USB Optical drive for difficult discs?

[SK001]

Hi,
I have a budget laptop that has a Matshita optical drive that refuses to read certain CD's, would an external usb drive solve this problem? Could anyone recommend a fairly cheap one?
Thanks

 

[RayDunzl]

I bought a cheap SATA dock, which could connect to an otherwise internal drive.

Powered Dock - https://www.amazon.com/WEme-Convert..._1_7?keywords=sata+dock&qid=1580979125&sr=8-7

Drive Example - https://www.amazon.com/Asus-Serial-...keywords=sata+dvd+drive&qid=1580979173&sr=8-3

Maybe you have an old drive laying around, or somebody you know does...

 

[SK001]

I decided to get a usb dvd burner, someone on another forum said it did the trick so hopefully it'll work.

Thanks anyway.

 

[somebodyelse]

I'm not aware of anyone testing the audio reading capabilities of drives any more, but back when such testing was done there was considerable variability in ability to read discs with assorted problems. That included deliberate errors that were used as a misguided 'copy protection' mechanism which most computer drives would fail on, but most domestic cd players would play. These days I think all you can do is try your luck.

 

[MRC01]

I've seen a few discs that my Oppo BDP-83 won't play, or that create horrible noises like they're out of balance, or the player is seeking back and forth trying to read it. My desktop computer reads these discs just fine. It doesn't have to read them in real time; it can take its time, retry all it wants to get every bit correct. Then I write them to a file, then burn a new disc that my Oppo plays just fine.
That's pretty much any SATA DVD or BlueRay you can buy for less than $50. Mine happens to be an LG WH16NS40, but it's nothing special.

 

[maxxevv]

The full size 5.25" rack mount CD /DVD drives tend to be more disc tolerant. I have a 10~12 year old samsung one that does well with hard to read CDs. I've kept it precisely for that.

 

[BolusOfDoom]

AccurateRip CD Drive Accuracy Stats 2019

 

[SK001]

It actually worked. I've had about 12 cd's sitting on the shelf for about 5 years that were "unrippable", but the usb drive did it no problem. Makes me wonder why I didn't get one before now...

I looked at the stats in the link above and my drive is the following;

Drive: ASUS - SDRW-08U7M-U (93 users): Submissions: 1303 accurate, 26 inaccurate, 98.0436 % accuracy

Seems pretty decent I suppose, I know nothing about drive accuracy etc. I just wanted better sound than onboard Realtek ALC283 (there's seemingly no information online about that codec, it's like it doesn't exist).

So my audio solution is

Acer Laptop (6 years old now and dirt cheap to start with)
FiiO K3 (Didn't exactly get a glowing review on here but it is what it is)
Audio Technica ATH-M40x (decent for the price I reckon)
Foobar2000 (CD collection ripped to FLAC level 0, don't know if that makes a difference but it's the maximum kbps so yeah...)

So I'm hardly living the audiophile dream, but it's a start!

 

[Koeitje]

With FLAC just set it to level 8 ( I believe that's thee max). It just controls the compression level and has nothing to do with sound quality. Higher compression just takes a little bit longer to compress. Which is not noticeable on any pc made after 2010 or so.

 

[captain paranoia]

I have a budget laptop that has a Matshita optical drive that refuses to read certain CD's

Make sure they are actually CDDA discs, and not Copy Control discs. The latter mucks about with the error correction of the Red Book CDDA standard, and many rippers struggle. cdparanoia on Linux rips them without problem.

Copy Control discs play in CD players.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control

 

[SK001]

Make sure they are actually CDDA discs, and not Copy Control discs. The latter mucks about with the error correction of the Red Book CDDA standard, and many rippers struggle. cdparanoia on Linux rips them without problem.

Copy Control discs play in CD players.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control

When I ripped my cd collection in foobar2000 all of them said CDDA I think. I still had a couple of strange Zeppelin discs that just wouldn't rip for some reason.