External CD Drive recommendations
Posted by: AndyP19 on 05 January 2016
Having ripped over 4,000 CDs (with many more to go) I'm thinking it's time I should replace my external CD drive. Currently using an AMS Venus external drive with dbpoweramps into a Vortexbox streamed to ND5XS (NDS on the wishlist for 2016)
Any recommendations on a solid built reliable external CD drive?
Ever since the internal drives on my desktop and laptop gave up the ghost - from too much ripping - I have used an external drive made by LG. I forget the model and it's now quite old. It's been very reliable and I would suggest you look at their website for the latest version. No need to spend more than £25...
Andy, are you still looking to use the shell of the AMS or a whole new 'package'. If you are just looking at changing the internal drive, I have just changed to Asus DRW-24B1ST, but the main drive I use is an external Asus BW-12D1S-U, this also does Bluray for use with DVD Audio Extractor work.
I've had both about a year and I've had no issues with them and dbpoweramp - I did buy for a few $ a 4 year extended warranty through my computer store as I intend to get through my 5000 CD collection in that time, I'm 1/5 of the way there and doing FLAC and MP3 (for car/itunes) dual encoding and ensuring tags and artwork are correct, not a fast process and leaving the problematic tagging classical cds til last ! :-)
I had always imagined that as long as you use Accurate Rip, or similar software to verify that your rip is 'bit perfect' any imperfections during the ripping process would be picked up and corrected. If so, you could presumably use any CD drive at all. Or am I missing something, in a 'bits are bits' sort of way?
Chrissu (and other replies) thanks and very interesting. Yes I am using dbPoweramps AccurateRip and from what I've gleaned over the past few hours, it appears as you say any "any CD drive" will give me a perfect rip.
Guy007 posted:I intend to get through my 5000 CD collection in that time, I'm 1/5 of the way there and doing FLAC and MP3 (for car/itunes) dual encoding and ensuring tags and artwork are correct, not a fast process and leaving the problematic tagging classical cds til last ! :-)
Ouch - I remember how painful the process was with "only" 700 or so CDs - best of luck!
UnitiServe / HDX?
nickpeacock posted:Ouch - I remember how painful the process was with "only" 700 or so CDs - best of luck!
Nick, I started back in the late 90's with a Dos program called L3enc, it took my 1GB hard drive and Pentium 120 over night to encode 3 songs into MP3 128k.... oh how times have changed, that you can rip a whole cd into two formats with all info & art in less than 5 mins.
I've gone through 128, 192, 256 and 320 in MP3. Now that space isn't at a premium as it use to be, I'm doing uncompressed FLAC, knowing I've got the best I can out of the CD and unless something else comes along, I change that into what ever the next best things is format wise... I certainly do not want to be doing this again... unless its just pointing a program at a folder and letting it do all the work.