ASUS CRW2410S vs. Waitec MEGALUS - Page 4

DAE Tests

- Test Method

We used CD DAE 99 v0.21 beta and EAC v0.9 prebeta 11 software in order to check the DAE performance of both drives with various AudioCDs (both pressed and CDR). The posted DAE results are the average of both applications, but the CPU usage was only taken from CD DAE 99, since EAC occupies the system a lot more. As a last note, we used the "BURST" reading mode of EAC. We made a full CD Rip starting from the first to the last track of the CD. The Average DAE reported speed along with the CPU Usage is displayed in the test graphs.

- DAE features

We used EAC v0.9 prebeta 11 to examine the drive's features. As the program reported, the drives doesn't "Caching" data, supports "Accurate Stream" and doesn't include "C2" error info. All 4 tested drives supports up to 40x (CAV) DAE speed.

- Pressed AudioCD results

The ASUS and WAITEC drives have similar performance. The average DAE ripping speed is around 29X making the drive faster than TEAC CD-W524E but slower than the PleXWriter PX-W2410A:

- CDR AudioCD results

The DAE performance with CDR media is the same as with pressed CDs. The average DAE performance is 28.8X while the TEAC CD-W524E has 29.3X and PleXWriter PX-W2410A 30X:

- EAC Secure Extract Ripping mode

After many requests from numerous visitors we have added the EAC's secure extract ripping mode results, which ensures maximum produced WAV quality. Note that for each drive we used the build-in detection function:

- Advanced DAE Quality

Both ASUS/WAITEC drives get a 100 score (best) in the Nero CD Speed Advanced DAE test. The drive's average reading speed was 29.13x (ASUS) and 29.5x (WAITEC) and no errors were produced.

- Bad CDR Media results

Despite the fact that CD Speed 99 Advanced DAE test stretches drive's mechanism to the max, we decided to do real life tests with a scratched disc. The disc was dirty, and with some light scratches, enough in order cause problems to most of the tested drives. We used CD DAE 99 software to rip the whole disc (756539616 sectors) and the results were very interesting:

The WAITEC MEGALUS performed well with our test disc but the ASUS CRW2410S aborted reading after 5th track. The TEAC CD-W524E has a superb performance with only one error and the PleXWriter PX-W2410A needs further improvement to reach the top.

- Ripping 90 and 99mins AudioCDs

Both drives recognized 90min AudioCDs without any problems; however they had problems with 99min CDs.