DAE Tests (Audio pressed CDs):

Test Method:
We used CD DAE 99 v0.2 with AudioCDs in order to check DAE performance of the KenWood drive and we compared it with other CD-Roms:

- CD DAE 99 v0.2 results:
The KenWood 72x TrueX dae performance with pressed CDs is not that good since it failed to produce error free wavs in CD DAE 99 v0.2 test. Even the error percentage it very small (2396 errors=0.00% of total CD space) we feel that the drive should performed better and not produce any error as it's competitors did:

Various Rippers Results:

Test Method: We used the EAC v0.9 pre beta 5 to test the audio capabilities. EAC reported that the drive was capable of producing accurate stream and it also reported "caching on". Tests were made for comparing "Burst" vs "Secure Stream with caching" mode.

Tested CD: The Chemical Brothers "Dig Your Own Hole" - Track :  1, 5, 11

Comparing Method:
- Ripped Tracks 1, 5, 10 of the CD with EAC (Secure & Burst mode).
- Edited all wavs with Hedit v2.0.04 and located the 2 following bytes (chosen randomly)
- Removed all previous bytes and saved.
- Then in a Dos window compared them using: FC /b x.wav y.wav

Programs Settings:

EAC v0.9b: Burst & Secure Mode / Rip Speed Default / Allow speed reduction / Error correction medium

Verdict of DAE Results:
The KenWood's 72x TrueX CD-Rom DAE performance with pressed AudioCDs is good. Using CD DAE 99, drive reached 46x average DAE speed, which is very good (if not the fastest around). Using EAC, we managed to get even up to 45-50x DAE speed! This makes KenWood 72x TrueX king of DAE speed on pressed CDs leaving behind well-known manufacturers (Plextor) in case you do not care about possible errors in wavs.

The worst point into DAE performance is that you cannot adjust ripping speed since the drive does not support it! We hope that KenWood will add this feature into the next firmware revision since else ways you might face some problems with scratched CDs...