Andre Wiethoff, maker of EAC, just released an analyzer for DAE (digital audio extraction) quality.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de , click on the "DAE quality" link on the left.

It requires burning a special test CD.
It reports both the ability of drives to perfectly correct errors, comparing the point from where the copy differs from the original, and the audibility of the clicks that are caused by the errors.

Once the CD is made, it can be used to compare any drives against each other.

Andre started with:

Pioneer DVD-ROM DVD-106
Plextor CD-R PX-W2410A
Pioneer DVD-RW A04
Plextor CD-ROM PX-40TS
HIFI (standalone) CD-Player Harman/Kardon HD760

Winner : Plextor CD-R PX-W2410A
Loser : Plextor CD-ROM PX-40TS (Andre's apologies : "I want to remark that the drive was already stressed a lot and is not far from being worn out")

See the results on the page above, and if you've got several drives, test them !


edit: sp

And an updated version (1.1) is now available. This new version includes a feature that tests the reliability of the C2 information returned by your drive!

Great improvement. It has been waited for for years.
Now we can tell which drive reports C2 accurately.

I must make myself a test cd one day...
But I don't understand why you must create this cd so carefully...
To be able to compare with tests performed by others?

If you only want to compare your own drives you could just damage one of you normal cd's and use this tool?

It's very difficult. I lost much time trying to do so.
80% of the time, the CD was still readable with no errors in spite of the damage.
20% of the time, it was so damaged that the extraction froze.

I must add that the technical discussions are flying high in EAC forum.

You might want to read this paper http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/k...audio2/95x7.htm about EFM, CIRC, C1 and C2 error correction in CDs, before jumping in

http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?t...?threadid=14600

and

http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?t...?threadid=15197