52X IDE CD-RW Recorder Roundup Vol 2 - Page 9

DAE Tests

- DAE features

• AOpen CRW5224 & Waitec STORM 52/2

• Mitsumi CR-487ETE & Teac CD-W552E

- Pressed AudioCD

The Mitsumi CR-487ETE supports 40X CAV audio extraction speed, while the rest of the drives do not limit their reading speed with audio discs and rip them at 52X CAV. The Teac CD-W552E finished the ripping task with an average speed of 36.8X, and the Waitec STORM 52/2 follows with 36.2X. The AOpen CRW5224 gave the third best performance and the Mitsumi finished the task at 29.9X average, as it was expected.

- Audio CD-R media

With CD-R media, the AOpen drive is the fastest in the test with 35.4X. Teac CD-W552E takes the second place but CDDAE reported that the drive gave back 5 read errors. It seems that the increased ripping speed may produce problems. The Mitsumi drive kept the same performance as in the previous test, but Waitec STORM 52/2 did not behaved the same. The drive slowed down the ripping speed after reporting 700 errors, and finished in an average speed of 23.9X.

- EAC Secure Extract Ripping mode

EAC's secure extract ripping mode ensures the maximum quality of the produced WAV:

- Advanced DAE test

All the drives got a "100" score. The fastest drive in the test is the AOpen CRW552E followed by the Teac and Waitec drives. Nero CDSpeed also report that all the drives can read Sub Channel and CD text. In addition, the AOpen and Waitec drives can also read data from LeadIn and LeadOut.

• Aopen CRW5224

• Mitsumi CR-487ETE

• Teac CD-W552E

• Waitec STORM 52/2

- Ripping 90 and 99mins AudioCDs

- Reading/Ripping Protected AudioCDs

For the test procedure we used 2 protected AudioCDs, which we tested in both recognition and ripping (with EAC BURST mode) processes:

* Pressed AudioCD with Sony Key2Audio (Celine Dion - New Day Has Come)
* Pressed AudioCD with Cactus Data Shield 200 (Natalie Imbruglia - White Lilies Island)

None of the drives can "handle" Key2Audio protected audio discs. On the other hand, the Cactus Data Shield 200 protection is not a problem for the AOpen and Waitec drives, while the Teac CD-552E cannot rip the data 100% accurately.