Ultra Quiet CD Drive?

tylerbcrawford · Post by **tylerbcrawford** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:42 pm

I'm looking for a CD drive that will only be used to listen back to music CD's. I want one that is very quiet and as cheap as possible. Thanks.

lm · Post by lm » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:13 pm

Why dont you just encode all your CDs to ogg or mp3. If you use max quality then you definitely cannot hear the difference. And then you never need to switch a CD again, a major convenience.

This is how i do it myself and it rocks.

Oh and it's perfectly legal to do that to your own CDs.

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:23 pm

Don't know about cheapest but the Asus quiet track models are the quietest I've heard -by a small margin. I reviewed the burner but the CD drive sounds the same.

nmuntz · Post by **nmuntz** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 9:29 pm

I have 2 Pioneer slot load dvd drives, they're very old, ~4 years or so. They are very quiet for all operations, even playing back DVD. Unfortunately I haven't seen any Pioneer slot load drives in stores for a while.

On the flip side, I have an Asus 52x cdrom that is hands down the loudest computer component I've ever seen or heard. This cdrom alone could compete in a dB drag with a Sun 480R.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 10:10 pm

nmuntz wrote:I have 2 Pioneer slot load dvd drives, they're very old, ~4 years or so. They are very quiet for all operations, even playing back DVD. Unfortunately I haven't seen any Pioneer slot load drives in stores for a while.

I guess its moot if they don't make it anymore. But I had one and discs would occasionally jam in it. I'd have to take out the bezel and metal casing to extract the CD. It has a very interesting mechanism for ejecting discs that didn't exactly instill confidence in me when I examined its workings.

Oh, and when it jams, it creates a horribly loud noise that lasts for a few seconds, like your disc is being shredded. Fortunately my discs survived, apparently without serious scratches. The noise is from some internal plastic threads grating against each other.

Mine's about 4 years old as well. I don't recall the noise level very well, I've retired it as I got tired of taking it apart, but you may be right.

gitto · Post by **gitto** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 10:15 pm

i disagree lm. i use an audigy 2 zs and altec lansing mx5021, and i can hear the difference between playing my cd's straight from the drive, or as wavs, compared to even highest quality mp3. the audio, i felt, became a bit subdued and less clear once encoded to mp3.

i solved this program by starting to use a lossless audio format, theres a few about, but i use monkeys audio (www.monkeysaudio.com) the final file ends up about 60% the size of the original wav, and absolutely no quality is lost.

and as an open complaint, it is actually illegal to do that in australia, despite myself having totally legally bought the music cd's. cant make any personal backups here. oh well.

snutten · Post by **snutten** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:04 am

Yep. MP3 sound quality is definitely not for HiFi enthusiasts.
(Then again, if you're a real HiFi nerd then not even wav format does it for you, since few hdds and computer D/A converters can compete with a really good cd-player. So stick to the silent computer nerd thing.)

El_Jefe_77 · Post by **El_Jefe_77** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 9:14 am

Samsung series of drives really are quiet. the dvd in playback mode has no sound.

just makes no sound at all and they are inexpensive.

the cd-rom part of it does make sound, kinda annoying, no wheres near the competition for the price though at all.

earworm · Post by **earworm** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:11 am

The Plextor PlexWriter Premium is the quietest I've ever heard. It has noise specific features that let it operate in silence.

Give it a try and I know you will not be disappointed. Not to mention its the best CD-RW burner available...

Plextor PlexWriter Premium = nice drive indeed. low noise best drive available and also ....

i'm totally dissapointed about my current ASUS dvd-cd burner,
its the most expensive and noizy drive i ever used, definately not the best one either, i'm not buying another asus drive

hvengel · Post by **hvengel** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:57 pm

I just had my Plextor 24/10/40A CD writter dye (it was in service for about 3 years) and I replaced it with a Pioneer DVR-A08XL. The Plextor was quite when running at lower speeds like you would use for playing CDs. But my new Pioneer is quite at all speeds that I have used it so far. It has some kind of internal system to damp vibrations and is way quiter than the Plextor.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 11:00 am

hvengel wrote:But my new Pioneer (DVR-A08XL) is quite at all speeds that I have used it so far. It has some kind of internal system to damp vibrations and is way quiter than the Plextor.

Really? When reading CDROM and writing CDR (at 16x) my DVR-106 makes a lot of noise. Writing DVDs (at 4X) it's very quiet. Maybe I finally have a reason to upgrade

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 3:26 pm

snutten wrote:Yep. MP3 sound quality is definitely not for HiFi enthusiasts.

...I don't know about that....

One day, using WMA9 VBR, I took a single 44.1 khz, stereo track and encoded it at various bitrates, and then converted it back to wav. Also on the CD was the original, unencoded track. All conversion was done with the windows media encoder using the highest quality encoding settings possible. After burning it to a CD, I played it back on this system:

-Marantz CD Player
-Home-built replica of a Dynaco ST-35 tube amplifier--replaced a Rotel amplifier that couldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, in my opinion. The Rotel sounded almost crude in comparison. The amp uses Hammond output transformers, a replica dynaco power tranny, and a matched quad of sovtek EL84 tubes. 17W per channel.

-Vandersteen 2Ce speakers

...this is by no means an obscenely high end stereo system, but it's most definetely a competant one. I havn't heard many that are significantly better.

At anything below 64 kb/sec, the distortion was obvious. At 128, it sounded pretty good, although it wasn't too hard to hear discernable distortion. At 256, I was hard pressed to hear anything different, and at 384 neither myself nor my father could tell any difference between the original and the encoded file.

Then again, if you're a real HiFi nerd then not even wav format does it for you, since few hdds and computer D/A converters can compete with a really good cd-player. So stick to the silent computer nerd thing

There is some truth to this--even my turtle beach sounds like dirt when it's hooked up at a good stereo, and that's a well reputed card (or was, anyways). Certainly doesn't go head to head with the aforementioned Marantz CD player.

PositiveSpin · Post by **PositiveSpin** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:17 am

snutten wrote:Yep. MP3 sound quality is definitely not for HiFi enthusiasts.
(Then again, if you're a real HiFi nerd then not even wav format does it for you, since few hdds and computer D/A converters can compete with a really good cd-player. So stick to the silent computer nerd thing.)

This used to be true, but there are some higher-end sound cards that have changed things - some of the M-Audio cards, for example. These cards use the same D2A convertors as the higher end CD players or amps - Burr-Browns, for example.

But one thing is certain - you might not hear the difference between MP3s and CDs on 2 inch computer speakers, but you'll definitely hear the difference on real hifi speakers or headphones - and yes, quite a few people are using hifi amps and speakers with their PCs. It's yet another reason to build a low-noise PC

PositiveSpin · Post by **PositiveSpin** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:24 am

Chancellor Martok wrote:
snutten wrote:(Then again, if you're a real HiFi nerd then not even wav format does it for you, since few hdds and computer D/A converters can compete with a really good cd-player. So stick to the silent computer nerd thing.)
Sorry for dragging this off-topic a little bit but can you explain that in a bit more detail? HDDs surely have nothing to do with the quality of the audio that is stored on them, but as for the D/A converter issue, I was under the impression that if you extract audio digitally from the CD (e.g. using Exact Audio Copy), that should not be an issue. Is this true?

Still have to get the digital sound into analogue format at some point, and if it is coming off hard disk, that will usually be via the sound card. In the CD player case it is either in the CD player (analogue connect to amp) or in the amp (digital connect to amp). It comes down to the quality of the DACs, which used to be a weak point of sound cards. Not the case these days - plenty of choices for high end sound cards if you look around, and they don't cost a heap, either.

PositiveSpin · Post by **PositiveSpin** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:32 am

Beyonder wrote:
snutten wrote:Yep. MP3 sound quality is definitely not for HiFi enthusiasts.
...I don't know about that....

One day, using WMA9 VBR, I took a single 44.1 khz, stereo track and encoded it at various bitrates, and then converted it back to wav. Also on the CD was the original, unencoded track. All conversion was done with the windows media encoder using the highest quality encoding settings possible. After burning it to a CD, I played it back on this system:

-Marantz CD Player
-Home-built replica of a Dynaco ST-35 tube amplifier--replaced a Rotel amplifier that couldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, in my opinion. The Rotel sounded almost crude in comparison. The amp uses Hammond output transformers, a replica dynaco power tranny, and a matched quad of sovtek EL84 tubes. 17W per channel.
-Vandersteen 2Ce speakers

...this is by no means an obscenely high end stereo system, but it's most definetely a competant one. I havn't heard many that are significantly better.

At anything below 64 kb/sec, the distortion was obvious. At 128, it sounded pretty good, although it wasn't too hard to hear discernable distortion. At 256, I was hard pressed to hear anything different, and at 384 neither myself nor my father could tell any difference between the original and the encoded file.

Then again, if you're a real HiFi nerd then not even wav format does it for you, since few hdds and computer D/A converters can compete with a really good cd-player. So stick to the silent computer nerd thing
There is some truth to this--even my turtle beach sounds like dirt when it's hooked up at a good stereo, and that's a well reputed card (or was, anyways). Certainly doesn't go head to head with the aforementioned Marantz CD player.

Interesting. Especially given that a CD runs at 150kb/s

Are you saying that you achieved no discernible difference with a data rate double that of the original source? Or have I utterly misunderstood you?

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 3:30 am

PositiveSpin wrote:Interesting. Especially given that a CD runs at 150kb/s Are you saying that you achieved no discernible difference with a data rate double that of the original source? Or have I utterly misunderstood you?

CD "runs" ~172 kB/s, which is ~1368 kb/s. These are both base-2 figures.

Cheers,

Jan

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:12 pm

Jan pretty much covered it. I measured in kilobits, not kilobytes. To get to bits, you have to multiply by 8.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:36 pm

Extremetech actually has a decent article on this:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 566,00.asp

A funny passage from that article:
"The VBR settings may have scored lower because they are actually more accurate than the 128k versions. Most of the noise in a recording resides at very high frequencies. The low-pass filter that eliminates high frequency sound at 128k may be removing some of the subtle nuances of a recording, but it also eliminates most of the inherent noise. The listeners, not knowing what codecs or bitrates they were listening to, may have thought the VBR encodings sounded worse than the 128k samples because they more accurately reflect the noise in the source material.

Notice that we also included a WMA9 Lossless score on the VBR table. We included one such track on each CD, purely out of curiosity. We are able to prove that this codec, which only achieves a compression ratio of about 2:1 on most musical tracks, is indeed mathematically lossless. It sounds exactly like the source material and produces an identical spectrum analysis graph, without fail. This would lead us to believe that the only score it can receive is a 5.0, right? But when our listeners didn't know what they were listening to, some of them scored it lower. Psychologists call this the "Pygmalion Effect," or self-fulfilling prophecy. Our listeners expected to hear compressed audio tracks and for there to be artifacts, and therefore couldn't bring themselves (on the whole) the give the lossless compression track a perfect score. Even though it was a perfect reproduction, they scored it as less than such because that is what they expected to hear."

There is some merit to all of this--some people like the hiss and pop, and others view it as noise, so it gets really subjective. Were I to pin a weak spot on their methodology, it would be a lack of descriptions of their demographic listeners, and a lack of control on the playback stereo.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:52 pm

Um, yeah....

I prefer these test results

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:58 am

sthayashi wrote:Um, yeah....

I prefer these test results

They both employ the same testing methodology, so I don't know why you'd prefer one over the other.

I personally don't think there's a well established superiority between the more modern codecs--WMA, AAC, Og Vorbis, and so forth. Internally, MSFT pretty much stole all of the patents by the MPEG group anyways, and they're using almost identical algorithms and concepts. For example, you can read about VC-9, which is really just MSFT's pet name for WMVHD and WMA. It includes all the information about the codec, including how the guts function, and it really becomes very clear that MSFT is using almost the exact same technology as other codecs.

I chose WMA because the encoder is free and powerful, it's easy to use, and the quality is comparable to other codecs out there. Other than that, my only point in joining the coversation was to say that I think compressed audio isn't necessarily uncompatible with audiophiles.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:44 pm

Beyonder wrote:
sthayashi wrote:Um, yeah....

I prefer these test results
They both employ the same testing methodology, so I don't know why you'd prefer one over the other.

I disagree with you on that. The one I've linked actually makes an effort to weed out placebo answers. They use a program called ABC/HR. When you score, you're required to distinguish between the original and the compressed version. If you fail to do that, then that score is dropped (maybe even that sample, I'm not sure on Roberto's policy).

Though I agree with you that compressed audio isn't necessarily incompatible w/ audiophiles. MY only point was that that I'd compare that particular article to a THG PSU review.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 9:15 pm

To drag this thread even further off topic..

To offer an alternative explanation for sthayashi's preference for that particular test:

sthayashi's test result link includes work by KraftWerk
KraftWerk has member called Ralf Hutter (it's an umlaut but I didn't install the right IME on this system)
And we have this post

OK, so I'm bored. At least it's not a crime. Yet

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 9:30 pm

I'm quite happy with my FLAC and Monkey's Audio format files; no noticeable difference at all from the WAVEs that they're compressed from.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 9:34 pm

sthayashi wrote:
Beyonder wrote:
sthayashi wrote:Um, yeah....

I prefer these test results
They both employ the same testing methodology, so I don't know why you'd prefer one over the other.
I disagree with you on that. The one I've linked actually makes an effort to weed out placebo answers. They use a program called ABC/HR. When you score, you're required to distinguish between the original and the compressed version. If you fail to do that, then that score is dropped (maybe even that sample, I'm not sure on Roberto's policy).

Though I agree with you that compressed audio isn't necessarily incompatible w/ audiophiles. MY only point was that that I'd compare that particular article to a THG PSU review.

Truthfully, I like that it doesn't weed out the "placebo" errors. I think it's really telling that there are such things. The fact that someone cannot tell the difference between the original and the encoded version tells me a lot.

A lot of this reminds me of audiophiles arguing over which interconnects "sound" the best, despite there being absolutely no scientific basis that a lamp cord is going to sound any better than shielded solid silver wire. They've done double blind tests where groups of audiophiles can't tell the difference between the two.

A "lossless" (ie: identical to the original in every way, shape, and form) compression can halve the size of data, yet for some reason halving it again makes audiophiles throw their hands up in the air like something heinous and foul has been done to their music.

And yes, normally I wouldn't bother with extremetech, and I'd never go to THG. They're both purveyors of filth, filth I say!

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:17 pm

lenny wrote:sthayashi's test result link includes work by KraftWerk
KraftWerk has member called Ralf Hutter (it's an umlaut but I didn't install the right IME on this system)
And we have this post

OK, so I'm bored. At least it's not a crime. Yet

Now you've hurt my brain. And that's a crime. Though there's not much there to damage to begin with.

Beyonder wrote:Truthfully, I like that it doesn't weed out the "placebo" errors. I think it's really telling that there are such things. The fact that someone cannot tell the difference between the original and the encoded version tells me a lot.

If you don't weed out the people who are just making stuff up, then you skew the correct answer. It may be just as interesting to note that Roberto is extremely reluctant to do any testing above 128kbps. The reason is that above that level, too many people have a hard time distinguishing original and encoded.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 5:36 am

Nowadays, I rip to WAVE with EAC and then use FLAC Frontend to compress & tag the WAVEs to OGG FLAC. I did a lot of my previous compressing by ripping to WAVE while simulteneously compressing to Monkey's Audio using EAC's built-in support, but I've since switched back to FLAC (started with FLAC, had tagging problems, switched to Monkey's Audio, then switched back to FLAC when I got the tagging issues under control).

Right now I'm looking for a portable player that can handle FLAC. SometimesWarrior pointed me to the Rio Karma, but I'm wondering if there are any other options besides that. Apple's iPod does lossless but only the Apple Lossless Codec, not FLAC or Monkey's Audio, so I'd end up reripping all my stuff, which is way too much work. With a FLAC compatible player, I'd only have to do about 1/4 of my library (the APE part).

-Ed

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 8:59 am

sthayashi wrote: If you don't weed out the people who are just making stuff up, then you skew the correct answer. It may be just as interesting to note that Roberto is extremely reluctant to do any testing above 128kbps. The reason is that above that level, too many people have a hard time distinguishing original and encoded.

But that's just it--they're not "making it up." They rate it as good as they think it sounds, and the error that actually occurs is a very real thing. And, with subjective tests of audio, I'm going to make a bold and outrageous statement: there is no correct answer. I've seen rooms full of audiophile snobs compare five-figure (sometimes six, to be honest) stereo systems and adamantly declare one a "superior" system, when I myself was hard pressed to tell any difference whatsoever. Pardon the expression, but I personally think they're pissing into the wind.

What Roberto is doing is also really valuable, however, because he's trying to find out which one sounds better at a level where noticable distortion occurs. However, a different test (one extremetech was closer to) is to determine where distortion is no longer discernable. I think those are two very separate ideas.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 12:19 pm

Beyonder wrote:However, a different test (one extremetech was closer to) is to determine where distortion is no longer discernable. I think those are two very separate ideas.

Beyonder, you're preaching to the choir here with respect to crazy audiophiles. Though once again, I respectfully disagree with the idea that extremetech came even close to determining how many people could hear the difference.

Hell, I question the methodology since they don't even say how they achieved their bitrates (WTF is 98% for a VBR encoding anyway?). It's not even clear to me why they chose to use geometric mean to calculate the score.

In general, I think this review is about as accurate as using fan ratings to measure hard drive noise (i.e. This drive is quieter than a 92mm Vantec Stealth, so it must be less than 20dBA).

Ultra Quiet CD Drive?

Ultra Quiet CD Drive?

aha