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

[ernstblaauw]

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, 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.

This post has been edited by greynol: Jul 28 2009, 16:55

[funkyblue]

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.

[RIV@NVX]

Well, according to this page, 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.

[Mr. Salty]

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...

[Mr. Salty]

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.

[Mr. Salty]

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.

[Shady88]

- 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

This post has been edited by Shady88: Apr 11 2010, 18:00

[db1989]

- 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.

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.

[Shady88]

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

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

[Cutter]

Thanks for your test results Mr. Salty.
Does anyone know if the Lite-On iHAS524 is able to do HTOA?

This post has been edited by Cutter: Apr 13 2010, 22:06

[funkyblue]

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.

[Cutter]

Thanks funkyblue.

[mous00]

Hmmm, I just found a new never installed BenQ DW1640 in storage. Are these good drives to rip from?

[greynol]

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.

[theCapitalistpig]

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??

[Kitlope]

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

[Mr. Salty]

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.

This post has been edited by greynol: Oct 22 2011, 17:40

Reason for edit: Removed unnecessary quote of previous post. Also, please don't top-post when quoting.

[derty2]

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.

[Andavari]

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.

[norlane]

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

This post has been edited by norlane: Aug 17 2012, 01:40

[soundping]

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

This post has been edited by soundping: Aug 17 2012, 18:00

[norlane]

Awsome thankx for the advice

[beneix]

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.

[Treetrunks]

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?