Audio CD ripping - optical drive accuracy listing

I tend to keep my audio local. Therefore, I need an accurate ripping device for my audio CD collection. Recently I found a neat listing in the dbPowerAmp forum, but I added some information as well as ways to filter and sort. Have fun!

Hardware overview

Recommendations

• Try your existing drive before buying one - it may support all required features and it is not that important to have the most accurate one
• Some of the listed drives are no longer available or very expensive - maybe try to find one in used but good condition, that is not too old or worn out
• Use Exact Audio Copy (EAC, Windows Only) with the guide’s settings, if you really wanna archive your audio CD content in best possible quality. These improve your copy even more:
  • Follow this guide
  • Error recovery quality: high
  • Secure mode
  • NEVER normalize (!!)
  • DISABLE C2 error correction (even if supported, most drives have bad implementations, so you want EAC doing the error correction)
    • EAC does error correction by reading multiple times
    • C2 may hide errors before delivering raw data
  • Use Accurate Rip
  • Use FLAC (lossless) as destination format
• If you want to use an external USB drive, buy an internal drive and get a high quality external case for it… this is much better than buying a low accuracy external drive

But why and where are the alternatives?

Well, ripping an audio CD is an art of its own and comes with numerous caveats. This would be the wrong place to explain this, but here is a great article going into deep detail on that .

While Exact Audio Copy is Windows only, it’s not the only tool you could use. However, it is the only one I PERSONALLY know for sure it is working well. Other tools that often get recommended are:

• Linux
  • Whipper
  • cyanrip
  • abcde
  • cdparanoia
• macOS
  • X Lossless Decoder (macOS)

Best rated drives

• 2024, +1k Submissions
  • overall: HITACHI-LG BH14NS48 (BD-writer, half-size)
  • slim: SAMSUNG SE-506BB (BD-writer, slim)
• 2022, +1k Submissions
  • overall: HITACHI-LG BH14NS48 (BD-writer, half-size)
  • slim: hp GUE1N (DVD-writer, slim)
  • slim: Panasonic UJ-160 (BluRay Reader / DVD writer, slim)

What device should I buy today?

Today optical drives are mostly sold out or unavailable, some manufacturers have even completely stopped production. Very few drives are available factory new (e.g. Asus BW-16D1HT , Asus BW-16D1HT (mirror) )

In terms of reading accuracy slim drives may be the BEST rated drives, but in terms of ripping time and versatility, they are NOT as good.

Try to buy a modern internal Blu-ray Writer with a disk tray from the Top-list (see below). These are bigger, but pretty accurate with nearly 10x the ripping speed compared to slim drives. In my tests, the ripping speed with hp GUE1N was about 10-20 Minutes, whereas was about 1-2 Minutes for the same discs.

The top-rated available HITACHI-LG Blu-ray drives are probably the best ones. I compared various devices regarding speed and accuracy. PIONEER may sometimes rate to be more accurate, but the HITACHI-LG drives are up to 2x as fast.

You could save some money with a used high-rated DVD or slim type, but prepare for longer ripping times.

• HITACHI-LG BH14NS48 (99.729%) - Best rated drive - hardly available anywhere
• HITACHI-LG BH14NS40 (99.4937%) - Top drive - hardly available anywhere
• PIONEER BDR-208M or BDR-209M (99.3126%): Fast and accurate - sometimes available in used condition
• Asus BW-16D1HT (98.761%): Fast and accurate - available new Asus BW-16D1HT (mirror)
• HITACHI-LG BH16NS40 (98.761%): Fast and accurate - available new in some shops
• HITACHI-LG BH16NS55 (98.734%): Very fast - often available in used condition

External USB 3.0 devices for Notebook usage are for example:

• ASUS BW-16D1H-U - external Blu-ray Writer
• ICY BOX 5,25 - case only
• OWC Mercury Pro - case only

Drive listing with accuracy

How to use the text-filter (“Search…” above the table)

• To get drives with 1000 or more submissions, type +1k (accordingly +5k or +10k)
• To get the Top 50 drives of a submission year, type Top-<year>, e.g. Top-2024
• To get any other text, just separate with space, e.g. BH16NS55 to look for this model

Example: Get Top-Rated drives of 2022 and 2024 with BD support and over +10k ratings, search for

Top-202 BD +10k

Listing