DVD-ROM - best audio CD quality?

S

Simmo

New member
Hi guys,

Just wondering if there are any DVD-ROM's that stand out in terms of audio CD quality.

These are the brands i was looking at:
Asus (16x DVD-ROM, 48x CD-ROM)
Liteon (16x DVD-ROM, 48x CD-ROM)
Samsung (16x DVD-ROM, 48x CD-ROM)
LG (16x DVD-ROM, 48x CD-ROM)
Pioneer (16x DVD-ROM, 40x CD-ROM)
Sony (16x DVD-ROM, 40x CD-ROM)

Thanks,

Simmo.
 
The quality of the audio is determend by your software settings. In other words if you record an MP3 at 60khz it will sound like crap on all those drives, to the same effect if you record the same MP3 at 196khz it will sound great. Maybe you are refering to the constrution quality, I would not be surprised if all those drive are made in the same factory. I would probably go for the Pioneer.
 
Buy a DVD-ROM for playing DVDs. For audio or data CDs, you're better off with a normal CD player. DVD drive mechanisms in DVD-ROM drives are usually incapable of dealing with off-balance CDs and will sometimes break them. Not that they aren't being used to play CDs, but it's suboptimal, believe it or not.

That said, I've used many different DVD drives and have not really noticed much difference between drives as far as audio Cd quality. I'm however partial to the LG and the Asus drives, for their ability to handle bad CD-Rs, the single biggest drive killer.
 
Your best bet is to either use digital audio extraction via software or hardware. That way your soundcard will be responsible for the sound quality regardless of the drive you choose, and you can dump your money into that which will pay off better in the long run.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I'll just add this - audio extraction is also important when duping an audio CD. Since it is nice to put both a DVD drive and a CDR drive in a system, and it is nice to be able to dupe audio CDs from the DVD to CDR drive, audio extraction is significant. Most early DVD drive sucked in this area. I bought a particular model Liteon 16X drive based on a review in Maximum PC magazine, where that drive posted (by far) the best benchmarks in this area. The drive has worked great for me.
 
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