Freecom FS-1 Slimline CD-RW - Page 4

DAE Tests

Test Method

We used CD DAE 99 v0.4 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

As the program reported, the drive supports "Caching" of data, "Accurate Stream" and "C2 Error info".

Pressed AudioCD results

Freecom FS-1 finished the audio CD ripping slower than PlexWriter PX-S88TU. The 7.2x average ripping speed of Freecom is also lower than the Teac's performance.

CDR AudioCD Results

The drive has the same performance as with pressed CDs.

EAC Secure Extract Ripping mode

EAC secure ripping mode ensures the maximum produced WAV quality. Notice that for each drive we used the build-in detection function:

Advanced DAE Quality

Freecom FS-1 performed excellently at the Nero CD Speed Advanced DAE quality test. The drive produced 0 data/sync errors and got a perfect score (100). CDSpeed reports that the drive cannot read "CD-Text", and reads SubChannel data info. However, the drive can read CD-Text.

Bad CDR Media results

Despite the fact that Nero CD Speed Advanced DAE test stretches 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 in order cause problems to most of the tested drives. We used CD DAE 99 software to rip the whole disc (756539616 sectors) and the results were very interesting:

As the tests showed,  Freecom FS-1 gave 14575 read errors while reading our test disc.  The amount of errors is the 0.00% of the total data and the average ripping speed is 5.4x. The performance is very good, showing the increased DAE quality of the drive.

CD-CHECK audio test

CD-CHECK is a compact disc which allows evaluation of the CD player's "error correction headroom" (i.e. player's ability to correct data errors) and "tracking" (i.e. player's ability to stay on track despite of disc surface or other errors). CD-CHECK uses special digital signals in combination with disc error patterns arranged over five tracks. The five tracks contain a sequence of progressively difficult tests referred to as Check Level-1 to Check Level-5. The higher the Check Level passed the more reliable the sound reproduction of the CD player. A smooth, continuous tone indicates the player passes that Check Level. Any clicks, interruptions, skipping or looping indicates failure of a Check Level.

Digital Recordings' CD-CHECK tests each drive's error correction abilities with audio CDs. CD-CHECK is a reference disc with five levels of error gap sizes, each isolated to its own track. A continuous 20-second tone plays in each track. The larger the error gap, the more difficult it is for the drive's error correction to mask the error without an audible pop or click occurring during playback of the tone. All tested drives play each track five times with each successful playback (no audible pops or clicks) noted. A result of 5/5 indicates that no pops or clicks were heard in 5 out of 5 playbacks of a particular track. A result of 0/5 means pops or clicks occurred during all 5 playbacks of a particular track. Digital Recordings provides the following interpretation of results:

· Level-1 Pass: Player meets minimum requirements
· Level-2 Pass: Average error correction
· Level-3 Pass: Good error correction
· Level-4 Pass: Very good error correction
· Level-5 Pass: Excellent error correction

We tested the Freecom FS-1 with the CD-CHECK disc and the results are shown in the following table.

The drive did manage to completely fulfill the 4th level error correction requirements, and failed to successfully playback (no audible pops or clicks) the 5th level tones. The result are excellent and reveal that Freecom FS-1 is a very good solution when you need accurate audio playback.

Ripping 90 and 99min CDs

The drive can read up to 95min media.

Reading Protected AudioCDs

For the test procedure we used 3 protected AudioCDs, which we tested in both recognition and ripping (with EAC) processes:

* Pressed AudioCD with Sony KeyAudio
* Pressed AudioCD with Cactus Data Shield 200 (Natalie Imbruglia - White Lilies Island)
* CDR AudioCD protected with Cactus Data Shield (CDS100) - made with Clone Audio Protector v1.1 (adding 30 secs lead-out)

Freecom FS-1 did not have any problem to rip the Key2Audio protected title, and the produced *.wav files were accurate, with no errors. The CD200 disc was not so easy to manage and the drive identified as audio files only the first two tracks of the CD. Ripping was possible only for the 1st track. Lastly, Freecom recognized all the CDS100 audio CD tracks as data files.