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Best Drive for Ripping Audio

post #1 of 40
8/28/06 at 12:14am
Thread Starter 
Okay, I want to know what the best CD drive you've ever used for ripping audio is. It should be available to anyone, like drives from Plextor, Lite-On, etc.(This doesn't mean it has to be available world-wide or anything though) It should be a drive you have first-hand experience with.(i.e. you've ripped audio with it before, not just heard about it on hydrogen audio or from a friend) Whaddya think?

edit: the drive doesn't even have to burn well, just rip audio accurately. Of course If it can burn CD's well that is a plus.

edit: let me stress that when I say "best for ripping" I mean in terms of accuracy and not speed.
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post #2 of 40
8/28/06 at 12:18am
It matters what drive you use to rip? Now there's something I didn't know. I didn't think it made a difference, well, besides speed. Don't all drives just read 1's and 0's anyway?
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post #3 of 40
8/28/06 at 12:43am
plextor would be my vote. i havent had that much luck with liteon, even their dvdrom drives break. i like my new plextor dvd burner but havent burned much with it
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post #4 of 40
8/28/06 at 12:44am
The Plextor 716SA is the best drive I've ever used. I don't know if they're discontinued or not, but you can still find new ones here and there. It's quiet, fast and efficient. There might be some with higher speeds, but this one is fast enough, quiet and never makes coasters.
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post #5 of 40
8/28/06 at 1:30am
Audio ripping is the only reason my stalwart Plextor 1610A remains the only part in my system, since my first computer build, over five years ago.
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post #6 of 40
8/28/06 at 1:35am
Plextor is the best, no question, but they are also the most expensive.
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post #7 of 40
8/28/06 at 2:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1117
It matters what drive you use to rip? Now there's something I didn't know. I didn't think it made a difference, well, besides speed. Don't all drives just read 1's and 0's anyway?
Essentially 1's and 0's, but the way it is decoded is not a simple translation of pits, landings straight into a particular tone, dB and sample rates. Google Red Book CD, the actual specification can be rather involving, a lot has to do with error correction and clocking.
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post #8 of 40
8/28/06 at 3:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1117
It matters what drive you use to rip? Now there's something I didn't know. I didn't think it made a difference, well, besides speed. Don't all drives just read 1's and 0's anyway?
Yes, it makes a big difference what drive you can use. Some drives will skip more often than others or cannot handle scratches as well as others.

Plextor drives in general are the best and maybe the fastest if you use the plextool ripping utility. I have achieved faster than 20x rip speed on my plextor 716. However, I suggest you skip the 716 - plextor seems to have reliability issues with them and a lot of people are reporting that the drives die on them on them rather quickly. You may want to look into the Premium 2 or 760a. The 760 is a DVD/CD burner. I believe the Premium 2 is a dedicated super CD-RW drive.

Some people have also found some other good DVD drives that can rip well, such as the Asus E616A. Some people say its fast and it can rip scratched CDs quite well.
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post #9 of 40
8/28/06 at 6:02am
I use a Plextor Premium for CD ripping.

I believe the Premium 2 is now available in Germany, although I have not specifically checked the point.

CDFreaks is quite a good place to get details about DVD & CD burners etc :

http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=43

[Confirmed that Plextor Premium 2 is available in Germany. Price is €109.00 exc shipping.]
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post #10 of 40
8/28/06 at 6:43am
+1 vote for Plextor drives (make sure it's not a "fake Plextor" like the 740 that I bought 'cause it was cheap.)
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post #11 of 40
8/28/06 at 7:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ObiHuang
+1 vote for Plextor drives (make sure it's not a "fake Plextor" like the 740 that I bought 'cause it was cheap.)
Yes, the Plextor 740 was a re-badged BenQ 1640 - although a real BenQ 1640 is a very good DVD Burner.

I have had quite a few Plextor CD burners, but I think Plextor lost the plot with their DVD burners - I don't rate any of them. LG or BenQ is my preference (I have both).
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post #12 of 40
8/28/06 at 12:11pm
http://www.cdrlabs.com/
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post #13 of 40
8/28/06 at 2:08pm
I use a Philips drive, but I create an image of the CD and then confirm that the image is accurate. Then I rip the image file. That way I have managed to rip CDs I could not otherwise.
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post #14 of 40
8/28/06 at 2:40pm
Pioneer, LG, BenQ
edit: typo
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post #15 of 40
8/28/06 at 3:01pm
Lite-On CD-RW drives are excellent CD rippers. Even heavily scratched discs can be ripped cleanly with these drives.
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