In the following tests we check the drive's behavior when it comes to reading scratched / defective discs. The test discs we use are the ABEX series from ALMEDIO.

- ABEX TCD-721R

The DW1620A DL drive displayed quite good performance with this test disc. The total error count (1101705) is about average, the maximum error loudness level of -32.6dB(A) is low where the human ear cannot hear it, as are the error loudness and muting sample counts, while there were no skipped samples. The final score of 76.3 is good.

- ABEX TCD-726

We observe the best possible performance from the BenQ DW1620A DL with the Abex TCD-726 test disc, where it received a perfect score of 100.0.

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 difficult tests. These tracks are referred as Check Level-1 through Check Level-5.

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

The DW1620A passed 5 out of 5 plays for the first four Check Levels of the test, while in the fifth level, it managed 2 out of 5. This is indicative of very good error correction capabilities. Very few drives ever manage to play up to the fifth level.

- Conclusion

The BenQ DW1620A offers very good CD error correction, performing extremely well with all our test discs. The fact that the drive doesn't support reporting C2 pointers is a drawback, which of course is needed by expert users.