Audio read performance:
To test the audio performance we downloaded EAC.
This utility enable accurate audio grabbing and reliable conversions. You can download it at http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/.
One good thing about EAC is the integrated drive detector to detect the various features of your drive.
De EThe EAC interface – Simple and accurate.
We select drive Options to optimize our writer and to detect the options…
Extraction methode
The detected functions of the LiteOn 24/10/40 IDE
We are going a little deeper into these properties:
- Caching: If your drive caches the audio that was just read, it would be a problem to read this data again in order to compare both extractions to find out if they match. In that case this option has to be enabled, so that EAC will clear the cache by overreading it.
- Accurate stream: This option should be set if your drive has an accurate stream , meaning that it won’t jitter, thus no jitter correction has to be performed anymore.
- C2 error info: Some newer drives are able to return C2 error information besides the actual audio data. In this case EAC doesn’t need to read all data twice anymore, wich will result in an increased speed.
The LiteOn returns C2 error information according to the build in testprocedure…
Here we see the new LiteOn ideal settings for audio grabbing using EAC
The drive’s read commando’s
Because in the beginning there was no real drive-standard, most manufacturors used their own commands to read audiodata from CD’s. Due to this fact EAC knows many read commands and has a build in detection system to select the appropriate command for each drive.
The drive detection methode told us that the LiteOn 24/10/40 uses the “read command MMC1”.
Offset/speed
We did the ‘detect sample offset correction’ after creating a test CD for this feature. If we want to find an exact location on an audioCD it isn’t that simple as a normal data CD. Due to the lack of some extra data to calculate the exact position on an audioCD it is not possible to go to a predefined position. It will only be in the area of that position. Usually it is a few samples before or after that position.
With the offset correction you are much more accurate in locating the exact position.
The offset value of the LiteOn 24/10/40 is +6
De detect read sample offset positie gave +6
The selection of ‘allow speed reduction during extraction’ helps a lot when there are various errors on the CD.
Finally we select the CD-Text function. The folowing preferences were also detected:
UPC/ISRC en CD-text support…
Let’s go to the actual audio-extraction test…
