In the following tests, we check the drive's behavior when reading scratched / defective audio discs. The test discs used were the ABEX series from ALMEDIO.

- ABEX TCD-721R

 

An average score for the LG drive with the scratched audio CD. The error correction capabilities of the drive are not very high, but the amount of samples that were muted indicate that the drive has strong error hidding capabilities, which mean that noise may not make it to your speakers.

- ABEX TCD-726

First of all, the drive was extremely slow when it ripped the specific ABEX test disc. Ripping finished after more than three hours, and then the ripped audio file was compared with the same file, ripped from a disc that had not any defects on its surface. According to the graph, the drive started error correction quite early, revealing either bad optics or low error correction capabilities. But again, the amount of the muted samples is very high, meaning that the errors may not be audible. The answer is given in the test that follows.

- CD-Check Audio Test Disc

The CD-Check Test Disc is another 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 more difficult tests. These tracks are referred to as Check Level-1 through Check Level-5.

The tracks are reproduced through a software multimedia player (e.g. Windows Media Player). Each level is considered as passed, if the tone is smooth, continuous without interruptions, skipping or looping. The higher the Check Level passed, the more reliable the sound reproduction of the tested drive.

The drive read flawlessly all 5 tracks. The tracks were played in a row and the tone remained continuous and smooth, even with the last track, where the scratch is higher.