CD Error Correction Tests

In the following tests we check both drives behavior when reading scratched / defective audio discs. The test discs used were the ABEX series from ALMEDIO.

- ABEX TCD-721R

The total error count is higher for the AOpen drive but the average error loudness is similar for both drives. The great difference in quality scores can be attributed to the skipped samples that the Toshiba reported. This decreases the quality score, yielding 60.4 out of 100 while the AOpen fared better with 75.8 out of 100.

- ABEX TCD-726

The Toshiba managed to pass this test with a clean sheet and a perfect score of 100.00. The AOpen reported some errors and its score was lower at 93.3.

- CD-Check Audio Test Disc

The CD-Check Test Disc is a very useful tool for evaluating the Sound Reproduction / Error correction capabilities of a CD player. The disc offers a signal combination with disc error patterns to rate the drive's abilities to read music and reproduce it completely. Five tracks on the disc contain a sequence of progressively more difficult tests. These tracks are referred to as Check Level-1 through Check Level-5.

The tracks are reproduced through a software multimedia player (i.e. Windows Media Player). Each level is considered as passed, if the tone is smooth, continuous without interruptions, skipping or looping. The higher the Check Level passed, the more reliable the sound reproduction of the tested drive.

The Toshiba drive managed to pass the first four tracks, which includes scratch sizes of 1.125mm, while the AOpen managed the first three first with scratches up to 0.750mm. The performance of the Toshiba can be characterized as better than average in this test.

- Summary

It seems that error correction depends to a large degree on the error type. However, the Toshiba had better, overall performance with better behavior with the ABEX TCD-726 and the CD-Check Audio Test Discs.