The best optical drive

Vincent Kars · Mar 26, 2012

A common question is “What is the best optical drive to rip my CDs”.
The answer is often Plextor.
They do have an excellent reputation but years ago they stopped making their own drives.
Today a Plextor is simple a rebadged OEM

Little is known about the accuracy of optical drives from different brands.
But there is some empirical data.
The AccurateRip database tells you if your rip is accurate or not.
It can be used the other way around too, how many rips are accurate given a certain brand/model.
A list can be found here: CD/DVD Drive Accuracy List 2012

amirm · Mar 26, 2012

That's really cool. Didn't realize it was tracking that. Thanks for posting it.

Vincent Kars · Mar 26, 2012

It probably has to because of the offset correction

Bruce B · Mar 26, 2012

This is so totally incomplete. It is so variable between speeds, media and software. I can get my Plextor drives down to 0.3 BLER using TY media at 16x speed.... The BLER rate goes up to over 80 using Memorex media and speeds of 4x and 32x. Same scenario with my Lite-On and Sony drives.

Phelonious Ponk · Mar 27, 2012

The best optical drive, if you're not in a big hurry, is the one that runs error checking until it gets a match. The worst optical drive is the one that has to play the file back itself, on the fly. An oversimplification? Perhaps. A simple truth? I think so. The two Matshitas in the two Macbooks I've owned since going to HDD audio have failed to copy one disc out of hundreds, and corrected far more errors than they've transferred. They beat CD players hands down.

Tim

Bruce B · Mar 27, 2012

Phelonious Ponk said:
The best optical drive, if you're not in a big hurry, is the one that runs error checking until it gets a match.Tim

That's indicative of the software you're using... not the drive.

Phelonious Ponk · Mar 27, 2012

Bruce B said:
That's indicative of the software you're using... not the drive.

Yeah, I know. My smart-alecy point was all I want is an accurate file on my hard drive. That's not a challenge. Even a marginal drive will do the job if your software is doing its job.

Tim

rbbert · Mar 27, 2012

Bruce B said:
This is so totally incomplete. It is so variable between speeds, media and software. I can get my Plextor drives down to 0.3 BLER using TY media at 16x speed.... The BLER rate goes up to over 80 using Memorex media and speeds of 4x and 32x. Same scenario with my Lite-On and Sony drives.

Bruce, have you ever tried ripping and burning one of the FIM/LIM CD's to CDR and then comparing the sound to the original CD?

Bruce B · Mar 27, 2012

rbbert said:
Bruce, have you ever tried ripping and burning one of the FIM/LIM CD's to CDR and then comparing the sound to the original CD?

Let's not go there !! I had Winston in the studio for 3 days straight ripping, burning at different speeds/media with different burners. That was what I call hell week!

garylkoh · Mar 27, 2012

The list Vincent posted (Thanks, Vincent) is for ripping. Burning is a different matter.

When I used to do this, I recommend (in order of preference for burning with MAM-A media) 1st Plextor Premium-II, 2nd Plextor PX-230, and 3rd Plextor PX-716 (the last is a DVD burner). As regards ripping, I'm with Tim - if the software is doing its job, even a marginal drive will work. I recommend just buying the cheapest drive you can find. Coincidentally, my ripping drive is a re-badged Matsushita.

Imperial · Apr 5, 2012

I have a Plextor PX-760A drive, it's an IDE unit. The PX-760A was the last in the old series made by Plextor. All after this one, are the re-branded ones came a'knocking.
I has worked flawlessly, from day one.
However, I believe that there are supposed to be two Yamaha units, that are better. Either the CRW-F1 or the CRW-70.

The deal with Plextor, the original ones, was that Plextor had their own FUA (Force Unit Access) Commands, so the drives, really would read + buffer and write the data fed.. Nothing else.
So you could use the option -usefua , on a plextor drive, so that it would read directly for the disc, not into the buffer memory first... Turning into a very good redbook cd drive...

Used correctly, either way, this is rather nifty.

Imperial.

garylkoh · Apr 5, 2012

IMHO the Yamaha CRW-F1 is the one to get if you are burning CDR's. I think that it's still the best - although I've heard good things about some blu-ray burners when used for burning CDR's.

Plextor licensed Audio Master Mode (AMM) from Yamaha for their Premium-II and some other models. This is a scheme to make the pits/lands about 20% larger (still within Red/Orange book tolerance) so as to reduce mis-reads and reduce jitter (their marketing). Whatever it is, I've found that CDs burned with AMM always sound better than CDs burned without, all else being equal. The same CD burned with AMM on the Premium-II did not sound better than one burned on the CRW-F1 even though my CRW-F1 is already tired and long in the tooth, and the Premium-II brand new.

...... however, since moving to a music server, I haven't had to go through all this for years.

Imperial · Apr 5, 2012

The PX 760A can make use of this as well, the expanded cd burn, sort of speak.
The old days...

Once you had the data securely ripped to the computer came the time to burn it.
If you were lucky... (to go with a monthy python'ish way of saying this..) you had a good batch of pre 2002 Mitsui & Taiyo Yuden CD-R's handy.
Then you had to edge lathe the lot of them and only choose the most balanced for the burn. Spin them on what ever you had to see if they would wobble...not to mention you would also had to check them for eccentricity...
Then one had to test burn a few at different speeds to check for ...er, I forget..
Now, the cd burner of course, you could not have inside the computer!!! No!!!!
The best was to suspend it on a down pillow and tie it down with flax yarn, if you were that lucky!
Once burned, and ejected from the drive, right into a zip lock plastic bag and into the deep freezer for at least 24h...
After that, recheck for wobble, eccentricity, and then... you had your perfect cd-r.

Then you could embark on a further improvement journey with that now acceptable cd-r. De-stat, liquids, colored ink...

Right...
My best guess for best reader would be Plextor 880SA, as it is supposedly a Teac drive under the hood, a Teac 524. Alternatively A Lite-On 624...

Imperial.

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The best optical drive

Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio

amirm

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Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio

Bruce B

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member

Phelonious Ponk

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Bruce B

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Phelonious Ponk

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rbbert

Well-Known Member

Bruce B

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garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)

Imperial

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garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)

Imperial

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