I hate to ask this question since I’m sure very similar questions have been asked but it’s driving me mad trying to track down a definitive answer.
I’ve just bought a NEC 2510 which is great for all my burning needs but rubbish for EAC audio extraction. I plan to keep it and get a second drive solely for audio extraction so I don’t care if it’s a CD writer, DVD-ROM drive or basic CD only reader.
I don’t need speed particularly (although the faster the better), I don’t need good handling of scratched CDs (I usually rip brand new CDs) but I do want the most accurate rip possible and the drive must be able to consistently read the lead in/out. I use EAC and prefer to disable C2 error reading. I was planning on getting an external Plextor Premium but I read the Plextors aren’t quite the unequivocal kings of extraction the used to be and as I don’t really need the best possible scratched CD handling I wonder if there is another drive that can beat it for a lot cheaper.
I don’t mind buying second hand on eBay as this may be the best place to find some of these older drives with better extraction quality. Any recommendations most welcome! Does it matter so much about the drive quality if the CDs I’m using are all new/unscratched or are the weak separated from the strong only when put against damaged CDs?
Many thanks!
Full Version: Best drive for non-scratched/brand new CDs?
If the CDs are indeed in good condition, go for the LG GCE-8525B / LG GCE-8526B. You *must* enable C2 in EAC when you use this drive. If you don't intend to, you won't gain much over using any other drive. If you can find the LG GCE-8400B 2nd hand, steal it. It deals with some CDs even better than the LG GCE-8525B. LGs are very cheap, so you can't go wrong with any of those CD-RW drives. I'd still recommend one of the recent Plextors, though, if you are not sure all the CDs are in good condition or if some of them are old.
Any LiteOn CDRW drive will do just fine ... but I would recommend the Plexwriter Premium ... that way, you can benefit from Plextools' DAE as well ... 
1.
His request for an over-reading drive rules those out.
2. The Plextor Premium is not the best Plextor for ripping, despite the excellent software that comes with it. I've analyzed its rips and I'm convinced the much cheaper drives like the PX-W4012A and PX-W1210A are more consistent and much better value for the money if ripping is your main task.
QUOTE
wjdashwood: the drive must be able to consistently read the lead in/out
QUOTE
JeanLuc: Any LiteOn CDRW drive will do just fine
His request for an over-reading drive rules those out.
2. The Plextor Premium is not the best Plextor for ripping, despite the excellent software that comes with it. I've analyzed its rips and I'm convinced the much cheaper drives like the PX-W4012A and PX-W1210A are more consistent and much better value for the money if ripping is your main task.
Thanks for all the tips. So the LG drives can read the lead in/out fine? That was one of the things that really annoyed me about my old Liteon drive. How do they compare to the older Plextor drives? If the oppotunity arises I'm tempted to buy a selection of drives and test them head to head.
QUOTE(Seed @ Aug 31 2004, 08:06 PM)
If you can find the LG GCE-8400B 2nd hand, steal it. It deals with some CDs even better than the LG GCE-8525B.
What makes this model in paticular good? Is it again just the reading of damaged CDs? Of course I'm sure there will be a few in my collection that aren't perfect it's just that it's not my top priority. Cheers!
QUOTE(Seed @ Sep 1 2004, 07:06 AM)
If the CDs are indeed in good condition, go for the LG GCE-8525B / LG GCE-8526B. You *must* enable C2 in EAC when you use this drive. If you don't intend to, you won't gain much over using any other drive. If you can find the LG GCE-8400B 2nd hand, steal it. It deals with some CDs even better than the LG GCE-8525B. LGs are very cheap, so you can't go wrong with any of those CD-RW drives. I'd still recommend one of the recent Plextors, though, if you are not sure all the CDs are in good condition or if some of them are old.
Do not get an LG drive! I had an LG along time ago, which didn't even support accurate stream! I have a LG GCE-8525B & it's the only drive so far which has managed to report different CRC matches! LG drives are really inaccurate & should be avoided for DAE. The LG GCE-8525B also caches audio data, which makes it slow. If the CD's are clean just get a lite-on which doesn’t cache audio data & can overread (like the 401s), that way you can use EAC or CDex's secure modes with accurate results.
QUOTE(Seed @ Aug 31 2004, 05:24 PM)
2. The Plextor Premium is not the best Plextor for ripping, despite the excellent software that comes with it. I've analyzed its rips and I'm convinced the much cheaper drives like the PX-W4012A and PX-W1210A are more consistent and much better value for the money if ripping is your main task.
Very interesting. I had a PX-W4012A for about a year before getting a Premium. Not only the Premium can read faster, it handles scratched/poorly balanced CDs better and is quiet as a whisper to boot.
QUOTE(Never_Again @ Sep 1 2004, 02:28 PM)
Very interesting. I had a PX-W4012A for about a year before getting a Premium. Not only the Premium can read faster, it handles scratched/poorly balanced CDs better and is quiet as a whisper to boot.
Exactly ... apart from the 708A, the Premium (only in conjunction with Plextools Pro, not with EAC) is the best damn ripper I have ever had ... hands down.
As for the LiteOn drives not being able to overread the lead-out ... with only 6 samples missing (for the 52246S), I consider thei inability as ... erm ... marginal.
It seems the Lite-Ons are slipping a bit, but still better than Plextor for DAE.
QUOTE
The Premium didn't do as well as some of the other 52x writers we've taken a look at lately. Even then, its performance was far from being poor. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered 70.19% of the CD was considered "damaged". Fortunately, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
CD DAE Avg. Speed Errors % of Disc
Plextor Premium 23.2x 96766657 12.35%
Samsung SW-252B 9.1x 2522782 0.32%
MSI CR52-A2 0.7x 7536092 0.96%
The Premium's performance was hit and miss here. While it had the highest average speed of the three drives here, the number of errors was considerably higher.
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
CD DAE Avg. Speed Errors % of Disc
Plextor Premium 23.2x 96766657 12.35%
Samsung SW-252B 9.1x 2522782 0.32%
MSI CR52-A2 0.7x 7536092 0.96%
The Premium's performance was hit and miss here. While it had the highest average speed of the three drives here, the number of errors was considerably higher.
QUOTE
The LTR-52246S didn't do as well as I had expected. The drive not only considered 69.18% of the CD to be "damaged", there were a few sectors on the disc that it could not read at all.
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
Unfortunately, the LTR-52246S was not able to complete this test. Part way through the 12th track, CD DAE would return an "unrecovered read error".
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
Unfortunately, the LTR-52246S was not able to complete this test. Part way through the 12th track, CD DAE would return an "unrecovered read error".
QUOTE
When I took a look at the LTR-52246S, I was a little disappointed by its performance. The percentage of the disc that was damaged was higher than we would have liked and there were even a few sectors on the disc that the drive could not read at all. Fortunately, the LTR-52327S is much better at reading scratched discs. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that only 57.82% of the CD was detected to be "damaged". Better yet, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
CD DAE Avg. Speed Errors % of Disc
Lite-On LTR-52327S 10.4x 1592321 0.20%
Samsung SW-252B 9.1x 2522782 0.32%
Lite-On's new CD-RW did very well here too. While the LTR-52327S slowed down considerably to read our test disc, the number of errors was very low.
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
CD DAE Avg. Speed Errors % of Disc
Lite-On LTR-52327S 10.4x 1592321 0.20%
Samsung SW-252B 9.1x 2522782 0.32%
Lite-On's new CD-RW did very well here too. While the LTR-52327S slowed down considerably to read our test disc, the number of errors was very low.
QUOTE
To see how well the LDW-811S can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.
CD Speed - ScanDisc
The LDW-811S did better than I expected here. The drive considered only 50.84% of the CD to be "damaged" and none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
CD DAE Avg. Speed Errors % of Disc
Lite-On LDW-811S
2.7x 1622380 0.21%
Nu Tech DDW-081
30.1x 4653504 0.59%
Plextor PX-708A
17.3x 96549548 12.41%
CD Speed - ScanDisc
The LDW-811S did better than I expected here. The drive considered only 50.84% of the CD to be "damaged" and none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.
You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.
CD DAE Avg. Speed Errors % of Disc
Lite-On LDW-811S
2.7x 1622380 0.21%
Nu Tech DDW-081
30.1x 4653504 0.59%
Plextor PX-708A
17.3x 96549548 12.41%
Just read the CDR-Info reviews ... you will get a pretty good picture of a drive's DAE capabilities ...
I have a hard time taking a site like cdrinfo.com seriously. The first thing it did was launch a fastclick popup. Then I got a 'friendly' warning that there might be spyware on my computer. This sort of advertising is more likely to infect my computer than help it. I am glad I already run SpywareBlaster and have most of the idiots blocked. Now I just need to scan my machine for anything that might have been missed.
CDRinfo will NOT be in my favorites list.
CDRinfo will NOT be in my favorites list.
QUOTE(ddrawley @ Sep 1 2004, 05:47 PM)
I have a hard time taking a site like cdrinfo.com seriously. The first thing it did was launch a fastclick popup. Then I got a 'friendly' warning that there might be spyware on my computer. This sort of advertising is more likely to infect my computer than help it. I am glad I already run SpywareBlaster and have most of the idiots blocked. Now I just need to scan my machine for anything that might have been missed.
CDRinfo will NOT be in my favorites list.
CDRinfo will NOT be in my favorites list.
Never noticed something like that ... must be my Firefox browser blocking these ads ...
But I never had any trouble with this site during the last 4 years and I fully understand that they need to advertise ... they have to pay a lot of traffic, they buy a lot of drives and they do produce some very comprehensive reviews ... I have yet to see other 'non-profit' reviews involving e.g. ABEX Test CD's and CATS scanning ...
I still don't believe I've seen any site on the web that includes test/benchmarks that reflect the CDs, software and methods I would be using. By that I mean I’ve only ever come across 1 CD that was seriously scratched. I think if I came across another I’d be temped to track down that old Teac 8x drive I heard was amazing at such scratches. Otherwise I’m dealing with mint or very near perfect pressed CDs and I just want the drive to copy those perfectly. Fair enough throwing test CDs or very badly scratched CDs at these drives will show how they cope at the extreme end of the scale but what about real world conditions?
I’m not sure I’m any the wiser as to whether my requirements would be met by any half decent drive. I mean let’s assume I use EAC, I ignore the drives C2 information and give the drive a CD with just some very light scratching on. Is their likely to much difference between drives or does this testing at the extreme end of the scale reflect the drives performance in normal everyday usage?
Thanks everyone
I’m not sure I’m any the wiser as to whether my requirements would be met by any half decent drive. I mean let’s assume I use EAC, I ignore the drives C2 information and give the drive a CD with just some very light scratching on. Is their likely to much difference between drives or does this testing at the extreme end of the scale reflect the drives performance in normal everyday usage?
Thanks everyone
You can ignore everything else at CDRinfo, but I find their drives reviews and tests thorough and professional. Dismissing the site on the basis of a popup ad is simply facetious.
It would be also more helpful to just post a URL rather than clutter two pages with quoted text blocks.
In practice, I have yet to run into a CD that the Premium+PTP cannot handle.
On a badly scratched CD EAC will bring the whole system down to its knees only to spit out a Sync or a Read error half an hour later, leaving you with a WAV with dropouts/clicks'n'pops.
With PTP, I ran a test on a dispensable CD, running it through SkipDoctor and buffing with Brasso =). The last successfull extraction took 15(!) hours but there were no glitches in the WAVs that I could hear.
For badly scratched CDs I would recommend a professional CD resurfacing service, though.
edit: typo
It would be also more helpful to just post a URL rather than clutter two pages with quoted text blocks.
In practice, I have yet to run into a CD that the Premium+PTP cannot handle.
On a badly scratched CD EAC will bring the whole system down to its knees only to spit out a Sync or a Read error half an hour later, leaving you with a WAV with dropouts/clicks'n'pops.
With PTP, I ran a test on a dispensable CD, running it through SkipDoctor and buffing with Brasso =). The last successfull extraction took 15(!) hours but there were no glitches in the WAVs that I could hear.
For badly scratched CDs I would recommend a professional CD resurfacing service, though.
edit: typo
I'm beginning to think that everyone on here tortures their CDs as a pastime! 
Just kidding, though if anyone can help me out with my questions I'd love to hear your comments.
Just kidding, though if anyone can help me out with my questions I'd love to hear your comments.
Your questions have been answered already, and not just once.
To reiterate: for DAE you are not going to find a better drive than the Plextor Premium. The tests you may have read about showed that none of the tested drives were perfect at DAE. The only area Plextor seems to have slipped a bit is high-speed DVD burning, which is irrelevant in your case.
To reiterate: for DAE you are not going to find a better drive than the Plextor Premium. The tests you may have read about showed that none of the tested drives were perfect at DAE. The only area Plextor seems to have slipped a bit is high-speed DVD burning, which is irrelevant in your case.
- very accurate with brand new and scratched media alike
- can overread into both lead-in and lead-out,
- up to 40x (52x with SpeedRead enabled, not recommended for safety reasons) in Burst mode
- up to 15x in Secure mode
QUOTE(Never_Again @ Sep 2 2004, 04:16 PM)
In practice, I have yet to run into a CD that the Premium+PTP cannot handle.
On a badly scratched CD EAC will bring the whole system down to its knees only to spit out a Sync or a Read error half an hour later, leaving you with a WAV with dropouts/clicks'n'pops.
With PTP, I ran a test on a dispensable CD, running it through SkipDoctor and buffing with Brasso =). The last successfull extraction took 15(!) hours but there were no glitches in the WAVs that I could hear.
For badly scratched CDs I would recommend a professional CD resurfacing service, though.
On a badly scratched CD EAC will bring the whole system down to its knees only to spit out a Sync or a Read error half an hour later, leaving you with a WAV with dropouts/clicks'n'pops.
With PTP, I ran a test on a dispensable CD, running it through SkipDoctor and buffing with Brasso =). The last successfull extraction took 15(!) hours but there were no glitches in the WAVs that I could hear.
For badly scratched CDs I would recommend a professional CD resurfacing service, though.
Everyone says how great they are for really badly scratched CDs but I've no idea if this means they're the best for lightly scratched CDs. Sorry if it seems I'm being ungrateful for the replies I've already had. It would be nice to draw it to a conclusion so I plan on getting the Plextor and possibly trying out a few other cheap drives too.
Thanks
Also...
...along with what other people have said concerning old drives being better than newer ones.
Being a perfectionist I was hoping for a definitive answer but I think I'll go with the majority and get a Premium, try it out, then if maybe a cheap LG comes my way or an older Plextor I'll give them a whirl too.
Thanks for all your help people!
edit for spelling
QUOTE(Seed @ Aug 31 2004, 10:24 PM)
2. The Plextor Premium is not the best Plextor for ripping, despite the excellent software that comes with it. I've analyzed its rips and I'm convinced the much cheaper drives like the PX-W4012A and PX-W1210A are more consistent and much better value for the money if ripping is your main task.
...along with what other people have said concerning old drives being better than newer ones.
Being a perfectionist I was hoping for a definitive answer but I think I'll go with the majority and get a Premium, try it out, then if maybe a cheap LG comes my way or an older Plextor I'll give them a whirl too.
Thanks for all your help people!
edit for spelling
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