Pioneer DVR-A04 IDE DVD-R/RW - Page 4

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

As the EAC reports, the Pioneer DVR-A04 supports "Caching" data, "Accurate Stream", but doesn't support "C2 error info".

- Pressed AudioCD results

The Pioneer DVR-A04 has increased the reading performance up to 24x (CAV). That's a major improvement over the previous DVR-A03. The average reading speed is now 16.2X:

- CDR AudioCD Results

The Pioneer drive has slightly lower reading performance with CDR media than with pressed CDs:

- EAC Secure Extract Ripping mode

After many requests from numerous visitors we have added the EAC's secure extract ripping mode results, which ensures maximum produced WAV quality. Note that for each drive we used the build-in detection function:

- Advanced DAE Quality

All drives performed excellently in the Nero CD Speed Advanced DAE quality test. Pioneer DVR-A04 produced "0" data/sync errors and got a perfect score (100). As the Nero CD Speed Advanced DAE test showed, the drive can read "CD-Text" and "SubChannel Data" from Audio tracks:

- Bad CDR Media results

Despite the fact that Nero CD Speed 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 were very interesting:

As the tests proved, Pioneer DVR-A04 does perform well with scratched CDs. The drive reported many reading errors though, but the final % of the total disc is low, compared to the DVR-A03's results.

- Ripping 90 and 99mins AudioCDs

The drive can read both 90/99min CDs without any problems.

- Reading/Ripping Protected AudioCDs

For the test procedure we used 3 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)

The Pioneer DVR-A04 drive cannot recognize the contents of protected Audio discs.