detail information

On the previous page we already briefly mentioned the PleXCombo's audio capabilities. According to PlexTools the drive can reach 40x when extracting the audio and on this page we'll test just that. For the audio read tests we used our usual 'tools', Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and Nero CD Speed.

Features:

First we checked the features the PleXCombo PX-320A supports using EAC:

As you can see from the screenshot on the left. the PleXCombo drive supports all features. Below some more information on these terms:

• 'Caching':
  If your drive caches the audio that was just read, it would be a problem to read this data again in order to compare both extractions to find out if they match.
  
  
• 'Accurate Stream':
  This means the drive won't jitter, thus no jitter correction has to be done anymore.
  
  
• 'C2 Error Info':
  Some newer drives are able to return C2 error information beside the actual audio data. In that case EAC doesn't need to read all data twice anymore, which will result in a big speedup.

Digital Audio Extraction:

For the Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) tests we started Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and simply extracted the separate audio tracks in uncompressed WAV format to our harddisk. Our test disc (Thunderdome XXII - CD1) had 20 tracks and a total playing time of 77 minutes and 45 seconds. We used both the 'Burst' mode and the 'Secure' mode:

• 'Burst Mode':
  Burst mode is the fastest mode available. The audio sectors are just read without any error-detection and error-correction.
  
  
• 'Secure Mode':
  The extracted audio is checked for correctness and if errors occur, EAC will try to recover them.

Below the screenshots of the speeds the PleXCombo drive reached in both extraction modes:

PleXCombo PX-320A DAE speed - Burst Mode

PleXCombo PX-320A DAE speed - Secure Mode

As expected the PleXCombo drive has no problems reaching 40x DAE in burst mode. Like all Plextor drives the PleXCombo PX-320A is a fast audio ripper in both modes and can compete with the fastest drives out there today. In the table below we've summed up the results and compare them to other drives we've previously reviewed. Just as with the data read test, the PleXCombo performs very similar to the Lite-On LTR-32123S drive:

Besides our tests with Exact Audio Copy we also did a DAE test with Nero CD Speed. You can see a screenshot of the tests below:

The tests done with Nero CD Speed confirm our previous findings with EAC. The PleXCombo has no problems reaching 40x and going even faster than that. As you can also see from the screenshot above, the drive has an accurate audio stream and produces perfect quality (a score of 10). In the table below we've once again summed up our results:

Advanced DAE Quality Test:

To conclude our DAE test we did the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test' with Nero CD Speed. This test is a very hard and intense test for any reader. Here are the results:

The average DAE speed of the PleXCombo PX-320A is again pretty high, but not as high as the other Plextor drives we've reviewed. The PleXCombo has no problems reading the CD-Text from the disc and the SubChannel Data. The drive can also read the lead-in and lead-out of the disc, something a lot of drives can't do.

We also tested if the PleXCombo drive could indeed read CD-Text. We played an audio disc with CD-Text with the PlexTools software and the PX-320A could indeed read it without problems as you can see in the screenshot below (Disc Title and Artist are displayed):

Now that we've concluded our data and audio reading part, let's see how well the PleXCombo drive can read DVD discs.