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DAE Tests

- Test Method:
We used CD DAE 99 v0.2 and EAC v0.9 prebeta 8 software in order to check DAE performance of the Plextor PX-W1610A with various AudioCDs. We have added EAC back to the testing arena since many users requested it. Note that the posted DAE results are the average of both applications, but the CPU usage is only taken from CD DAE 99. EAC seems to occupy the system much more. As a last note, we used the "BURST" reading mode of EAC. Use 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 8 to examine the drive's features. As the program reported, the drive "Caches" data, and supports "Accurate Stream" and "C2" error info. However our attempts to activate "C2" error info always locked our PC :( The specifications state that the drive can reach up to 40x DAE (max)!

- Pressed AudioCD results (check the CD Speed graph over here):
We can announce the new king of DAE performance! The PX-W1610A is simply the fastest CDR-W drive in the DAE ripping speed! The drive can go up to 40x and the average ripping speed is around 30x. The Yamaha 2100E that also supports 40x DAE (max) lags behind with 28x and the TDK/Sanyo drives come last (23x). The CPU usage is also increased and the UDMA 2 mode (jumper hack) didn't seem to help here:

- CDR AudioCD Tests:
The PX-W1610A working great with CDR media and has not problem to climb to 31.5x! The Yamaha 2100E still comes second (28.1x) and the TDK/Sanyo drives last (23.5x):

- Advanced DAE Quality:
The PX-W1610A got a perfect score (100) in the CD Speed 99 Advanced DAE test. The competition also does perfect DAE. Notice that is this test, CD Speed reported only 27.26x as the average speed, which is slower than what Yamaha 2100E got in the same test! We used many CDs and we got the same results so it's must be a program error we thought in the start. The CD Speed author said that "..During the test some lengthy calculations are done so the speed shown in the Advanced DAE Quality Test is a bit lower than the maximum speed..." which could explain it:

The drive supports reading from "lead-in"/"lead-out" and can read Subchannel data as the Advanced DAE test showed. However it also reported that the drive cannot read CD-Text which is false since the drive support CD-Text reading (just check the specification) and worked fine with the Plextor CD-Text player!

- Ripping 90 and 95mins AudioCDs
Ok you have written up to 95min CDs. Can the PleXWriter PX-W1610A read them? The answer is yes and no(!) Note that the current CD DAE 99 v0.2 version stops reading at 85mins and for that propose a new version would be released out from CD DAE 99 author (Erik Deppe) soon.

We used Nero 5.0.3.9 and made a 91min task -overburned 90min CD - (supplied from Medea International). After we used CD Speed 99 to quick measure the drive's performance. The drive performed very good and it gave back average 34x ripping speed! There is however a slow down after 80mins (check left picture).

After that we used the 95min AudioCD which has been created using Nero 5.0.3.9 and 99min CD (supplied from Disc 4 You). The drive reads the first track OK, but then seems to have problems from 10-40min. After that, it continues at normal speed until it reaches 90mins. Then again, it slows down to 4x. Also, notice that the drive produces lot of reading errors and the DAE seems very bad (got 0 score). The problem is not with the drive but with the media... Remember that both 90 and 99-minute CDs are not officially supported by any CD standard!