Your PC CDROM does matter. Read on to find out why. - Page 3

The skips are not at the end of tracks, they are randomly placed throughout. When I play the track again they will skip at the same spot.

amen!

With all due respect, this is snake oil. (especially on ripping.)

Here's how I know: If you go here and you'll see an FTP site to download a popular Unix flavor. Here is the Directory to save you the link:

File: 6.1-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso 517368 KB 5/7/2006
File: 6.1-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso 587932 KB 5/7/2006
File: CHECKSUM.MD5 1 KB 5/7/2006 12:00:00 AM
File: CHECKSUM.SHA256 1 KB 5/7/2006 12:00:00 AM

See those 2 big files at the top? Those are 500MB+ CD images. EVERY BIT must download correctly. To make sure it does, we geeks use what is called an MD5 Hash as a checksum to check the intergity of the files. If a single bit gets flipped in the downloading it will not MD5. (which is a verb too) We get the MD5 checksum when we get the iso. (go click the link, it's just a long string of numbers)

I can then burn the ISO to a CD, and MD5 that. Then I can make another ISO off it and MD5 that ... on and on forever. In all my years, I've only had 1 download not MD5 (and I knew the D/L was hosed, it took forever.) And I've had maybe 3 CDs not MD5. -- And remember a single bit will DQ it.

EVEN IF you accept the fact that error checking on CDs are not as good as data CDs let's run the numbers...

Let's say on an audio CD we have 100 flipped bits. That's a stunningly high number but I'll give it to you.

There are about 5,452,595,200 bits of information on a CD. And you can detect with your ear which 100 are flipped? If you are that good, NASA wants to hire you for something I'm sure.

Futher, anyone who says things like "The highs are muted" is just goofy. If there are errors, they will be random, not just on the highs. Data drives don't "struggle" to write more zeros or more ones. It's all just data.

A few disclaimers that really aren't...

Why do people report there is a difference? Software.

Any reasonable writer today will not be the weak link in the chain. People take a fujimumu brand burner with a driver that was written by 3 guys in India in a week or less and SURPRISE! the driver is crap.

I've had people take out "bad" CD and DVD drives from PCs and I've taken them and tossed them in Mac and they work perfectly. No magic, Apple writes better drivers, that's all.

NOW... Media does matter to a degree. Some media just does not like some burners. But that can easily be tested on a data discs and it is frankly *mostly* a thing of the past.

Here's the main point: Get a decent drive and decent media and you'll be OK. There is no magic formula. But any drive and media combo that can write data properly will do fine with audio... As long and the software writing the audio is functioning.

Bottomline: Forget worring about which model number drive you have, get good software. (and enough RAM and processor to power it etc)

just Some Geek

P.S. I've never read any of the "believers" side of the story. I'm an open minded guy and I'm more then willing to be convinced. But having said that, with my background, I find this is totally implausable. I'd love to see a well written argument that drives do matter. I don't think it would stand up well to scrutiny.

Use Taiyo Yuden CD-R's, you will have to buy online somewhere and have them shipped. Also just because your drive can do 40x it doesn't mean your computer can keep up. Try burning at 4x.

Try using "Burrrn" instead.
http://www.burrrn.net/?page_id=6

CD

Wealth of information on Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ.

md5 sum is not perfect. Two files with different bit patterns could end up with the same md5 sum. However, the chances of collision are very unlikely and matching checksums usually indicate a high degree of confidence that the files are the same.

MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE.

Seriously, is this that bad of a problem? I've had 0 CDs ripped with EAC in secure mode that have audible flaws (to me, of course). I don't even check the CRC checksums. I don't use Test and Copy either. There's been no reason for me to do so.