the most unstable app that i have ever used! When they then also treats their customers like i outlined above, then this just calls for a comunity boy-cot of the brand IMHO. When i first got my Plextor PX-755A, then i was pretty happy with it, but then it died on me about a week after i got it, and then when i got a new unit sent back to me, and was ripping a scratched CD, then it made an exploding kind of a sound twice, and when i then tried to rip it in my fathers cheap no name drive, then it ripped the CD fine with no problems whatsoever. Then there's that damn speed limit thing which now also the newer LiteOn's feature(for the LiteOn's it is called SMART-X technology). Whenever a CD is initialised, then the CD is checked at the outer region for jitter or the error count or something, and then a maximum ripping speed limit is set for the whole CD based on that. Of course when ripping a CD and errors occure, then the drive should slow down, but this system will eg. check a CD and find a single little error at the outer region of the CD, and then because of that, a speed limit will be set for the whole CD at 8x in burst mode, even though the rest of the CD is in perfect condition! This 8x burst speed limit is 3.6x in secure mode with C2 on, which is just to damn slow when ripping a bunch of CDs after each other. Also it dosen't even work right, as it speed limits(8x burst) nearly all the brand new CDs i have ripped and then sometimes it will give full speed to a really scratced CD. About 95% of the CDs i have ripped with this drive have been locked to 8x burst(about 100 CDs), and many where brand new. Also i must admit that it really didn't perform any better on scratched CDs than my older Cyberdrive CW058D CD-RW drive. I wanted to make the DAE Qality test to see how accurate it's returned C2 pointers was, but i couldn't, as the C2Extract.exe app continually said : No matching C2 read mode found!, so i also didn't know how much to trust the returned C2 pointers.

I then decided to buy another drive from another firm which dosen't try to rip their customers off, and i decided for a LG GSA-4167B. I would really like to buy the BenQ DW1655, but as it both caches audio and dosen't return C2 pointers + i didn't think it could do "HTOA", then i decided to look elsewhere, as i wanted a drive which performed efficiently in secure mode with C2 enabled. The reason i choose the LG GSA-4167b, was that it only cached under 64KB audio(so EAC dosen't need to flush the cache between reads), has good C2 pointer accuracy, is "HTOA" capable, has very good DVD+R writing quality and an amazingly fast 16x P-CAV writing strategy  Also the 0 samples write offset is pretty nice too. I read a review of the LG in cdfreaks where it got a SAFE BUY award and featured very good DVD+R writing quality, and cdrinfo measured the drives C2 pointer accuracy to be 99.8% - 100% with two different ABEX test discs. I can't tell you guys what a relief it is to be able to rip in EAC's secure mode with a starting ripping speed of about 20x and continually rising 

If anyone is looking for a very fast ripping drive for EAC, which also has very good DVD+R writing quality, then i can fully recommend this drive.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-07-14 05:58:39
Also the 0 samples write offset is pretty nice too.


Who says it has a 0 samples write offset? Last time I checked, it had a -30 samples write offset and -102 samples read offset.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Martin H on 2006-07-14 23:44:06
Who says it has a 0 samples write offset? Last time I checked, it had a -30 samples write offset and -102 samples read offset.

On the DAE Drive Features Database, then Duble0Syx and jh has both reported the drive as having a +667 samples read offset correction and a 0 samples write offset. Additionally on AccurateRip's Drive list, there are 79 persons that have reported the drive to have a +667 samples read offset correction, just as all the other LG DVDRAM drives. Have you tested it with EAC's test discs, and have you gotten at least two identical matches  for the read offset correction ? I can see that you haven't used AccurateRip to find your read offset correction, as else the drive would have been purged from the list.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Martin H on 2006-07-15 03:53:33
@Sebastian Mares

I said LG GSA-4167B, not LG GSA-2166D
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-19 16:19:57
does the c't review contain any info on the px-230 concerning htoa and overreading? (ps: sebastian cdrlabs forum (http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18651) aparently the folks at cdrlabs have already been throug the is it a real plextor or not discution and seem to agree its an original plextor
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: JeanLuc on 2006-07-19 16:57:33
Why isn't the same question posed about whether a drive can overwrite its offset samples?
Sure a (edit: real) Plextor can correctly read the last samples of a disc but the irony is that it can't burn them.


If I have a drive that reads every last bit off an audio CD, I can edit the ripped image file and add the write offset manually ... using my Premium that has a -30 sample write offset, I just add 30 silent samples to the end of the image and everything is fine.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-19 17:24:07
If I have a drive that reads every last bit off an audio CD, I can edit the ripped image file and add the write offset manually ... using my Premium that has a -30 sample write offset, I just add 30 silent samples to the end of the image and everything is fine.

And if those 30 samples aren't silent on the original CD?

Plextors cannot recreate the last 30 samples of a CD if they are not silent because Plextors will burn them as silence.

I admit this is minutia, but it is nonetheless true!
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-07-19 17:32:06
What are you talking about? If the Plextor has a write offset of -30 samples, the 30 samples JeanLuc added to the end are going to be dumped and the resulting CD will be a perfect copy of the original.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-19 17:34:59
What are you talking about? If the Plextor has a write offset of -30 samples, the 30 samples JeanLuc added to the end are going to be dumped and the resulting CD will be a perfect copy of the original.

No because the last track will be padded by a blank frame and will be longer than the original.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-07-19 17:35:48
I said LG GSA-4167B, not LG GSA-2166D


4166B is identical with 2166D, except that 2166D is external. Not 100% sure about the 4167B, but I thought if the previous model 4166B has a new hardware, LG might continued using it in the 4167B.

ps: sebastian cdrlabs forum (http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18651) aparently the folks at cdrlabs have already been throug the is it a real plextor or not discution and seem to agree its an original plextor


Sorry, but I fail to see any major discussion there whether or not it's a real Plextor. The OP only posted something that looks like a Plextor press release and the rest only asked if it should be seen as update to Plextor Premium or not and some mentioned the price still being high compared to NEC DVD burners.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-19 20:51:56

I said LG GSA-4167B, not LG GSA-2166D


4166B is identical with 2166D, except that 2166D is external. Not 100% sure about the 4167B, but I thought if the previous model 4166B has a new hardware, LG might continued using it in the 4167B.

ps: sebastian cdrlabs forum (http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18651) aparently the folks at cdrlabs have already been throug the is it a real plextor or not discution and seem to agree its an original plextor


Sorry, but I fail to see any major discussion there whether or not it's a real Plextor. The OP only posted something that looks like a Plextor press release and the rest only asked if it should be seen as update to Plextor Premium or not and some mentioned the price still being high compared to NEC DVD burners.

yes you're quite right actually but I also can't seem to locate any information on it being a rebadged unit (well I can find claims of a rebadge) can anyone point out to specific facts that state its a rebadge (you have indicated some info, do you own one and have tested it, otherwise where did you get your info (sharing is good  (and also spath's cache explorer seems to disagree with some of your statements  ), I can't seem to find any real test results on it anywhere and the few info I find seems to be contradictory, thanks in advance for all the help
(btw lacking that is there any good affordable drive wich can overread lead in/out and htoa? ) (the px-230 seemed liked a good candidate specially considering the c't review but I can't confirm those keys features ) (btw if it is a rebadge who is the oem manufacturer?)
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: JeanLuc on 2006-07-19 20:58:39
(btw if it is a rebadge who is the oem manufacturer?)


BenQ/Philips ... regarding the drive's read offset and outer dimensions
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: JeanLuc on 2006-07-19 21:21:51
What are you talking about? If the Plextor has a write offset of -30 samples, the 30 samples JeanLuc added to the end are going to be dumped and the resulting CD will be a perfect copy of the original.


He is talking about CD specs ... every track on a CD (and therefore a complete image, too) must consist of a whole-numbered multitude of audio frames (with one audio frame representing 588 audio samples).

The method of adding silent samples (according to your drive's write offset) to an image will cause the drive to pad silent samples at the end of each track/the image file until a whole-numbered multitude of frames is reached - only these can be written to disc (Feurio! allows you to control this behaviour btw). Thus, the last track will indeed be longer.

But this isn't the point here ... the point was about preventing the drive from not writing data from the original image due to the lack of overwriting ... and the method of adding samples ensures that everything is written to disc ... at the expense of some extra silence at the end.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-19 21:46:45
The method of adding silent samples (according to your drive's write offset) to an image will cause the drive to pad silent samples at the end of each track/the image file until a whole-numbered multitude of frames is reached - only these can be written to disc (Feurio! allows you to control this behaviour btw). Thus, the last track will indeed be longer.

But this isn't the point here ... the point was about preventing the drive from not writing data from the original image due to the lack of overwriting ... and the method of adding samples ensures that everything is written to disc ... at the expense of some extra silence at the end.

I see your point JeanLuc.

What exactly can Feurio! do about this?  Will it allow you to burn partial frames?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: JeanLuc on 2006-07-19 21:53:55
What exactly can Feurio! do about this?  Will it allow you to burn partial frames?


Feurio! just lets you choose whether to pad silence or to adjust trackmarks accordingly IIRC ... but the last track will always be padded.

I don't know exactly anymore because I stopped to use Feurio! (I actually bought a licence!) at the time the regular updates ceased. Modern drives aren't supported out-of-the-box anymore so you basically have to adjust everything by yourself in trial-and-error-procedures ...
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: PatchWorKs on 2006-07-19 22:04:52
Best CD burners are TEAC (every model) ! 
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-19 22:25:43
Best CD burners are TEAC (every model) ! 

Shoot, I have a burner that will overwrite its write samples offset and it's not a TEAC.

LG makes drives that have no write samples offset.
(Edit: No, my burner's not an LG either )

You must be talking about some other criteria?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-07-19 22:50:44
Ah, now I got it. I thought that if the image you want to burn is compliant with the red-book standard (has to, since the image comes from a CD) and then you add 30 samples of silence to overcome the write offset, the burner would truncate the last 30 samples and the data written will be identical with the one from the source. So, if you add those 30 samples, then the burner (or is the application?) will add additional 558 samples of digital silence?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-19 23:00:04
You actually have to shift the data to overcome the offset if the burning software isn't doing this already, but yes 558 samples will be padded to complete the last audio frame.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Martin H on 2006-07-20 02:13:16
Not 100% sure about the 4167B, but I thought if the previous model 4166B has a new hardware, LG might continued using it in the 4167B.

The LG GSA-4167B is based on a Renesas R8J32007FPV chipset, while the LG GSA-4166B is based on a Panasonic MN103SA6GSJ chipset.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-20 12:11:36

(btw if it is a rebadge who is the oem manufacturer?)


BenQ/Philips ... regarding the drive's read offset and outer dimensions


and does the drives read offset match that of a benq or does its size match that of a philips, you keep working on the assunption that it must be a rebadge therefore I should look for those details but I have yet to see a statement that goes something like "ah this drive has x feature/size/offset therefore its a rebadge" all I have been able to find so far is statements that the drive is a rebadge and therefore must lack certain features not a real reviews of its actual features,( just an assumption that it can't have certain features because it must be a rebadge and... a bit of circular reasoning going on there...), wich is what Im looking for so if anyone can point me in the proper way please let me know, thanks in advance

more to the point does anyone here actually own one?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2006-07-20 12:21:28
I should have mine tomorrow...Why does it matter if it is a rebadge? It has been proven as one of the best for Audio reading. If it does the job very well, does it really matter?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-20 14:19:14
I should have mine tomorrow...Why does it matter if it is a rebadge? It has been proven as one of the best for Audio reading. If it does the job very well, does it really matter?

my point exactly It seems the whole rebadge issue has become the dominant aspect whenever one adresses the drive but no actual discution on its features has been made, btw funkyblue when you get yours tomorrow would you kindly test it for for htoa and overreading lead-in/out capabilities (pretty please) if those features turn up positive Im ordering myself one too
(on a side note to all who seem so keen on the rebadge = pure evil ) if it should be so crappy, then what were the c't people smoking during their reviews hey? are we to then just dismiss their analisys completly? (one could argue such magazines can be bought off but why then would they preffer the cheapest plextor over the Uber expensive plextor premium... ??? )

(hell I hope its a rebadge maybe then I can just get a cheaper unit from the oem and flash its firmware )
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-07-20 14:31:33
if it should be so crappy, then what were the c't people smoking during their reviews hey? are we to then just dismiss their analisys completly? (one could argue such magazines can be bought off but why then would they preffer the cheapest plextor over the Uber expensive plextor premium... ??? )


c't is widely known as being incorruptible and one of the only remaining thourough and rather reliable PC magazines around. A rebadged drive is not bad per se. Don't forget that the firmware makes a big difference too, even though the hardware might be shared among different brands. Plextor Premium 2 doesn't have any mythical superpower, it is normal that other drives can be better in certain aspects.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-07-20 15:08:06
Nobody is saying that it's bad, it's just that if it isn't a real Plextor drive, chances are good that it won't support overreading or reading pre-track 1 data.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-20 15:27:46
Nobody is saying that it's bad, it's just that if it isn't a real Plextor drive, chances are good that it won't support overreading or reading pre-track 1 data.

I understand what you mean but the problem is I can't find a single review anywhere that
a) confirms its not a real plextor and therefore It should't have those features or
b) that it doesn't have those features and therefore must be a rebadge

(btw why can only real plextors have htoa and proper overread (I can understand the historical argument that only true plextors have had this, but other than that is it some secret uber patented technology no other manufacturer could ever aquire? ), the few threads I have seen here on its features as of now remain limited to its cache and even that seems to be disputed, one would expect that a drive already a few months old should have been reviewed by someone somewhere
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: spoon on 2006-07-20 16:45:26
I have run 1000's of cds the last few weeks through many different drives, the PX-230A so far comes out tops (have a PX708a and Nec to test). It is a quality drive.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: JeanLuc on 2006-07-20 16:54:00


(btw if it is a rebadge who is the oem manufacturer?)


BenQ/Philips ... regarding the drive's read offset and outer dimensions


and does the drives read offset match that of a benq or does its size match that of a philips, you keep working on the assunption that it must be a rebadge therefore I should look for those details but I have yet to see a statement that goes something like "ah this drive has x feature/size/offset therefore its a rebadge" all I have been able to find so far is statements that the drive is a rebadge and therefore must lack certain features not a real reviews of its actual features,( just an assumption that it can't have certain features because it must be a rebadge and... a bit of circular reasoning going on there...), wich is what Im looking for so if anyone can point me in the proper way please let me know, thanks in advance

more to the point does anyone here actually own one?


Just visit the Accuraterip Drive Offset Database and you'll see ... besides, the PX-230A is based on an ALi chipset whereas every single one of Plextor's own productions is based on Sanyo chipsets.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-20 18:20:43
I have run 1000's of cds the last few weeks through many different drives, the PX-230A so far comes out tops (have a PX708a and Nec to test). It is a quality drive.


so can you post some sort of review please? does it indeed not overread or handle htoa?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-20 18:35:31
does it indeed not overread or handle htoa?

What does EAC say about audio caching with this drive?
What is the C2 accuracy?
Will any of the three modes of gap detection work when set to secure?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: CiTay on 2006-07-20 19:13:38
does it indeed not overread or handle htoa?

What does EAC say about audio caching with this drive?
What is the C2 accuracy?
Will any of the three modes of gap detection work when set to secure?


EAC says yes to Cache / Accurate Stream / C2.

Gap Detection Mode C always works. A, B or both should also work. It's rare that A and B don't work.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-20 19:34:28
The question is whether any of these modes will always work with the detection accuracy set to "Secure".

There are drives that will hang with the accuracy set to "Secure" in any mode.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-20 20:54:36

does it indeed not overread or handle htoa?

What does EAC say about audio caching with this drive?
What is the C2 accuracy?
Will any of the three modes of gap detection work when set to secure?


EAX says yes to Cache / Accurate Stream / C2.

Gap Detection Mode C always works. A, B or both should also work. It's rare that A and B don't work.


on a side note how does one test for overread in linux ? (or in windows (wine) btw? )
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: spoon on 2006-07-20 21:15:00
>EAX says yes to Cache

I am 99% sure this drive does not cache.

>so can you post some sort of review please? does it indeed not overread or handle htoa?

Have not tested those (as they are not important to me). If anyone can point to a commercial audio cd that has !=NULL audio samples right upto the last 768 samples, I want that CD.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-20 21:35:11
>EAX says yes to Cache

I am 99% sure this drive does not cache.

And what does Feurio! say about the drive?

Quote
If anyone can point to a commercial audio cd that has !=NULL audio samples right upto the last 768 samples, I want that CD.

Just about any CD that is AAD that has not been recently remastered will do the trick especially if it was released in the 1980s.

But forget about that.  It's very easy to make your own CD that has HTOA and non-silent samples at the ends to test with, even with drives that can't overwrite since their write offset is only a fraction of the read offset.  This should not be a problem.

Edit: punctuation
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-20 21:48:13
Have not tested those (as they are not important to me). If anyone can point to a commercial audio cd that has !=NULL audio samples right upto the last 768 samples, I want that CD.

I have to admit to being new to this level of high quality ripping but im on a budget constraint with bitperfect quality requirement (if all goes well by tomorrow my exam season is over and the odd hundreds of cds I own are going to be ripped flac and burned into dvd+r or a nas, and hopefully that will be the last I will see of them for the next 3 to 5 years of being away in college in some cramped rented room where every inch of space matters a whole lot (wich made me get the ideia of investing on a domestic low power nas, a laptop a replacement for my iriver-h140 (the original got mugged) some sort of network attached player hooked up to the nas and maybe a discount dell tft as a tv replacement or something to plug a video player to , a bed a blanket and a if there's enough money left an irex illiad or some other device (saving some space by discarding book cases ) and getting all the cultural benefits of home stuffed in a rented room a couble of meters wide or inside a backpack and a 1998 citroen saxo ;)or worst case cenario in a tent and showering at the local swiming pool    ), so getting it done right the first time is very but very important
(translation expect a whole festival of new threads on the perfect linux ripping rig, (something wich can handle almost a thousand in two months), budget scalable silent nas solutions, budget networked multimedia player and speakers for closed spaces, tips on how to store the original cds in a couple of years (im guessing tupperware and mothballs are a stupid idea  ), basicly the zen guide to digital audio setup , like i said everything is on a budget priority of function over form, well anyway that will be something for those other threads I just figured It would be civilized to explain my eagerness to get information wheter or not the px-230 fits in the specs ,and what other alternatives I should be looking for then )in looking for, my apologies for the ranting and thanks for all the help guys
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2006-07-21 01:42:52
Hey Guys,
Just received my PX-230A direct from the USA. (I live in Australia)
Well it's very fast, maxed out at 51x in burst mode! It is faster that my now dead Premium Drive.

I have not had any issues ripping CDS200 tracks so far.
EAC detects it as caching (even with the new command), offset is 738+ and it cannot read into the lead out. (Get timing problems and Accurite Rip, tells me the last track i not accurate)
Also, the read command is different (MMC1) to other Plextor drives I have had.

Any tests people wish me to do, please let me know.
Cheers
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-21 02:09:18
EAC detects it as caching (even with the new command)

Do you mean -usefua?

EAC detecting that a drive caches audio data after using this switch does in no way mean that it will not work properly.

Any tests people wish me to do, please let me know.

Anansi and I mentioned a couple of things:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....&pid=413842 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=findpost&pid=413842)
I'm not expecting and answer for C2 accuracy though a confirmation that EAC detects that the drive can report C2 error information would be nice.

You might also see what spath's cache explorer has to say about this drive on your system regarding caching and the force unit access command.

Thanks for the update funkyblue!

I hope you don't mind that the drive can't overread.  I still don't think that's such a big deal considering what a good job it does ripping.  Hopefully you have space in your system to also include a drive that can if this is really important to you.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2006-07-21 02:49:26
I really do not appreciate your condescending comments~!, you don't need to be like that! Thats your opinion.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-21 03:13:18
I really do not appreciate your condescending comments~!, you don't need to be like that! Thats your opinion.

IMO overreading is not as important as the ability to rip accurately.  I'm sorry that you wish me not to express it and I'm sorry you get so easily bothered.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-21 07:31:35

I really do not appreciate your condescending comments~!, you don't need to be like that! Thats your opinion.

IMO overreading is not as important as the ability to rip accurately.  I'm sorry that you wish me not to express it and I'm sorry you get so easily bothered.

off-topic, then what is overread good for?, back on topic  Funkyblue thanks for all your help , but please do checkout cache explorer if you find the time it does seems to contracdict EACS cache analisys wich in itself deselves a closer looker since it could be a software bug in one of two very important pieces of software so I would seem something well worth looinkg into,
thaks for all your help you'be been great
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-21 08:25:31
off-topic, then what is overread good for?

In the case of the PX-230A, it reads 738/44100 seconds earlier than the commonly accepted standard.

EAC will compensate for shift by delaying the data by 738/44100 seconds.  This is no problem until you reach the end of the disc.  Some drives will not provide data past what they consider the end of the last track, the area that is known as the lead-out.  When the drive cannot overread into the lead-out and depending how EAC is configured, it will either cut the last track 738 sample pairs short or it will pad the last 738 sample pairs with silence.  For discs where the last 738 pairs of stereo samples are silent, this makes no difference.  When they aren't silent they cannot be recovered.

I have met a few people who believed that offset samples would be missing from the end of every track.  Hopefully you can see from my explanation that this isn't the case.

Some drives read later than the commonly accpted standard.  In this case EAC will read data early and the beginning of the first track will have to come from the lead-IN.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-21 17:17:12
ok so what does reading into the leadout provide?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-21 17:52:12
ok so what does reading into the leadout provide?

In the case of the PX-230A, it would allow you to recover the last 738 samples of the last track if they aren't silent.  Because the PX-230A cannot overread into the lead-out, the last 738 samples of the last track will always be silent.  All this assumes you've calibrated your drive to the accepted standard using read offset correction, of course. 
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-21 22:52:42
ok so what does reading into the leadout provide?

In the case of the PX-230A, it would allow you to recover the last 738 samples of the last track if they aren't silent.  Because the PX-230A cannot overread into the lead-out, the last 738 samples of the last track will always be silent.  All this assumes you've calibrated your drive to the accepted standard using read offset correction, of course. 

and how many albums out there would suffer an improper rip from that?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-21 23:12:03
In the case of the PX-230A, it would allow you to recover the last 738 samples of the last track if they aren't silent.  Because the PX-230A cannot overread into the lead-out, the last 738 samples of the last track will always be silent.  All this assumes you've calibrated your drive to the accepted standard using read offset correction, of course. 

and how many albums out there would suffer an improper rip from that?

It depends on the age of your discs.  Most discs released in the last 10 years will not be affected by a lack of overreading.  And of those that are affected, we're talking about extremely low level signals; usually nothing above -80dB, -70dB tops.  With your music cranked to the level of a jackhammer, the level of this noise is no more than background noise in the common home.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Anansi on 2006-07-22 04:42:43
In the case of the PX-230A, it would allow you to recover the last 738 samples of the last track if they aren't silent.  Because the PX-230A cannot overread into the lead-out, the last 738 samples of the last track will always be silent.  All this assumes you've calibrated your drive to the accepted standard using read offset correction, of course. 

and how many albums out there would suffer an improper rip from that?

It depends on the age of your discs.  Most discs released in the last 10 years will not be affected by a lack of overreading.  And of those that are affected, we're talking about extremely low level signals; usually nothing above -80dB, -70dB tops.  With your music cranked to the level of a jackhammer, the level of this noise is no more than background noise in the common home.

but it won't be bit-perfect now will it
and btw on ther other side what do I gain from lead-in overreading=
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2006-07-22 19:52:53
but it won't be bit-perfect now will it
and btw on ther other side what do I gain from lead-in overreading=

If the track is offset-corrected, no, it won't be bit perfect. 

Overreading from the lead-in is useful for extracting the first track that begins too early from a CD that was poorly mastered.  I mentioned an example of this here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=46117&view=findpost&p=408331).

And, of course, it is useful for drives that require a negative offset correction though there aren't that many.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: audioaficionado on 2006-07-23 00:29:22
Hey Guys,
Just received my PX-230A direct from the USA. (I live in Australia)
Well it's very fast, maxed out at 51x in burst mode! It is faster that my now dead Premium Drive.

Any tests people wish me to do, please let me know.
Cheers
Thanx for sharing.  Since I've become aware of this drive, I've really been wanting to buy one to see if it a better DAE ripper than my TSST TS-H352A and rips faster too.  I can get one at Newegg.com for under $50 shipped.  Except for our current president, it's great to live in the USA

That new soon to be released version of dBpowerAMP has me intrigued.  Spoon really likes this Plextor drive.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Ragnarok on 2007-05-29 13:10:24
How does the Pioneer 112 compair with the pioneer 111 the the NEC equivlents in the read qualty stakes. I noticed that the Pioneer rips the HTOA which is awesome. I'm looking for a new drive because My current NEC 3520 sucks for reading discs as soon as there is any little poxy little scratches, but it burns great.

Also considering an LG, but i hear that the newer LG drive are much slower in EAC than the old and now hard to find LG GSA-4166B, but LG's read the HTOA and have a +0 read ofset which opens up many more options for software to burn audio cd's.

A Plextor would be nice but they obviously are expensive even when second hand.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Waywisher on 2008-10-14 22:27:52
Hi All, this thread seems to have been quiet for some time.. so, hoping this is the place for it, here goes..

Background: I'm nearing the end of ripping my cd collection to FLAC via EAC (using offset, wiki settings etc. on an XP pro machine).  I've currently got two drives, a Sony DVD RW DW-G120A and an older Sony DVD-ROM DDU1612.  The 1612 seems to rip faster and so this has been the primary drive.  The vast majority of CDs have ripped fine.  Some rips have produced errors on a couple of tracks (not just at the start or end of the CD) and a couple have produced read/sync errors for the entire CD.  Some of this population have subsequently been ripped fine with the G120A drive, some haven't. I'm now down to some CDR copies (so that we could have a CD in each car, and subsequently the original has been lost or scratched too much) that are approx. 10 years old - these are resulting in a much higher level of errors/failed rips.

I'm not sure whether the failed rips are down to the ageing drives, or rubbish media.. ideas?

Anyway, I'm now considering the purchase of a new drive and think a few things might be of help to others out there using EAC (especially UK versions):

1) Are there currently any manufacturers that are considered better than others, like Plextor? Best, okay, rubbish?
2) Is it better for ripping purposes to go for a CD-RW drive rather than a combo drive?
3) Are there any drives that are generally accepted to be the best? Top end, middle & budget?
4) Any other thoughts & suggestions?

Thanks for reading this far!
Cheers
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2008-10-14 22:59:11
1) Plextor stopped manufacturing own units. At least their BD drives are rebranded LG devices, don't know much about their DVD drives.
2) No.

Currently I am using a Samsung unit that was rather cheap (almost 30 €) and am happy with it. I also have good experience with Pioneer drives.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: westgroveg on 2008-10-15 00:56:17
Pioneer use the best optics & hardware, LG/Lite-on technology is on the lower end, but I would prefer a drive that doesn't cache audio data & has decent C2 (you have to test) you can get fast ripping with EAC using Test & Copy which is very secure, I had a drive with good C2 (at least EAC liked it) and didn't cache I was getting speeds of 17x but before I started enabling C2 I did a lot of C2/non C2 cross checking, EAC + drive combination needs to be proven.

Oh and Sony drives are rebagged Lite-on's.

Oh, oh and and, for damaged CD's Plextools is much faster & better at recovering than EAC, you know I had a pretty tight Plextools guide writen up but it was deleted from the server and I never made a back-up, haha, what a bitch
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: dreamliner77 on 2008-10-15 03:00:58
Oh and Sony drives are rebagged Lite-on's.



Sony's are now rebadged Optiarc's (Sony/NEC collaborative)
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: francesco on 2008-10-15 11:38:10
i can't believe plextor was so worse       
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Juan C. on 2008-10-15 18:49:10

Oh and Sony drives are rebagged Lite-on's.



Sony's are now rebadged Optiarc's (Sony/NEC collaborative)


The model AD-7190 is a rebadged LiteOn  .
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Waywisher on 2008-10-15 21:22:19
Thanks for the replies..

Looks like I'm heading for a Pioneer.  Does anyone know if there is much difference, and if so which is better for ripping, between the DVR-216BK and the DVR-215BK? I assume the 216 is a newer version of the 215? I think I read somewhere that someone preferred the 215 though... ?

Cheers in advance
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: knucklehead on 2008-10-15 22:27:46
Thanks for the replies..

Looks like I'm heading for a Pioneer.  Does anyone know if there is much difference, and if so which is better for ripping, between the DVR-216BK and the DVR-215BK? I assume the 216 is a newer version of the 215? I think I read somewhere that someone preferred the 215 though... ?

Cheers in advance


This might be of some use:

115 (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=22494&PageId=2)

116 (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=23814&PageId=2)

I assume these are just the US numbered versions of the same drives.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: alexn on 2009-03-18 18:37:25
Hi everybody

My Plextor Premium is dead (bummer!), and, as luck would have it, I have a bunch of old CD-Rs (audio, not data) going bad which I need to extract.

Reading over this discussion has been instructive, but I'm still confused.

Which is a *CURRENT* CD/DVD drive excellent at DAE? By "current" I mean one I can buy now, new, in a store or on-line.

For instance, cdrinfo.com gives good marks to the Plextor PX-755, but Plextor no longer makes it, and none of the retailers I know have it any longer. BenQ drives are supposed to be good, but it appears BenQ doesn't market its drives in North America or Europe. And so on. I have a Pioneer 116 (also an older LiteOn and a Pioneer 112) but I want something better.

Suggestions?

Thanks in advance!


Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: happyman on 2009-07-28 08:32:36
Hi everybody

My Plextor Premium is dead (bummer!), and, as luck would have it, I have a bunch of old CD-Rs (audio, not data) going bad which I need to extract.

Reading over this discussion has been instructive, but I'm still confused.

Which is a *CURRENT* CD/DVD drive excellent at DAE? By "current" I mean one I can buy now, new, in a store or on-line.

For instance, cdrinfo.com gives good marks to the Plextor PX-755, but Plextor no longer makes it, and none of the retailers I know have it any longer. BenQ drives are supposed to be good, but it appears BenQ doesn't market its drives in North America or Europe. And so on. I have a Pioneer 116 (also an older LiteOn and a Pioneer 112) but I want something better.

Suggestions?

Thanks in advance!


Any takers on alexn's question?

I'm in the market for an external burning/ripping drive, any suggestions? It is now mid-2009. Times have changed since 2006.

Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: ernstblaauw on 2009-07-28 10:21:02
Any takers on alexn's question?

To answer this question one needs to have a lot of knowledge about CD / DVD burners. Therefore, I think you can better ask this question to some guys at http://club.cdfreaks.com (http://club.cdfreaks.com), which used to be (atm I'm not active over there) a good place to ask such questions.

Moderation: Pruned unnecessary full quotation of the previous post.  We don't need to read everything twice.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2009-07-28 10:53:46
It seems there will never be a new decent driver for audio. I would pay $200USD for a simple drive that could do this:

-Overread into lead in/out
-Has accurate C2
-HTOA
-No cache
-Reasonably fast.

But it seems no one is interested in making it.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: RIV@NVX on 2009-09-27 11:20:37
Well, according to this page (http://www.daefeatures.co.uk/search.php), LITE-ON iHAP 422 8 would qualify (but I'm not sure how frequent this model is, if at all). It would be interesting to see if iHAS/iHAP x24 would also work, since LITE-ON has probably changed chipset in it.

Also, I wonder about Optiarc AD-72xxA/S, since they aren't listed there. Both AD-7200S and AD-7243S have accurate stream, don't cache, and retrieve C2 error information. Not sure how to test HTOA and overread.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Mr. Salty on 2010-01-12 06:37:06
Wow, I've spent more hours than I care to admit over the past few days trying to figure out what the best currently available option is, but unfortunately there is a real lack of concrete information out there nowadays.

I decided to try my luck with a Samsung SH-S223L, at least it appears not to cache and may be able to do HTOA.  It appears no overread but the offset is only 6 so no big deal.  I'll report back once I've actually tried it.

Not having to beat on the tray of my LTD-163 to get it to recognize discs will be a big plus - although I'm sure I'll miss that little "quirk".  I've ripped probably 2000-2500 discs with that drive...
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Mr. Salty on 2010-01-15 03:48:38
My first impressions of the Samsung SH-223L are very positive, after some tests I think I'm comfortable making it my new ripping drive.

I'm using EAC 0.99pb5 on Win7.  I've always ripped in secure mode and disabled C2 because I don't trust it.  EAC reports the drive does support C2 but I won't comment on that because I have no experience with it and didn't test it.  Maybe I'll try it with some of my badly scratched discs later.

So, my settings are: Secure mode, Accurate Stream checked, 'Drive caches...' and C2 UNchecked.  Read MMC1, offset +6, gap detection A, Secure.  I make a CUE sheet but rip to individual tracks (APE), MP3 encoding is a separate step.

Anyways, I started off by ripping a couple CDs I had previously ripped with my old drive (LTD-163).  AccurateRip reported all tracks accurate (confidence in the 20s) for one disc, the other disc was just released so it's not in the database.  I also compared WAV files directly and they were all identical with one small exception I'll describe below (I'm not worried about it.)

I'm also happy to report it supports HTOA, I confirmed this with two commercial discs.  I used Action->Copy Selected Track Index Based and got full audio in both cases, which is great.

So, overall I'm very pleased with the DAE performance.  I think I'm pretty anal about accurate rips above all else - so if that's what you're looking for I think you'll be happy with this drive.  As far as I can tell the only thing "missing" is the ability to read into the lead-in/lead-out, but the offset is only 6 so it doesn't really bug me.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Mr. Salty on 2010-01-15 04:06:27
PS: about the WAV miscompare in the post above, the only "difference" was at the very end of the last track of one of the discs:

# ls -l *.wav
-rwxr--r--  1 nobody nobody 168327980 Jan 14 22:28 ltd163.wav*
-rwxr--r--  1 nobody nobody 168327980 Jan 14 22:28 sh223l.wav*
# cmp *.wav
ltd163.wav sh223l.wav differ: byte 168325613, line 1203176

Note the difference is 2367 bytes from the end of the file.  I found that interesting because the offset of the LTD-163 is 594 samples = 2376 bytes - indeed the last 2376 bytes (offset 168325604) of ltd163.wav are filled with zeros as you'd expect.  However, at this point there is still some data in the sh223l.wav file, which continues to the end of the disk (except the last 6 missing samples due to the offset, of course):

# od -x -Ad -j 168325604 -N 32 sh223l.wav
168325604 0000 0000 0000 0000 ffff ffff 0000 0000
168325620 ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff


Prior to that offset, in both files I see an identical random pattern of 0000 and ffff samples, which comprises the last ~369KB (~2.13s) of data on the disc.  Prior to that I see 0001's and fffe's...  So, it just seems like a long fadeout that never quite hits 0, but it's well past anything audible on the disc and obviously not audible itself.  So, I consider the rips identical.

The other disc I ripped didn't have that issue, it went to all 0's long before the end of the last track.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Shady88 on 2010-04-11 17:52:18
- Read speed: --

What's this supposed to mean? It means that the ripping speed on the supposed drive is slow, fast or what?
Because since it does a 100% quality rip and it rips it at 4x instead of 16x it doesn't matter, as long as itt obtains the best results
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: dv1989 on 2010-04-11 18:41:52
- Read speed: --

What's this supposed to mean? It means that the ripping speed on the supposed drive is slow, fast or what?

I wonder if more negative symbols mean that the drive takes longer to rip, and vice-versa with positive symbols.

Quote
Because since it does a 100% quality rip and it rips it at 4x instead of 16x it doesn't matter, as long as itt obtains the best results

So, offered several drives that could rip equally accurately, you wouldn't care which was fastest? Well, it's your time.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Shady88 on 2010-04-11 18:59:25
I wonder if more negative symbols mean that the drive takes longer to rip, and vice-versa with positive symbols.
Yup, i thought that too but i just needed a confirmation
Quote
So, offered several drives that could rip equally accurately, you wouldn't care which was fastest? Well, it's your time

The important thing is that my backups comes perfect ripped as they appear on the cd after the rip, it might take more time to rip them surely with a slower drive, but at least i obtain perfect rips 
Hey, i've got a few old drives that i'd be glad to test as soon as i get my pc fixed (i'm writing from a "temporary" pc), can somebody me drive me through the simplest way to test their effective capacities?
That's what i got:
Vuego 685A (or Vuego JVP685-D, i'm not sure)
LG GCE-8527B
TOP-G BCD F561D
AOPEN CD-952E/TKU
LG CRD-8520B
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Cutter on 2010-04-13 22:06:11
Thanks for your test results Mr. Salty.
Does anyone know if the Lite-On iHAS524 is able to do HTOA?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: funkyblue on 2010-04-13 22:51:46
It does not. I have tried it. No new drives are as good as Plextor's unfortunatly. I've yet to find a decent one that reads into leadin/out/ has decent C2 and HTOA.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Cutter on 2010-04-14 15:52:19
Thanks funkyblue.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: mous00 on 2010-09-07 05:13:48
Hmmm, I just found a new never installed BenQ DW1640 in storage. Are these good drives to rip from?
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2010-09-07 19:00:39
I've heard excellent things about the Plextor PX-230, which I think is just a rebadge of the DW1640, so I'm thinking the answer to your question is yes.  I don't have one myself, however.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: theCapitalistpig on 2010-12-09 07:27:29
Seeing as the last post was from September, can someone post a recent list??

I've been looking for a Plextor cd drive but can't find one anywhere..lol

I've got 3 or 4 Lite-On drives, a couple of Matsumi and a Sony..All either cd drive/burner or dvd drive/burner. I've been ripping secure rips with EAC and quite enjoy it..lol

I've got 2 drive bay and would like to utillize that..Possible??
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Kitlope on 2011-10-22 14:59:08
Thanks for the info on the Samsung SH-S223L Mr. Salty. I know this thread is a little old and perhaps you'll poke your head around here once again but did you ever find out if it supports Caching & C2 Errors? I picked up this drive on your recommendation and am quite happy with it but am a bit of a n00b with this stuff. I just follow the HA wiki to set it up properly.

As others have said, I really wish someone would come out with a "audiophile" drive that meets the needs of picky rippers. My Plextor 716SA has pretty much died, bought a used one off ebay and it's pretty much dead too. Bastards.



Kit
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Mr. Salty on 2011-10-22 17:16:28
I'm still very happy with the drive, I might pick up another one or two in case mine dies, so I don't have to evaluate a new crop of drives.

You want it to *not* cache audio data, which AFAICT (and according to EAC) is the case.

As far as C2, I haven't looked into it, based on what I've read here I don't think I'd trust C2 to work properly on *any* drive.

todd.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: derty2 on 2011-10-22 23:23:14
I'm getting beautiful reads and writes of audio CD's using a TEAC DV-W28S-R External USB Optical Disc Drive.
I use it only for audio CD tasks, and it's the nicest drive I have ever used for such tasks. EAC and ImgBurn work great with it.


Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Andavari on 2011-10-23 01:42:42
As far as C2, I haven't looked into it, based on what I've read here I don't think I'd trust C2 to work properly on *any* drive.

In EAC I have C2 enabled for both my drives, and coupled with AccurateRip and EAC's own Secure Mode I haven't had any issues.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: norlane on 2012-08-17 01:40:00
Can some one advise me on a good brand of
DVD burner for reading/burning audio CDs
if i was to go out and buy one tommorrow
thankx.
Using for EAC works
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: soundping on 2012-08-17 18:00:33
Can some one advise me on a good brand of
DVD burner for reading/burning audio CDs
if i was to go out and buy one tommorrow
thankx.
Using for EAC works

ASUS BW-12B1ST is a very good drive.
http://www.asus.com/Optical_Storage/Intern...#specifications (http://www.asus.com/Optical_Storage/Internal_Bluray_Drive/BW12B1ST/#specifications)
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: norlane on 2012-08-18 06:49:30
Awsome thankx for the advice
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: beneix on 2012-08-26 16:52:28
Can some one advise me on a good brand of
DVD burner for reading/burning audio CDs
if i was to go out and buy one tommorrow
thankx.
Using for EAC works

I'm also looking - but would prefer an external drive.  I know I can build one using an internal one, but if I can I'd like to avoid that.

Are there any decent external drives that the experts on this forum would endorse for EAC use?  That's priority no 1.  No 2 would be good burning ability and no 3 speed.
Title: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Treetrunks on 2013-04-22 18:47:20
I am also looking for an external USB drive for ripping audio CDs to FLAC via EAC.

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

Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2016-06-09 13:43:00
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: idankanfi on 2017-11-15 13:26:44
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 :-)
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: greynol on 2017-11-15 14:36:30
You don't need a good ear to determine if you're having problems that would have been solved by writing at a slower speed.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: polemon on 2017-11-16 10:35:11
We should make a Wiki page about how slower, doesn't mean better.

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...


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...
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: bennetng on 2017-11-16 16:27:44
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?
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Audible! on 2017-11-28 19:00:50
Thanks for linking to spoon's list bennetng; I think it may be time to invest in a Lite-on iHAS124 (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106393&ignorebbr=1) (#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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: kode54 on 2017-11-29 03:11:11
What about the Lite-on iHBS112? Did it even place anywhere in the full article? Or is it too out of date for consideration?
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Audible! on 2017-11-29 03:35:42
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 (http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/lite-on-ihbs112-12x-blu-ray-disc-writer/all-pages.html), and the Nero DAE results look excellent, so here's hoping!
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: bennetng on 2017-11-29 10:45:56
Thanks for linking to spoon's list bennetng; I think it may be time to invest in a Lite-on iHAS124 (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106393&ignorebbr=1) (#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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: RancelDoom on 2021-03-05 23:03:05
What's a good USB Blu ray burner drive for ripping audio cd's?
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: decollated on 2021-03-09 06:05:43
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 (https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19634), 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
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: RancelDoom on 2021-03-09 11:28:19
What about Asus BW-16D1X-U 16x External Blu-ray BDXL Drive with BD Suite Disc USB 3.0 Cable Power Adapter and Cord?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071WB35MH/?coliid=IZX59H5MWBFK7&colid=27BIUX2ZEBO7D&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071WB35MH/?coliid=IZX59H5MWBFK7&colid=27BIUX2ZEBO7D&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: decollated on 2021-03-10 07:56:54
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: MrRom92 on 2021-04-16 11:51:16
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.


Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: gagorial on 2022-01-20 05:32:45
I consider the best is a Pioneer with PureRead 4. I used the Binary Comparator (https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_bitcompare) from FB2K with a damaged CD and equal new and it rebuild correctly the damaged tracks.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: soundping on 2022-01-20 10:49:51
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Chibisteven on 2022-01-20 13:00:06
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: MrRom92 on 2022-02-11 19:02:38
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)
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: Cutter on 2022-02-25 12:51:46
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 ?
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: 2tec on 2022-02-27 20:30:58
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: bennetng on 2022-02-28 11:02:34
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: ThaCrip on 2022-03-01 07:09:33
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: MrRom92 on 2022-03-01 20:34:39
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.
Title: Re: Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs
Post by: ThaCrip on 2022-03-03 07:11:41
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.

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 ;)