DAE Tests

- Test Method

We used CD DAE 99 v0.3 beta and EAC v0.9 beta 2 software in order to check the DAE performance of the drive with various AudioCDs (both pressed and CDR). The posted DAE results are the average of both applications. We made a full CD Rip starting from the first to the last track of the CD. The Average DAE reported speeds are displayed in the test graphs.

- DAE features

We used EAC v0.9 beta 2 to examine the drive(s) features:

- ASUS E616

The drive doesn't "Caching" data and supports "Accurate Stream"/ "C2" error info.

- Toshiba SD-M1612

The drive doesn't "Caching" data and supports "Accurate Stream"/ "C2" error info.

- Pressed AudioCD results

LiteOn LTD163 is still the leader in the DAE ripping tests. ASUS E616 and Toshiba SD-M1612 have a low DAE ripping speed down to 22.7X:

- CDR AudioCD Results

LiteOn LTD163 continues to lead the race even with CDR media. The ASUS drive has around 23X average DAE speed and Toshiba SD-M1612 follows with 22X:

- Advanced DAE Quality

All tested drives completed the Nero CD Speed Advanced DAE test successfully, and got a perfect score (100). As for the speed, LiteOn LTD163 is the faster drive with 32.87X. Both ASUS and Toshiba have a low DAE speed.

ASUS E616

ASUS E616 has an average reading speed of 23.48X and can read CD-Text as the Nero CD Speed reports:

Toshiba SD-M1612

The Toshiba drive has a 21.99X average reading speed and can read both CD-Text/SubChannel data

- Bad CDR Media results

Despite the fact that CD Speed 99 Advanced DAE test stretches a drive's mechanism to the max, we decided to do real life tests with a scratched disc. The disc was dirty and with some light scratches, enough to cause problems to most of the tested drives. We used CD DAE 99 software to rip the whole disc (756539616 sectors) and the results are quite interesting:

ASUS E616 did "rip" the disc at a full speed but returned the higher amount of errors. Almost 14% of the data read were false and that isn't something that will please users. On the other hand, Toshiba SD-M1612 failed to recognize our test disc. LiteOn LTD-163 still has the best results with almost 0% overall error rate.

- Ripping 90 and 99min CDs

ASUS E616 has no problem reading both 90/99 discs. However, we noticed that the drive takes more time than usual to recognize the 90min CDs. Toshiba SD-M1612 can also read both 90/99discs without any problems.

- Reading/Ripping Protected AudioCDs

For the test procedure we used two protected AudioCDs, which we tested in both recognition and ripping (with CD DAE v0.3b/EAC v0.9 beta2) processes:

* Pressed AudioCD with Sony Key2Audio
* Pressed AudioCD with Cactus Data Shield 200 (Natalie Imbruglia - White Lilies Island)

Both ASUS and Toshiba drives have problems with protected Audio CDs...Both failed to rip the Key2Audio/CDS200 disc contents with EAC/CDDAE software.