6 ms·

I also thought this was a longevity test. I do love optical media and have a considerable CD, DVD, minidisc, and blu-ray collection. Like a Luddite, I still en

I also thought this was a longevity test. I do love optical media and have a considerable CD, DVD, minidisc, and blu-ray collection. Like a Luddite, I still enjoy burning my own. I especially like my Superscope disc copier. It completely disregards copy protection and I frequently make a backup of my favorite CDs which I store. Although much of my stock are older blanks (like those listed in this article)I’ll be sad if CD-R disappears from the market.

Teever 2y ago
Could you recommend a usb CD drive for ripping audio CDs? A local library that I frequent has an extensive jazz collection and I'd like to rip it before they remove it, as I think it's just a matter of time before they do so.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  any CD-R drive can do that, and they are dirt cheap (you should only say CD for audio which refers to audio output rather than the audio CDs themselves) CD-R drives can read audio CDs. so can DVD-R drives with computer interfaces.
- jogu 2y ago
  Any drive will be capable of ripping just fine. If you really want to get into the nitty gritty finding a drive with well known read offsets and the ability to defeat the drive cache is a good bet so you can compare against the accuraterip database. https://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm https://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm
  - rahimnathwani 1y ago
    Not all CD-ROM drives, even those that can play audio, can be used to rip digital audio. Some only have an analogue audio output for playing CDs. I know at least some IDE CD-ROM drives can't read digital audio. It might be true that all SATA drives can read digital audio.
- eisa01 2y ago
  If you have an old mac, you can take out the SuperDrive and use that! Worked flawlessly in contrast to a no-name USB DVD drive I bought on AliExpress
  - mahrain 2y ago
    My experience with Aliexpress USB CD drives is they contain recycled laptop optical drives, sometimes over a decade old!
  - Lammy 2y ago
    Fun fact: in the G4/G5 era, the SuperDrive was a Pioneer DVR-1xx rebadged. That's how I got into them in the first place :) This is also why the Pioneer-branded models work just perfectly in Mac OS 9 and every version of Mac OS X with no PatchBurn necessary: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/patchburn https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/patchburn
- fbnlsr 2y ago
  As others said, the only thing you should be looking for is a drive that works with Accuraterip. Ripping discs from my local library is a hobby of mine and I've discovered so much music from there. I still buy CDs from thrift shops and the occasional garage sale, but having my music collection neatly organized and ripped/verified in FLAC is something I enjoy a lot.
- Lammy 2y ago
  If you just want to rip audio CDs, pretty much any USB drive ever made will be fine. If you want a drive that can do everything up to and including UHD BD, try a Pioneer BDR-XS07UHD if you like slot loading or a Pioneer BDR-XD07B if you need a top-loader with snap-spindle for mini CDs or oddly-shaped CDs. These will cost way more than an old USB2-era drive but will be brand new. You might be able to trawl your local thrift store and walk out with a $5 external drive from the 2000s, but a drive like that should be opened, dusted out, lens cleaned, and rails lubricated with some PTFE grease: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0081JE0OO https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0081JE0OO Exact Audio Copy is still the gold standard for ripping software, and here's how to configure it: https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/eac-ripping/ https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/eac-ripping/ Or XLD if you're on Mac: https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/xld-ripping/ https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/xld-ripping/
  - amiga386 2y ago
    > pretty much any USB drive ever made will be fine. This is not the case. Most of the cheap drives on Amazon sold by random capital letters people are complete shit. As an example, the "CB31005" drive doesn't fucking work. It often gets hung up on reading the TOC and won't even admit there is a CD in the drive. If it doesn't hang there, it reads fine for a while, then at some random point (possibly the first point of error) just gives up and fails to read sectors, forevermore, until you unplug and replug the drive. Even with EAC (which is indeed very good), it just spends hours re-reading sectors up to its maximum number of retries, giving up, and inserting silence. Do not buy a CB31005.
    - Lammy 2y ago
      Drat, I didn't realize the six-letter people had gotten to optical drives. The cheapest (materially and monetarily) I'd previously encountered was like a very very cost-reduced LG SATA drive which was $20 but still worked perfectly.
  - GTP 2y ago
    > Exact Audio Copy is still the gold standard for ripping software What makes it the best? I assumed that, since you're just reading digital data, any ripping software would do the same job in terms of quality, and the only differences would mostly be about having some convenient features or a better UI.
- tuyiown 2y ago
  Note of caution about others comments that suggests using cheap CD drive, audio CDs tracks have no redundancy checks, and production of ripping artifacts is directly related to the drive raw accuracy. That said CD seek is so slow that drives cannot really afford to rely much on redundancy checks, so maybe this is not of concern.
- TonyTrapp 2y ago
  Safest would probably be any drive from the "top drives" AccurateRip list here: https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/forum/dbpoweramp/cd-ripper/324732-cd-drive-accuracy-2024 https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/forum/dbpoweramp/cd-ripper/3247...
- jim180 2y ago
  I do have this[1] one (product code: 43888 not 43889). Ripped a bunch of CDs perfectly. AFAIK, 43888 is preferred by makemkv forums as it's internal drive can be flashed to support ripping blu-rays as well. [1] https://www.verbatim.com/prod/accessories/disc-drives--burners/ultra-hd-4k-blu-ray-writer-usb-c/ https://www.verbatim.com/prod/accessories/disc-drives--burne...
- firefax 2y ago
  To piggyback, is there a good USB Blu ray drive? (And is there a known good CLI tool for backing up copies of them?) I have some Blu Rays I worry will be lost to disc rot 20 years from now...
  - HypnoticOcelot 2y ago
    I've used the Pioneer BDR-XS07UHD[0] and that's worked well with MakeMKV[1]! I've only tried it on normal DVDs, but Blu-Rays should work well too. [0]: https://usa.pioneer/collections/optical-drives/products/bdr-xs07uhd https://usa.pioneer/collections/optical-drives/products/bdr-... [1]: https://makemkv.com/ https://makemkv.com/
    - Lammy 2y ago
      In this case you need a drive with firmware older than February 2023's v1.03 which disabled MakeMKV's LibreDrive. Mine is v1.01. See here: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30383 https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30383
      - HypnoticOcelot 2y ago
        Mine was purchased after that date, does that only apply to Blu-Ray?
        Lammy 2y ago
        Yes, and even then only for Ultra HD Blu-ray. Regular BDs should still usually work unless they're uncommon enough to not have a title key known to MakeMKV. “A LibreDrive is a mode of operation of an optical disc drive (DVD, Blu-ray or UHD) when the data on the disc are accessed directly, without any restrictions or transformations enforced by drive firmware. A LibreDrive would never refuse to read the data from the disc or declare itself ‘revoked’. LibreDrive compatible drive is required to read UHD discs.”
        2y ago
Mistletoe 2y ago
Do you have any advice for burning CD-Rs that will play on old players? My Sony CD changer, and the CD players in both cars won’t play CD-Rs I make. They play CDs fine. I assume it is because the lasers have gotten weaker with time and can’t read the CD-Rs which don’t have as much difference between a 1 and 0 pit compared to stamped CDs? I even ordered Verbatim ones with blue azo dye that was supposed to help but still no dice.
- jwrallie 2y ago
  Are you burning it as slow as possible? That can help a bit, but I’m almost sure you know about it.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Have you tried a different writer?
  - Mistletoe 2y ago
    I've only tried my HHB BurnIT CDR-830, which I love. https://rapmag.com/a/01/feb01/hhb-burnit-cdr-830-review https://rapmag.com/a/01/feb01/hhb-burnit-cdr-830-review I guess it's time to find an old computer CD burner and see if those work.
- some-guy 2y ago
  I have this problem as well with my 2005 Prius CD player, and my 2005 Odyssey's changer before I replaced that car. I think only the highest quality CD-Rs written at the lowest possible speed is your best bet, but I think there are more variables than that.

Teever 2y ago

Could you recommend a usb CD drive for ripping audio CDs? A local library that I frequent has an extensive jazz collection and I'd like to rip it before they remove it, as I think it's just a matter of time before they do so.

fsckboy 2y ago
any CD-R drive can do that, and they are dirt cheap (you should only say CD for audio which refers to audio output rather than the audio CDs themselves) CD-R drives can read audio CDs. so can DVD-R drives with computer interfaces.
jogu 2y ago
Any drive will be capable of ripping just fine. If you really want to get into the nitty gritty finding a drive with well known read offsets and the ability to defeat the drive cache is a good bet so you can compare against the accuraterip database. https://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm https://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm
- rahimnathwani 1y ago
  Not all CD-ROM drives, even those that can play audio, can be used to rip digital audio. Some only have an analogue audio output for playing CDs. I know at least some IDE CD-ROM drives can't read digital audio. It might be true that all SATA drives can read digital audio.
eisa01 2y ago
If you have an old mac, you can take out the SuperDrive and use that! Worked flawlessly in contrast to a no-name USB DVD drive I bought on AliExpress
- mahrain 2y ago
  My experience with Aliexpress USB CD drives is they contain recycled laptop optical drives, sometimes over a decade old!
- Lammy 2y ago
  Fun fact: in the G4/G5 era, the SuperDrive was a Pioneer DVR-1xx rebadged. That's how I got into them in the first place :) This is also why the Pioneer-branded models work just perfectly in Mac OS 9 and every version of Mac OS X with no PatchBurn necessary: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/patchburn https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/patchburn
fbnlsr 2y ago
As others said, the only thing you should be looking for is a drive that works with Accuraterip. Ripping discs from my local library is a hobby of mine and I've discovered so much music from there. I still buy CDs from thrift shops and the occasional garage sale, but having my music collection neatly organized and ripped/verified in FLAC is something I enjoy a lot.
Lammy 2y ago
If you just want to rip audio CDs, pretty much any USB drive ever made will be fine. If you want a drive that can do everything up to and including UHD BD, try a Pioneer BDR-XS07UHD if you like slot loading or a Pioneer BDR-XD07B if you need a top-loader with snap-spindle for mini CDs or oddly-shaped CDs. These will cost way more than an old USB2-era drive but will be brand new. You might be able to trawl your local thrift store and walk out with a $5 external drive from the 2000s, but a drive like that should be opened, dusted out, lens cleaned, and rails lubricated with some PTFE grease: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0081JE0OO https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0081JE0OO Exact Audio Copy is still the gold standard for ripping software, and here's how to configure it: https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/eac-ripping/ https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/eac-ripping/ Or XLD if you're on Mac: https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/xld-ripping/ https://zexwoo.blog/en/posts/tutorials/xld-ripping/
- amiga386 2y ago
  > pretty much any USB drive ever made will be fine. This is not the case. Most of the cheap drives on Amazon sold by random capital letters people are complete shit. As an example, the "CB31005" drive doesn't fucking work. It often gets hung up on reading the TOC and won't even admit there is a CD in the drive. If it doesn't hang there, it reads fine for a while, then at some random point (possibly the first point of error) just gives up and fails to read sectors, forevermore, until you unplug and replug the drive. Even with EAC (which is indeed very good), it just spends hours re-reading sectors up to its maximum number of retries, giving up, and inserting silence. Do not buy a CB31005.
  - Lammy 2y ago
    Drat, I didn't realize the six-letter people had gotten to optical drives. The cheapest (materially and monetarily) I'd previously encountered was like a very very cost-reduced LG SATA drive which was $20 but still worked perfectly.
- GTP 2y ago
  > Exact Audio Copy is still the gold standard for ripping software What makes it the best? I assumed that, since you're just reading digital data, any ripping software would do the same job in terms of quality, and the only differences would mostly be about having some convenient features or a better UI.
tuyiown 2y ago
Note of caution about others comments that suggests using cheap CD drive, audio CDs tracks have no redundancy checks, and production of ripping artifacts is directly related to the drive raw accuracy. That said CD seek is so slow that drives cannot really afford to rely much on redundancy checks, so maybe this is not of concern.
TonyTrapp 2y ago
Safest would probably be any drive from the "top drives" AccurateRip list here: https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/forum/dbpoweramp/cd-ripper/324732-cd-drive-accuracy-2024 https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/forum/dbpoweramp/cd-ripper/3247...
jim180 2y ago
I do have this[1] one (product code: 43888 not 43889). Ripped a bunch of CDs perfectly. AFAIK, 43888 is preferred by makemkv forums as it's internal drive can be flashed to support ripping blu-rays as well. [1] https://www.verbatim.com/prod/accessories/disc-drives--burners/ultra-hd-4k-blu-ray-writer-usb-c/ https://www.verbatim.com/prod/accessories/disc-drives--burne...
firefax 2y ago
To piggyback, is there a good USB Blu ray drive? (And is there a known good CLI tool for backing up copies of them?) I have some Blu Rays I worry will be lost to disc rot 20 years from now...
- HypnoticOcelot 2y ago
  I've used the Pioneer BDR-XS07UHD[0] and that's worked well with MakeMKV[1]! I've only tried it on normal DVDs, but Blu-Rays should work well too. [0]: https://usa.pioneer/collections/optical-drives/products/bdr-xs07uhd https://usa.pioneer/collections/optical-drives/products/bdr-... [1]: https://makemkv.com/ https://makemkv.com/
  - Lammy 2y ago
    In this case you need a drive with firmware older than February 2023's v1.03 which disabled MakeMKV's LibreDrive. Mine is v1.01. See here: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30383 https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30383
    - HypnoticOcelot 2y ago
      Mine was purchased after that date, does that only apply to Blu-Ray?
      - Lammy 2y ago
        Yes, and even then only for Ultra HD Blu-ray. Regular BDs should still usually work unless they're uncommon enough to not have a title key known to MakeMKV. “A LibreDrive is a mode of operation of an optical disc drive (DVD, Blu-ray or UHD) when the data on the disc are accessed directly, without any restrictions or transformations enforced by drive firmware. A LibreDrive would never refuse to read the data from the disc or declare itself ‘revoked’. LibreDrive compatible drive is required to read UHD discs.”
        2y ago

Mistletoe 2y ago

Do you have any advice for burning CD-Rs that will play on old players? My Sony CD changer, and the CD players in both cars won’t play CD-Rs I make. They play CDs fine. I assume it is because the lasers have gotten weaker with time and can’t read the CD-Rs which don’t have as much difference between a 1 and 0 pit compared to stamped CDs? I even ordered Verbatim ones with blue azo dye that was supposed to help but still no dice.

jwrallie 2y ago
Are you burning it as slow as possible? That can help a bit, but I’m almost sure you know about it.
HPsquared 2y ago
Have you tried a different writer?
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  I've only tried my HHB BurnIT CDR-830, which I love. https://rapmag.com/a/01/feb01/hhb-burnit-cdr-830-review https://rapmag.com/a/01/feb01/hhb-burnit-cdr-830-review I guess it's time to find an old computer CD burner and see if those work.
some-guy 2y ago
I have this problem as well with my 2005 Prius CD player, and my 2005 Odyssey's changer before I replaced that car. I think only the highest quality CD-Rs written at the lowest possible speed is your best bet, but I think there are more variables than that.