BEST CDROM FOR RIPPING??

[METALBOY]

I have about 600 cd's I want to convert into MP3's. I have a kenwood 52x SCSI rom and it ripped songs like no ones business but they are always very QUIET. I have a older IDE that ripps them and the volume is good but the quality sucks. So what I am looking for is the BEST cd rom for ripping. Thanx.

 

[Shmorq]

CD drives by TEAC are one of the best for everything, including DAE. I have the 540E and I've had perfect quality rips. Also, using a good program like Exact Audio Copy will help in getting better rips since it reads every audio sector twice to make sure there were no errors.

 

[jagr10]

I recommend the Plextor 16x! Excellent!

 

[Motero]

Teac or Plextor.

 

[METALBOY]

Okay now what about SCSI or IDE? Does it matter? I tried my Yamaha and Kenwood scsi drives and had no luck at all. The older drive I tried was IDE and a TEAC but it was 4 years old. All it did was pop and skip non stop.

 

[phigamman]

<< Okay now what about SCSI or IDE? Does it matter? >>



Ripping is CPU intensive.
+
Even fast CD-ROM drives (IDE or SCSI) only churn out a fraction of the throughput that a CPU can process in a cycle.
=
It really only matters if you plan on doing something else while you're ripping. The speed of the SCSI interface gives you more room for traffic and should insure against errors and artifacts picked up while multitasking. Personally, even though I have a mostly SCSI rig (link below), I still rip as a stand-alone task, just to make sure I get the best rip I can.

 

[METALBOY]

So do you think it is just my Kenwood drive that doesn't rip songs well or do you think it is the fact it's SCSI. I have heard lots of people say they had trouble ripping with SCSI cdroms. That the quality is not there.

 

[Shmorq]

Have you tried slowing down your RIP speeds? That usually fixes the problem as well...

 

[phigamman]

<< I have heard lots of people say they had trouble ripping with SCSI cdroms. >>



I think it depends on the drive. I have a SCSI pioneer DVD-ROM which I rip from. It's spec'd at 6x DVD and 32x CD read. It rips a full-length CD in under 5 minutes. The quality is flawless (as flawless as an 80% VBR MP3 is, anyway) with no detectable hissing, popping or other artifacting. As I mentioned in my other post (above), it's more a question of how you rip (ie: do you try to do other stuff at the same time? this one is a killer!) than what equipment you use, in most cases.

 

[rlism]

SCSI: Plextor PX40TSi
IDE (DVD): Pioneer DVD-115
IDE (CDROM): Kenwood UCR-421

The Plextor has better DAE than the Pioneer, not as good as the Kenwood.

 

[METALBOY]

Well when I rip I only do that. Everything else is turned off or shutdown.

The sound quality off my Kenwood is incredible. No hisses no pops no distortion of any kind. It's just very quiet. Some of the software I use wont even detect it and most wont detect my yamaha either. The volume is louder with higher high bit rates but not much.
It wont do digital recording either. Only analog. I am not sure why. If I try digital it will come back with a wave but NO sound at all. I hate to buy another CD rom. This kenwood kicks butt in everyother way just not on ripping.

 

[phigamman]

Hmmm...

That analogue-only problem is weird. Usually, you get dropped to analogue if the CD is scratched and can't do digital. Is the CD in question scratched/damaged?

 

[METALBOY]

Nope not at all. It will go digital on my IDE drive no problem. I am going to order a plextor and see what happens.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Kenwood drives are notorious for poor DAE.

I don't know where you guys heard that SCSI drives have poor DAE, my Plextor 40MAX is SCSI, and does flawless, fast DAE. I can also multitask with no problem...

 

[afropick]

What software do you use?

I'm no expert, but I think (EAC) Exact Audio Copy is supposed to do flawless ripping, regardless of the drive, and it's free. For more info try r3mix.net.

 

[Biggs]

Afreey drives are real fast when it comes to DAE.

 

[Erasmus-X]

I use a Plextor PX40TSi and it makes nothing but flawless rips (it's fast too, exceeds 32x on outer tracks and does about 18-20x on inner tracks). I tried out a Kenwood TrueX 72x IDE drive and I wasn't too impressed. Maybe I had a dud, but I couldn't get the darn thing to rip any faster than 8x (totally unacceptable performance). Plus, the drive had trouble reading certain CD-Rs of mine. Apparently I'm not the only who has had a problem with this. Needless to say, I returned the drive and I ordered a Plextor instead.

Everyone in this board seems to swear by Plextor and now I'm starting to realize why. Their products are top-notch in almost every way. I'm even thinking of replacing my aging Teac 6x SCSI burner with a new Plextor.

 

[Eug]

People keep recommending the Pioneer DVD-ROM drives.

However...

I have a Pioneer 104S and the thing rips music flawlessly (no clicks or pops, etc.)... but there is annoying split second chirp at the beginning of rare songs, and which only can be heard on my Apex DVD/MP3 player. (.wav files burned to CD-R are fine, and Winamp on my computer is fine if I remember correctly).

With my Panasonic CR-584B I NEVER get these chirps.

One thing I've noticed:

Pioneer --> Multiple rips --> Every file has the exact same CRC value, and exact same file length.

Panasonic --> Multiple rips --> ditto.

HOWEVER, the Pioneer and Panasonic file sizes are often slightly different. I can eliminate the chirp by truncating the first bit of data off my rips, so I suspect that some of Pioneer drives have a bit of trouble finding the true beginning of songs. But once it locks in, it rips beautifully.

Plextors cost a lot, but in general the quality is good, although my friend's Plextor wouldn't behave with some software programs.

 

[METALBOY]

Well I ordered my Plextor. I get it tomorrow. That means I will have a TEAC, Kenwood, Yamaha and Plextor cd in machine. I also plan to buy the SCSI Pioneer DVD player soon. Is that too many cd players????

 

[PliotronX]

You will not be disappointed! I can multitask like no ones business and still get perfect, fast rips with my Plextor 40X. It supports overreading into the Lead-in and Lead-out, true support for C2 error correction.. aw man it's just the bomb. You'll have those 600 CDs ripped in no time I hope you have enough hard disk space..

 

[METALBOY]

I have 4 40 gig maxtors in a raid 0 config. Thats 160 gigs of pure storage. Wooooh daddy!

 

[Radboy]

It says here that &quot;.. Plextor CD-ROMs are often seen as the &quot;reference&quot; audio extractors.&quot; (end of 3rd paragraph).

 

[dingdongdingdong]

well what kind of program are you using to making your mp3. for me i think you are not using the best program to rip your cd so their is the problem of the quality of mp3 you make.make sure you have EAC and lame encoder. this is the two program that combine and make exellent mp3. I hope you understood what i mean

 

[dingdongdingdong]

hey metalboy what about this i have 600wat ps and 4 IBM 45gig 7200rpm raid 0 and 6 81gig maxtor on my abit KT7A-raid.and I also have six more 81gig maxtor and still to find a way to conected it to my mobo so any idea metal boy if yes please help me out.

 

[METALBOY]

I believe you can just add more PCI raid cards. That should do it for you.