[dshea_32665]

On my iBook, there is no fan noise or any computer noise when I listen to CDs. I can tell no significant difference between my HD and the CD ROM with regards to audio quality as amazing as that may seem. Although most of my collection is on my HD, I will often borrow CDs and listen to them. I don't really want to rip them for ethical reasons, plus my HD is starting to get full.

Does listening using the CD drive cause significant wear and tear to the hardware?

dshea

 

[Asmo]

No more than any other CD player, I would not worry about it, you could play cds 24/7 and probably never have the cd-rom break in that computers lifetime.

 

[macbrush]

Actually, with heavy usage, normal drive tend to break down in a couple of years, 2 - 3 years in my company. With one exception, Sony's drive usually suvive for just a litte more than a year with just average usage, and our company has banned purchasing any Sony drives since last year.

The damage is done due to alignment of the tracking get mess up in time, as well as there is a wear on laser diode (as in all kinds of diode) every time you put current through it.

 

[Asmo]

Yeah, definetly with 'heavy usage' I would not consider audio playback to be heavy usage. It does not spin very fast, compared to heavy data transfer usage.

 

[macbrush]

Actually, heavy usage in our company are just those with headphones on their desk plugged into the front panel of the CDROM drive.

 

[pedxing]

In my experience, CD-ROM And DVD-ROM drives do no have long life spans. In theory, they should last several years. Usually the faster they spin, the shorter the lifespan. You should playback the CD-ROM through the analog connection if possible, using the regular CD audio playback mode. Digital playback mode may force the device to work harder and extract digital information as if it was ripping the CD. You should test various modes out if possible and see how much activity your CD-ROM drive requires to play back CD's.

Also, cd-rom's in lap tops usually trade performance and robustness for compactness.

 

[Spoonfed]

Maybe in an "ibook" its a concern for replacement could be of expense.

But in a normal PC a CDRom drive or DVDRom for that matter is cheap as chips