Review: Best burners for reading/burning audio CDs, Bonus: CD-R media test Options

[soulsearchingsun]

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.

[ShowsOn]

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?

[spoon]

> 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.

[ShowsOn]

> 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.

[greynol]

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

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.

[spoon]

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.

[Sebastian Mares]

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.

[funkyblue]

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

[greynol]

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.

This post has been edited by greynol: Jul 12 2006, 23:02

[funkyblue]

should be silence is the question...Anyway, instead of critisizeing, why comment if you cannot answer the question?

This post has been edited by funkyblue: Jul 12 2006, 22:48

[greynol]

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.

This post has been edited by greynol: Jul 12 2006, 23:01

[funkyblue]

Then why bother coming here? or commenting? Many people are interested in preserving 100% of the original disc..Get over yourself and move on!

This post has been edited by funkyblue: Jul 12 2006, 23:08

[greynol]

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

[funkyblue]

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!

[Sebastian Mares]

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.

[Martin H]

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.

[Sebastian Mares]

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.

[Martin H]

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.

[Martin H]

@Sebastian Mares

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

This post has been edited by Martin H: Jul 15 2006, 03:59

[Anansi]

does the c't review contain any info on the px-230 concerning htoa and overreading? (ps: sebastian cdrlabs forum 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

[JeanLuc]

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.

[greynol]

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!

[Sebastian Mares]

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.

[greynol]

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.

[Sebastian Mares]

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 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.