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Topic: Plextor drives new vs old (Read 7916 times) previous topic - next topic
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Plextor drives new vs old

I have read (here and other places) that the old "true" pleaxtor drives are among the best for ripping.  This brings to mind a couple of questions.
1) Why are the older Plextors "true" plextors and the new ones are not?
2) Which models are the "true" plextors?
    a) 708a?
    b) 716a?
3) What makes a "true" plextor drive better at ripping than others?

Thanks,
Steve

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #1 –
Old Plextors are true Plextors because they were made by Plextor while the newer ones are actually rebranded units from other manufacturers. As far as I know, the last true Plextor was the PX-760(S)A.

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #2 –
Ok so if the PX-760a is an older (true) Plextor, am I right in assuming that the smaller number models (i.e. the PX-708a and/or PX-716a) are older and therefore also true Plextor models? 

Also I am still curious what is it about these drives makes them better at ripping then other drives?

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #3 –
http://www.daefeatures.co.uk/search.php

search for...

Manufacturers: all
Accurate Stream: yes
Caching: all
C2: yes
Overread: both

...and the resulting list almost entirely consists of Plextor drives. And on some of those drives that do cache, you can disable the cache by using the PlexTools ripper or by starting EAC with "-usefua". Furthermore the error correction on Plextor drives is very good, and most of them read the HTOA (Hidden Track One Audio).

In other words: Almost any drive will do the job fine, but if you have got slight OCD and want every sample as perfect as possible, any old Plextor is a good choice. In fact, I don't know of any recent drive that's good enough for me... So I bought another Plextor on eBay just in case my current two die. 

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #4 –
I would not be so sure about plextor's superiority these days. Please check these tests: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....&hl=plextor
As far as I can see they do not support the notion that plextor has very good error correction.

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #5 –
Quote from: sredmyer on
I have read (here and other places) that the old "true" pleaxtor drives are among the best for ripping.  This brings to mind a couple of questions.


I have a feeling you've been reading some oldskool info that refers to the old SCSI stuff that truly was superior in its day.  Wasn't EAC basically designed around the Ultraplex?  The 40x narrow and wide were the drives to have as far as speed was concerned.  They were very expensive, built like tanks, and weighed about 3x as much as any cheapie optical drive you can buy today.  If you go way back, you can even break it down into the question of whether the original 40x drives made in Japan were better than the later China mfg.  My Japan 40x wide and 8x20 burners are still working fine after 10+ years.

You can pick up the 40x on Ebay and an Adaptec 2940UW card for not a lot these days if you want to have some fun.
You can't kill the Elephant.

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Jan S. on
I would not be so sure about plextor's superiority these days. Please check these tests: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....&hl=plextor
As far as I can see they do not support the notion that plextor has very good error correction.


Reading that info it appears to me (if I am reading it correctly which is a huge IF) that the PX-708A is actually pretty good at full speed (BTW this is the drive I plan to use).  Am I not reading the information correctly?

Thanks,
Steve

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #7 –
I own a Plextor 716a, several 24/10/40As and a premium. The 716a was the single most expensive optical drive I've ever purchased at approximately $150. In my opinion, the inexpensive used 24/10/40a models rip CDs just as effectively. In my experience, they are as fast and and seem more capable in terms of reading low quality media when compared to either the premium or the 716a. Furthermore, the 716a now has problems reading and writing DVDs, so I hardly ever use it other than to rip CDs or test media quality. The 716a, however, does support forced access and when used with Plextools Pro XL, the drive is able to report on C1/C2/FE/TE and jitter error rates. 

Personally, I no longer buy new Plextor drives since reading that many of the later model Plextor DVD-RWs weren't even manufactured by Plextor, but instead were rebranded drives made by other companies. As well, I was miffed when I discovered I had to fork out extra cash for the XL version of Plextools just to use all the features of the 716a. 

Of course, when I bought my 716a, Plextor still had a great reputation for making reliable, quiet and fast drives that also reported C2 errors to EAC. Sadly, they seem to have completely lost it.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #8 –
Quote from: sredmyer on
Quote from: Jan S. on
I would not be so sure about plextor's superiority these days. Please check these tests: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....&hl=plextor
As far as I can see they do not support the notion that plextor has very good error correction.


Reading that info it appears to me (if I am reading it correctly which is a huge IF) that the PX-708A is actually pretty good at full speed (BTW this is the drive I plan to use).  Am I not reading the information correctly?

Thanks,
Steve

If you compare with a newer drive like the Samsung SH-182D (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=61678) it is hardly impressive.

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #9 –
Quote from: 2tec on
I own a Plextor 716a, several 24/10/40As and a premium. The 716a was the single most expensive optical drive I've ever purchased at approximately $150. In my opinion, the inexpensive used 24/10/40a models rip CDs just as effectively. In my experience, they are as fast and and seem more capable in terms of reading low quality media when compared to either the premium or the 716a. Furthermore, the 716a now has problems reading and writing DVDs, so I hardly ever use it other than to rip CDs or test media quality. The 716a, however, does support forced access and when used with Plextools Pro XL, the drive is able to report on C1/C2/FE/TE and jitter error rates. 

Personally, I no longer buy new Plextor drives since reading that many of the later model Plextor DVD-RWs weren't even manufactured by Plextor, but instead were rebranded drives made by other companies. As well, I was miffed when I discovered I had to fork out extra cash for the XL version of Plextools just to use all the features of the 716a. 

Of course, when I bought my 716a, Plextor still had a great reputation for making reliable, quiet and fast drives that also reported C2 errors to EAC. Sadly, they seem to have completely lost it.
Likewise.
I bought a 716SA (S stands for SATA, other than that it's the same drive) 4 years ago; it cost me 3 times more than the average DVD burner at the time, approximately €120.
The whole point of spending more money on an optical drive is to get the best possible quality and NOT to have it replaced after a couple of months.
btw, could someone please explain why caching audio data is considered a disadvantage?

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #10 –
Error correction.
If there is a damaged sector, programs like EAC simply re-read the data up to 80 times to find out what are probably the ‘right’ bits.
If the data is in a cach, re-reading it is simple reading the same cashed data over and over again.
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Gordian Knot on
btw, could someone please explain why caching audio data is considered a disadvantage?


Caching is a problem when ripping discs with errors.  What happens is that the ripping software will attempt to get a good read by re-ripping a block(s) that have errors.  If the drive caches the sofyware either has to clear the cache or make sure it reads enough other data (to fill the cache with different data) in order to get a new version of the data.  This new read will then be compared with the last read to see if they match.  Different software handle this differently but the idea is that if the same block(s) are read several times with the same results, then the data read is probably valid.  I am sure you can see how if the drive were caching the data this stradegy would not work.

Disclaimer:
I am no expert but that is my understanding of the caching issue.  And I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night. 

Plextor drives new vs old

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Jan S. on
If you compare with a newer drive like the Samsung SH-182D (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=61678) it is hardly impressive.

Well that may be true for some problematic CD's but for sure not for all.
I've nearly finished ripping my ~600 CDs with dbpoweramp and now trying the last problematic tracks on some CDs. I did activate the Secure Extraction Log with complete report contents that gives information on every problematic frame.
I've got nearly 30 CD/DVD/BR (10 Plextors - 5 are SCSI, SH-S203D ...) drives here and did some preliminary quality testing and now extensive ones trying to rip the last insecure tracks.
In general I have to say that there is no 'best drive' for reading problematic/damaged CDs. Different drives read some problem CDs better and do worse on other CDs.
But for some of these CDs the old Plextor SCSI drives I have still give the best results (PX-W1210S / PX-W4012S) with the lowest error counts.

Well maybe I'll do some more detailed report about my findings if there is interest here.

As far as I know caching audio data is bad when sectors have to be re-read, the drive takes the previous values from cache instead of re-readed. So it thinks it has read twice the same values, so it's OK. But if it had read instead of taking the values from cache, maybe the re-read would give different values. So with cache errors could slip through. For that if a drive caches data, the ripping software must know this to counteract with the right measures (clear cache or fill it with other frames data). Some drives can use the FUA command, that clears the cache fast.
So cache in general is not a thing that bad if it is indicated to the ripping software. A drive with cache+FUA support is probably nearly the same as a drive without cache (if the ripping software can use FUA). Without FUA it takes longer to clear the cache (or fill it with differnt data).