Who makes the best BR burners these days? After spending too much $$$ on a good DVD burner I discovered Plextor burners aren't what they used to be, they suck. Samsung makes the best for less. I decided to ask before buying this time. Accurip likes my old Hitachi better than the Plextor which means it is near crap! Accurip liked my old Liteon way better than the Hitachi. I don't care about speed I want something that can read a bad disk and can write crystal clear. Nothing else really matters. If I am lucky I can make up for that stupid Plextor purchase. I have hundreds of 10 yrs+ DVDs that are not clearly readable anymore. It would be great if I could recover that stuff. Plus crappy burners make crappy disks. I want to avoid that. Does anyone have a great burner that was rated by Accurip? When you install an app that rips CDs using Accurip, Accurip will rate the read function. That is the only useful rating I care about because it is accurate and unbiased. Thanks in advance!
damn,no one clocking in on this one.ive always bought what staples or my computer store had.kinda partial to liteon tho as my 9 year old dvd rom is still going strong.in this day and age how much difference does brand make? not a retorical question,i am curious.
No, like me you want to have the opportunity to hear something you might not know. Then you can decide if you are going to believe it. Not all readers are created equally. The old Liteons were very high on quality while low on cost. Only Plextor were significantly better and 10x the price. The most accurate way to test a reader is with Accurip for ripping music CDs. It come with all superior rippers. It your ripper doesn't use it I would get a better one. I don't mind a bad read for an audio book but I regrind music CDs to get a perfect read. Before you use Accurip it asks if it can test your burner(s). Accurip has a database of check sums for a huge selection of CDs. It knows what the reader is supposed to read for each block. It has your reader read a block as many times as it takes to get the right block reading. It will also adjust some settings for you reader to improve the accuracy. After the rip it will rate your reader. If you have 2 it will tell you which is the best reader. This is huge when reading old disks that either the surface is damaged or just a old burned disk. Both can be difficult to impossible to read. While one reader doesn't even recognize the format of the disk ('no disk error') another might read it without any problems. I had to give up my liteon because it couldn't read new DVD formats and no firmware was available. That had me spoiled. I have a large aged library of hard to read disks. I am putting many on HDs since they out last DVDs by a long shot. They also don't get lost. Sony, Fuji and Memorex only last 5+ years. Sony is the worst of the lot. The older slower burning blanks last longer than the faster ones. Most of my oldest disks are still readable. I have made backups of the failing disks but didn't junk them. They are still barely readable while the backups aren't. What infuriates me is reviews are really only interested in how fast the burner writes. This may also indicate better alignment and focus but may not.
You should read more of what I write in the audio forum. I know now you are smart enough and you prefer to expand what you know. I will try to add to your knowledge... Yes, chances are your next burner will read inferior to what you have. No, playing music is not a quality test. When you have time, read the top sticky in the audio forum in bits and pieces if it is 'too rich' for a quick read. here is useful info there. Music CDs are not just wave files. They are designed to play even if they are badly scratched. The reader can 'guess' what was in the damaged wave under the scratch. 25-35% of the data on the CD is a 'cheat sheet' that allows the reader to guess what the block was if it wasn't read correctly. For the reader to fail to produce a passable frame both sets of data must be unreadable. The joke is I have removed up to 5 contiguous frames in an mp3 and couldn't tell anything was missing even though I listened for it. My daughter is a music major. In her most hated class, music theroy, one of the tests is to write the notes of what a piano or other instrument is playing. There is a wide latitude for the note length but not the pitch. The grading is 1 off pitch is free the rest you lose a grade for each one. What I get from that time perception of a note even among professionals, is poor. Losing a few frames only changes the length of a note(s). Because CD readers often guess what was in a block, playing a CD is not as true as playing from a magnetic source. Vinyl is actually less accurate than the CD because it does not have a second reference. Digital music is more exact even though it is not as rich. My vinylphyle friends like to tell me how much more information is on an LP and I like to tell them you don't even process a good bit of what is on a CD so you don't need more data to ignore. In a double blind test a 30 yr old can't tell the difference between a 160 cbr and a wave file. A 160 cbr mp3 is relatively low quality. Even I can readily pick the 120 cbr over the wave if there is some acoustic instruments used.
ah yes,i hated music theory as well.all those smug buggers with perfect pitch.lol.will give that post a read.
Well, she aspires to be in the big league so she is expected to to get it all right and she does. Nobody likes music theory because it is rough especially if you are in a decent conservatory. You can't be in key without great pitch. My daughter is a singer and my wife and I were surprised how many serious contenders in HS would sing off key. Those are ruthlessly eliminated in a good conservatory if they could get in at all. What was your instrument?
i played clarinet,but now,as with your daughter,my voice is my instrument.i have what they call "aquired pitch".
Are you saying when you start to bellow the dogs in backyards begin howling any of you guys know what it is that band members are listening too when on stage with those ear pieces,usually only in one ear
Aldan - relative pitch is inherited not learned and is the minimum skill you can have and be able to play or sing on key. With training you can identify pitch (acquired pitch) without training you can tell if someone is off key even though you don't know the pitch of the correct note or the pitch of the of note. I was trying to explain the concept to someone that sings in a chorus but does not have that skill. She could never solo. My wife and I both have relative pitch. 'Perfect pitch' works differently and is also inherited not learned though that skill also be trained. Scorp - The dogs love my singing so much they feel compelled to sing along.
hey scorp,when i bellow the dogs cringe.lol.mez,i have the inherant ability to tell when others sing off key.grates on my nerves like scratching a blackboard.this also holds true when i sing off key.lol
hey scorp,the earpiece is kind of like having a monitor speaker to hear yourself.it also is used to enhance your voice.its called autotune.cheating is my take on it.
yeah auto tune...lol..it would explain why on studio album vs live that some vocalists sound very different,the lead for moody blues is a perfect example either that or age is making his voice a little croaky..lol.. yeah off key's a crack up especially on those wannabe talent shows,it's like they can't hear themselves & then wonder why the judges tell em they're crap
funny you mention the moody blues.if i remember correctly they were one of the first to use cutting edge technology (at the time) to tune their sound.someone once told me that their concerts in the 70s sounded pretty much like their albums.beginnings of autotune?
Most probably was beginning of autotune,reason i mentioned moody blues was i got a dvd of them in royal albert hall just recently this year with a backing orchestra,i was shocked at his voice it was no where near as smooth as one of their albums i had,the guy that plays the flute was pretty good & sounded well when he was singing one of my personal fav's ..."timothy leary"...those lyrics crack me up every time,another dear i say autotune user would be alan parsons i think,same thing sounds different live that's one thing i like about live assuming there's no bs going on in the back ground,you get to hear them for real,i don't even bother with or listening to studio albs any longer & with the advent of dvd's fantastic
yep,alan parsons probably uses this technology.wasnt he the one that recruited different musicians for each of his albums.
Doesn't matter "we're all friends here" Yeah recruited differing musicians & bands intern hired him to engineer their albums,he engineered dark side of the moon among many others,didn't actually know that until 5 months ago watching a vid on the making of dark side
I thought I was the only one who liked "Timothy Leary's dead". On relative pitch,my sister has a beautiful alto voice which was trained-I cannot hit a tune,either vocally or instrumentally.However,if a someone hits a clinker,either way,I know it. As for burners,I was a liteon fan for years,but I've noticed a decline in recent years.I bought a pioneer Bluray burner,and then found as a resident of the U.S. I can't get good copy software for my backups.
