Reading performance:

For the next tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media. As we already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• DVD-ROM : 16x

• CD-R/ROM: 48x

Pressed discs:

For this test we used an original pressed CD-ROM disc containing the World of Warcraft that is about 74 minutes in length.

The LG GSA-H42N makes it to 47.74x.

Now let’s compare the result with other drives performance in the table below:

As you can see from our chart the LG GSA-H42N is one the faster drives reading pressed CD-ROM discs.

CD-Recordable Discs:  

For this test we used the same Pressed Data CD-R as above and made a copy using Nero Express “Copy Entire CD”. The disc we used was a Ridata 52x CD-R disc manufactured by Ritek burned at 48x.

The LG GSA-H42N reached 47.08x when reading copied CD-R disc.

Now let’s compare the result to some other drives:

The LG GSA-H42N was among the middle of the pack when reading back a copied pressed CD-Recordable discs.

CD-Rewritable discs: 

We made another Data CD with Nero Express “Copy Entire CD”, this time we are using a Verbatim DataLifePlus Ultra Speed+ (32X) CD-RW disc.

The LG GSA-H42N read the CD-RW discs back at 41.27x speed.

Now let’s compare the result to some other drives:

The LG GSA-H42N did a good job reading back a copied CD-Rewritable disc. 

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the LG GSA-H42N we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is 79 minutes in length (79:47.10).

The LG GSA-H42N reached 41.11x when reading a full pressed audio disc

Now let us compare the result to some other drives:

The LG GSA-H42N was among the slower drives when reading the Audio-CD disc.

Advanced audio – EAC test:

For our next test we used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to test the drive’s audio extraction performance. As we can see from the screenshot below the drive supports accurate stream and C2 error information.

Here are the results produced by EAC:

Burst Mode

Secure Mode

The LG GSA-H42N performed good in the burst mode but was much slower in secure mode.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

For our next test we will use the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in Nero CD-DVD Speed. The CD-R media we are using is 40x certified Memorex Music CD-R made by Ritek. (Thanks to Memorex USA for sending us this media.)

The extracting quality is excellent and the drive performed very well but the drive cannot read leadout.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs.

DVD – DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with Single and Double Layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD-Video Single Layer

 
DVD-Video Double Layer

The LG GSA-H42N reads a pressed DVD-Video at just over 10x for a Single Layer disc and only reads a Double Layer disc at around 5x.

Let’s see how it compares to the other drive in our chart:

The LG GSA-H42N performed poorly with DVD-Video Single Layer and was by far the slowest on our DVD-Video Double Layer reading tests.

DVD+R and DVD+RW:

For this next test we used a Verbatim 16x DVD+R and a Ritek 8x DVD+RW both with 4.38GB of data. (Thanks to Ritek USA and Verbatim USA for sending us this media.) Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The drive posts very good reading speeds with DVD+R disc at over16x speed and the DVD+RW disc at over13x speed.

Now let’s see how it will perform on DVD-R/RW discs.

DVD–R and DVD-RW:  

For this test we used a Verbatim 16x DVD-R and a Ritek 6x DVD-RW with 4.38GB of data. (Thanks to Ritek USA and Verbatim USA for sending us this media.) Below are the results:

DVD-R

 
DVD-RW

Again the drive posts very good reading speed with DVD-R disc at over 16x speed and the DVD-RW disc at over 13x speed.

DVD – DVD±R DL:  

For this test we used a Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL and a Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL disc both filled with 4.38GB of data. (Thanks to Verbatim USA for sending us this media.) Our test results are found below:

DVD+R DL

 
DVD-R DL

The drive performs very well reading DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL at 12x speed.

DVD – DVD-RAM:   

In this test we are using a Maxell 12x DVD-RAM filled with 4.27GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-RAM 

The LG GSA-H42N did read the DVD-RAM at 12x but did stumble along the way.   

Overall thoughts:

The LG GSA-H42N is a fast and reliable reader but falls short in speed while reading Single Layer and Dual Layer Pressed media and the drive did stumble a bit with our 12x DVD-RAM read test.

Now it’s time to head on to a more interesting section: Writing Quality with CD-R and CD-RW discs…

Disc Writing Technology

Writing Quality with CD-R and CD-RW discs