Burning CD questions

[f.k.l.chan]

Hi,

I am going to buy a used low speed CDR writer to burn some audio CDs, will it be better if i use SCSI CD-rom + SCSI CRD-writer? what software should i use to get the ebst result?

Cheers

Leo

[dhaen]

Hi Leo,

Not sure what the first part of your question means. Both SCSI and IDE devices can give good results.
WRT software, when I used a PC, I liked EAC (exact audio copy). It's free.

BTW do you have a source for a SCSI CD writer? I'm about to put mine on eBay.
It's a:
Yamaha CD-rewriter Model CDRW2100S
Complete with:
Tekram DC-315U PCI SCSI card (and cable)
SCSI drivers are available from the Tekram site for Windows and Linux, but Windows 2000 onwards uses it's own. I've run it successfully under Windows and Linux.
This was part of my PC setup before I moved to Mac

Send me an email before the weekend if you are interested, I'm sure we can make a deal.

Cheers,

[pburke]

I have three drives in my PC and the best extraction (100% quality without any suspect areas on undamaged CDs just about every time) is the internal 52X IDE drive (I think it's an MSI). The LiteOn IDE writer and the external SCSI Sony writer both have issues with EAC during extraction, so I don't use them for that.

The 52X also does exactly the same thing at full speed or at forced 4x max extraction speed, so now I extract my CDs at about 20X without any errors, binary identical every single time when I did a test.

I do write at 1X on the modded Sony Spressa external SCSI drive - much better being on a sand box, damped, and soon with battery power

basically, with EAC you have to try out a few drives before you settle which one does the most reliable extraction. I have tried a few other PCs for extraction and the very same master CD gave me tons of errors and endless retries on a very similar IDE drive.

Hope that helps

Peter

[richie00boy]

I've got a SCSI setup purely because I got a writer when they first came out and you could only get SCSI. I have since upgraded, but carried on the tradition because I liked SCSI. I had a Yamaha writer first which broke for no reason after about 13 months I replaced it with a Plextor which has been fantastic. I also have a Plextor reader.

If you are going for older stuff then watch out, some of them don't cope with all the intracacies. Plextor seem to be able to cope with anything I throw at them And extraction always gives perfect results on either drive at any speed.

It makes a difference which SCSI card you get; some software is fussy.

If you are going for SCSI because you think you will get better quality, I wouldn't bother. Unless you have an old machine IDE will be fine, and you can get a brand new writer for probably what a SCSI card, reader and writer will cost 2nd-hand.

[halcyon]

I'm not sure how much you are willing to spend, but these things matter:

- scsi vs ata vs serial ata = not much difference. Pick the interface you want

- jitter performance of the burner (Yamaha had very low jitter performance writers, but they exited the cd burner market and these drives aren't available anymore, nor are they very reliable in terms of mechanics. Another good option is Plextor Premium drive or LiteON 52327s)

- choice of CD-R quality: buy discs made by Taiyo Yuden (such as Plextor brand), Mitsubishi Chemical Company (such as Verbatim Datalife Plus), MAM-E (ex Mitsui) (such as Gold Archival) and/or Fujifilm Co (such as Fuji CD-R which have "Made in Japan" printed on the box)

- burn at lower speed than max, for lower jitter on the disc. Don't burn slower than 4x (most current high-speed recorders don't support below 4x burning in hardware and the software emulated burn at 1x/2x will not be good quality in terms of compatibility/jitter)

- test various speeds and media (discs) to find that best suits your cd players (in terms of compatibility). Unfortunately there are no absolute hard rules like "X is the absolute best burner" or "Y is the absolute best cd-r disc"

[f.k.l.chan]

thanks for you reply, i will check the Plextor Premium drive.

cheers

[BrianL]

I have an Plextor UltraPlex 40X CD reader (scsi) and 12X Plextor
CDRW (scsi) at home and a Plextor Premium (IDE) at work. All
are great.

"Jitter" as they speak of it in the CDR burning world is not
the same as the sample clock jitter that we talk about in
digital audio. The type of jitter that they talk about in the
CDR burning world should have no effect on audio quality.

The Plextor software that comes with the Premium (along with
Nero, etc) has some interesting tools to allow you to look at
jitter, "S/N ratio", and errors on a CD. I did a slight bit of
experimenting with write speed and faster writing gave
better "jitter" but lower errors, and vice versa for slower
writing speed. (or was it the other way 'round?)

While I am still a SCSI fan, I'm seriously considering buying
a Premium drive for home while they still make them as I
imagine that CDR/W only drives will be phased out in favor
of ones that do DVD burning as well, and I doubt that as
much attention will be paid to CD creation abilities in the
future.

Always buy quality media. One of my big concerns is archival
life and there's precious little solid (and CURRENT) information
out there except the hype from the manufacturers. Yet a
marketing guy from one of the media makers admitted to
a friend of mine that they had to compromise longevity
to get faster write speeds.

[xiaoma1]

ide cdrom would be better.

most software can support ide interface cdrom.

[pburke]

Originally posted by xiaoma1
ide cdrom would be better.

most software can support ide interface cdrom.

what matters is what the good software supports, and as of now, EAC supports all my SCSI and IDE drives, so it's pretty much irrelevant in that regard.

What matters is what your best drive is, and the best drive for writing quality media is an external unit that can burn at 1X. For that, you need to find drives on the used market. It is much easier to find old quality SCSI external writers, than a decent USB unit. I have my doubts about the whole USB thing since a friend's fancy $$$ external USB drive kept turning out coasters, although internally it's identical with my scsi writer that works very well with the same software...

Peter

[MWP]

Originally posted by pburke

What matters is what your best drive is, and the best drive for writing quality media is an external unit that can burn at 1X. For that, you need to find drives on the used market.

Im not quite so sure about that...

Old burners could only burn at say 2x because they were not accurate enough to burn at anything quicker.

Where as a new 52x burner is very accurate, even more so when burning at lower speeds like 8x.

Because of that, i think i would go for a new HQ 52x burner rather than an old 2x burner.