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[Alex B]

Buying a CD drive for ripping Audio CDs in the Secure mode is a hit and miss game. Apparently some drives are faster than others without affecting the ripping accuracy anyhow. I decided to start this thread for gathering user recommendations.

Here's my recent post from the MC15 board:

Would a faster drive improve on the Secure-Ripping process?

This is a bit late reply, but I wanted to do a test before posting.

The used drive can affect the ripping speed significantly. However, only the digital audio extraction speed from Audio CDs is important. This info is not usually included in the drives' technical details and even if it is available the speed may not be measured in a comparable way.

For instance, my newer Samsung SH-S202J drive (from 2008) is a lot faster audio ripper than my previous generation Samsung SH-W162C drive (from 2006). Both drives have quite similar specs (the quite insignificant 20x vs. 16x DVD+R write speed change was the advertised difference), but obviously the Audio CD ripping part is much better in the newer drive. (I was disappointed when I bought the older Samsung drive and have not used it for ripping Audio CDs. Though, it has been a fine DVD reader and writer.)

Here the test results:

The duration of the test CD: 58 min 52 s (the CD is in a good condition, no re-tries in the secure rip log)
Rip mode: Secure
Encoding format: uncompressed wave (to measure only the ripping speed)

Samsung SH-W162C

Start speed (after the spinning has stabilized): 1.8x
End speed: 6.6x

Ripping time: 20 min 33 s

Average speed: 2.9x


Samsung SH-S202J

Start speed (after the spinning has stabilized): 8.2x
End speed: 16.7x

Ripping time: 4 min 39 s

Average speed: 12.7x


I can recommend SH-S202J for an older PC (it's an EIDE drive) or its SATA version, SH-S203, but unfortunately it is already discontinued. You may still find it from some retailers (for instance, it is available here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Black-SH-S202J-BEBN-Optical/dp/B000Y3O6RG, but not at amazon.com). The current EIDE model is SH-S222A, but I have no experience of it. It may be as fast as, faster than or slower than its predecessor.

Please test your drive(s) and post the results.

EDIT

I attached a sreenshot of my CD & DVD settings. To measure only the ripping speed I tried to disable all additional processes.

EDIT 2

How to calculate the average speed:

The duration of the CD:  58 min 52 s = 58 x 60 + 52 s = 3532 s
The ripping time:  4 min 39 s = 4 x 60 + 39 s = 279 s
3532 / 279 = 12.659...  =>  12.7x speed


Log in to the forum if you can't see the attachment

[Alex B]

Yet another Samsung, a slim EIDE drive:

Samsung SN-S082

The duration of the test CD: 58 min 52 s (the CD is in a good condition, no re-tries in the secure rip log)
Rip mode: Secure
Encoding format: uncompressed wave (to measure only the ripping speed)

Start speed (after the spinning has stabilized): 4.9x
End speed: 9.9x

Ripping time: 7 min 56 s

Average speed: 7.4x

[Listener]

My experience has been that ripping speed varies quite a lot from CD to CD.  There is a danger that the results reported in this thread will not be comparable.

Bill

[Alex B]

You may be correct. If the CD has a short duration the "end" speed will be smaller because the audio track starts from the inner edge and the maximum speed is reached on the outer edge. For this comparison it might be good to test a CD that has a duration of approximately 60 minutes. In any case, since the duration info should be included, the results will probably be comparable with other CDs that have approximately the same duration. The idea is to roughly see if a drive is fast or slow, not to produce scientifically valid results.

Otherwise my experience is different from yours. When I have ripped factory pressed flawless CDs the speeds have been quite consistent (assuming the durations don't differ much). Reread attempts may slow down the process so it is important that the log file doesn't show any rereads.

In addition, the CD should be a genuine Red Book CD without any copy protection system that may affect the speed.

Since each tester (I hope there will be more than one ) is testing a familiar drive or drives it should be easy to report also other related things, like any previously detected or newly found inconsistency in the ripping results. (However, please don't report bugs in this thread. Test only drives that work normally.)

[jmone]

LG GGW-H20L (no way you will get these combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD Drives anymore!)

The duration of the test CD: 1 hour 14 min 00 s (the CD is in a good condition, no re-tries in the secure rip log)
Rip mode: Secure
Encoding format: WMA Lossless

Start speed (after the spinning has stabilized): 4.0x
End speed: 15.1x

Ripping time: 6 min 35 s

Average speed: 11.2x

[Alex B]

It seems to be on the fast side.

Ripping to wav could be even a bit faster, but assuming you have the "Encode concurrently with ripping" setting enabled and your CPU is fast enough the lossless compression shouldn't affect the ripping speed significantly.

[Vincent Kars]

My experience has been that ripping speed varies quite a lot from CD to CD.  There is a danger that the results reported in this thread will not be comparable.

Bill

Recently I ripped aprox 400 hundred on OSX using iTunes in secure mode.
There are big differences in ripping speed between CD's, some rip at 3-4 speed AVG others close to 20 all on the same optical drive of course.
Indeed this kind of numbers probably tells us more about the quality of the CD than the quality of the optical drive used.

[Alex B]

Recently I ripped aprox 400 hundred on OSX using iTunes in secure mode.

Probably iTunes doesn't have a comparable secure ripping system. At least it doesn't provide any kind of report.

There are big differences in ripping speed between CD's, some rip at 3-4 speed AVG others close to 20 all on the same optical drive of course.
Indeed this kind of numbers probably tells us more about the quality of the CD than the quality of the optical drive used.

In general, all factory pressed Red Book CDs should be very similar to each other in terms or readability. As I explained, the duration of the audio content should be the only significant factor that affects the average extraction speed assuming the CDs are faultless and no error correction kicks in.

[Alex B]

A six-year old EIDE DVD writer:

NEC ND-2500A

The duration of the test CD: 58 min 52 s (the CD is in a good condition, no re-tries in the secure rip log)
Rip mode: Secure
Encoding format: uncompressed wave (to measure only the ripping speed)

Start speed (after the spinning has stabilized): 5.4x
End speed: 13.9x

Ripping time: 5 min 35 s

Average speed: 10.5x

[tunetyme]

I am replying to your post in another string.  I have looked into this problem several years ago and settled on Plextor drives.  My original drive is Plextor Premium.  With it comes tools that give you the ability to see (quantify) all the C1, C2 errors as well as CU errors which cause retries for EAC or MC.  There is a huge variation from disc to disc on the quality of the pressing.  I have found that if I buy a CD shortly after the release it is very clean.  (low C1 no C2 or CU errors)  These rip in EAC secure mod at 8x.  If the Cd drops bellow 6x I test it on my Plextor Premium (EIDE now in an external box via USB)  As the dies wear the quality starts dropping and you start seeing an increase in C1 errors and eventually you will start seeing C2 errors.  C2 errors will cause the rip to drop around5x.  The record companies should stop using the die prior to the C2 errors.  They Don't.  The continue until the CD starts having CU errors.  When you have CU errors and a lot of C1 or C2 errors then you introduce distortion into the music.  With CU errors it is clearly audible.  I have used this program to force the dealers to accept returns/replacements CDs for the poor quality CDs.  There are a few dealers who have asked me to stop coming into their store because of this.

I now use a Plextor 880 SA.  It works great except it won't rip HD CDs.  It sees them as a DVD.  SO I use the Plextor Premium for these discs.

I don't think your method will be effective to determine which drive is the best.  I have become content to have my CDs rip between 6-8X.  I know with accurate rip data in EAC if I have a good rip or not.

Tunetyme

   

[Alex B]

Thanks for your reply. However, this thread is intended mainly for those who want to use MC for ripping. EAC is of course a fine ripper, but many users prefer to use the integrated ripper. The assumption here is that in normal conditions MC's secure mode is good enough for avoiding any clicks and pops and if it fails to do that, it will warn you.

It would be useful if you could test the ripping speed with MC and post a report. In my experience MC is slower than EAC if EAC is set to use C2 data. MC does not trust that the drives can provide reliable C2 data and it never uses it. It always reads each sector at least twice. EAC's "secure + C2" mode reads most of the data in one pass when the disc is flawless, i.e. when the drive does not report C2 errors.

[tunetyme]

AlexB

My post was not intended to address the differences between EAC and MC.  In a perfect world we would all be able to buy good quality CDs.  That is not the case.  My point is, unless you use the same CD for each test you can not get reliable results because of the reasons I listed above.  C1 errors can generally be corrected unless there is a large number in a sector.  When that happens you do get some distortion in your music.  It doesn't matter which drive or ripper that you use.  EAC is the de facto standard for ripping CDs.  I still use it.  I am not trying to criticize MC but I am suggesting that with EAC you could do a little better job of comparing hardware because it does recognize and corrects C2 errors.  The CU errors are uncorrectable.  They do not have to be scratches or damage to the disc itself.  I have purchased many new CDs that have serious problems with them.  Very high C1, C2 and some CU errors.  EAC also uses Accurate rip that will tell you if the rip itself is accurate or in other words your drive and software have been able to correct the errors.

I keep a flawless disc (almost 0 C1 errors) as well as several different flawed discs so I can test drives and software.  In another thread I saw some comments by Glynor regarding other computer hardware that may contribute to slow rips.  I think it was a thread started by kosmichicken (or something like that).  

When I started looking for drives I went to Tom's Hardware and CD Freaks to get some unbiased info.  CD Freaks has changed there name and can be found at http://www.myce.com/

I hope this helps.

Tunetyme