Sorry if this has aleady been asked and answered, but I can't find it anywhere in the forums.

I'm looking for the best audio CD ripping optical drive. My Lite-on 1633 @ 1653 rips DVDs in a flash, but is sloooooooooooooooooooooooooow in ripping audio CDs.

I use music match full licensed version, and have tried several other programs but the results are about the same. I also have a cheap combo drive that burns at about twice the speed as the Lite-on, but still not that fast.

I'd love to invest in a drive that rips audio CDs ultra-fast, but don't know which to buy and can't find much discussion about audio (DVD ripping info is everywhere).

Thanks for the help!!!!

plextor drives
can get a cd-rw premium or a plex 716a (dvdr)

Thanks!

I see you have the Plextor PX-716A, i'll look into that one.

Thanks again.

I allways use my Plextor Premium 523252 with EAC (Secure Mode), hasnt let me down yet.

Regards,

Ben

I've tried EAC, and the audio results are excellent, but it's slow. I'm look to rip as quick as possible without regard to quality. Can EAC do this if i configure it differently?

Thanks!

The best audio CD ripping drive is, has been and probably always will be the Plextor PX-40TS 40x SCSI cd-rom. Note that this drive is available in two versions: The 50 pin standard (narrow) and the 68 pin wide (ultrawide) version. You want the 50 pin standard version as it has a later rom that can updated with better firmware and it features better performance as a result.

More specifically, you want the Plextor PX-40TS "narrow" (50 pin) drive with firmware 1.1 or later. There was an early version of this drive with 1.0x firmware. You do NOT want that drive because it features a different rom chip that cannot be upgraded to the significantly better 1.1x firmware. If you are buying from a source such as eBay, be sure to ask whether the drive has 1.0 or later firmware before buying: Many of the drives being sold on eBay as pulls or whatever do not.

This is the best CD ripping drive ever, bar none. If you are serious about CD ripping, it is even worth buying a SCSI card to use one of these drives. (You can also use Plextools with this drive, which is even better than EAC for ensuring a proper rip).

If you are unwilling to spring for the best drive, look for an IDE Plextor drive with at least 12x burning speed (there are no IDE Plextor CD-rom [non burning]). These will all do very good extraction. Just not as good ast the PX-40TS. Plextor drives are significantly better drives for CD extraction than any of the cheaper competition (Lite-On, etc.)

Yes it can. In EAC go to the "Drive options" window and select. The quality of this is allmost identicle to Secure mode unless the CD is hard to read, but it should be *much* faster at reading.



Ben

From the drives I own, which do you guys think would be the next best after Plextor?

Thanks

Thanks for the advice. Would the drive below be the one you are refering to?
Thanks again.



"Plextor UltraPleX 40max 40X 8000RPM SCSI CD-ROM Drive
# Part #s (retail kit): PX-40TSi (internal)
# Ultra SCSI Interface
# Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP and NT 4.0 compatible
# 17X min/40X max throughput
# 20MB/sec burst transfer rate
# 85ms average random read
# 512KB Buffer
# Reads CD-RW (CD-ReWritable) media
# Capable of high speed Digital Audio Extraction with "bit-by-bit" accuracy
# Windows Plug & Play compatible
# Flash ROM allows for easy upgrade over the Internel"

This sounds like it is probably the correct drive. The question is: What version of the firmware is on the drive now? If it's 1.1x (e.g. 1.13 or whatever), then it's the drive you want. If it's 1.0x (e.g. 1.03) then while this is a good drive, it isn't the BEST drive. You can't update a 1.0x drive to 1.1x firmware (the latest and best). 1.1x drives are faster at extraction.

Ask the seller to tell you what firmware is on the drive. That info is, I think, listed on the label on the top of the drive. That should at least indicate the firmware that was on the drive when it was manufactured, which is enough to determine which series drive it is.

could be the best , but really worth the premium price ?
scsi cards arent cheap (at least a decent one)

FWIW, i rip all my CDs using my Plex Premium and Plextools Pro - only rip to WAV then encode to lossy formats with other software.

Why not rip to a lossless format instead of WAV? It will save you some space.

Do you base this statement on direct comparison to the Premium and the PX-716A? Or is it an "older means better" kind of speculation?

cause it's quicker and i don't leave the rips on my HDs and either burn them to Audio-Cd format or archive them on DVD as WAVs. no need for Flac, Monkey's, etc.

Older RARELY means better with computer hardware.

HOWEVER, in this case older IS better. The Plextor SCSI CDrom did one thing, and one thing only: Read CD-roms. As a result, it could be entirely optimized for that function. All the subsequent Plextor drives have been read/write drives and as a result their performance is a compromise to allow high quality reading AND writing. They do more, but as a result they are not as well optimized for just READING.

One more thing: As time has progressed, price pressures have forced everyone, including Plextor, to manufacture their drives more cheaply. The physical construction quality of the SCSI CDroms is better than subsequent drives.

Oh, and SCSI cards that can be used with this drive aren't that expensive. All you need is an old 50 pin internal PCI SCSI card. These should be close to dirt cheap on eBay these days.

not even close in quality to secure mode... if you have so much as a speck of dust on the cd it can result in popping noises in the rip might as well use [generic cd ripping software here] since EAC is meant for accuracy not speed

Hi to all!
I know i'm bumping old thread, but I have a Q regarding PX-40TSx. It seems to me that i can't identify FW version by the top sticker, can i? Please help me with that. It should be 1.1x, but how to see it without actually trying to flash it?

Thanks

edit: Maybe certain dates of production?