Why do CDs rip fast sometimes and slow other times?

[KentTeffeteller]

Some discs are higher quality in their manufacturing (replication) than others are. And also errors in pressing or pre-masters ripped to glass masters can also affect ripping speed, and condition of the discs you rip. Discs outside of strict RedBook compliance are more problematic to rip and more prone to errors and being on the edge of tolerances.

 

[kevintomb]

I am having this exact issue now, but it is with an almost brand new computer.
The discs are in excellent condition, so can not be error correction or issues reading the disc.

What I see, some CDs the spinning is super fast, and some it just never goes more than low speed. Nothing "Wrong" per se, but it seems to just vary disc by disc, again, even with all discs in excellent condtion....??

 

[Johnno_Oz]

It also depends what is also running in the background on the PC. I've got 176 processes running in the background at the moment. I've had a rip going and suddenly drops to a dawdle, windows update had decided to do its thing.

If I reboot the PC & close down some of the memory hogging unnecessary background programs, it speeds things up.

 

[Lou G]

My CDs always rip at the same speed. I have never observed a slow one. There is some variation in how long it takes to rip based on how many tracks are on the CD. My typical rip times are 4 to 6 minutes, although I never sit there and time it.

 

[Johnny B]

I am having this exact issue now, but it is with an almost brand new computer.
The discs are in excellent condition, so can not be error correction or issues reading the disc.

What I see, some CDs the spinning is super fast, and some it just never goes more than low speed. Nothing "Wrong" per se, but it seems to just vary disc by disc, again, even with all discs in excellent condtion....??

What hardware/software are you using? What settings?

How do you know it isn’t error correction or read issues? A disc can look fine and a drive will still have issues with it. Also, new drives are generally not as good as ones from 10-15 years ago. My Lite-On DVD burner from 2008 rips faster than my year-old LG Blu-Ray burner (which stopped burning Blu-Rays properly about 6 weeks in).

 

[kevintomb]

What hardware/software are you using? What settings?

How do you know it isn’t error correction or read issues? A disc can look fine and a drive will still have issues with it. Also, new drives are generally not as good as ones from 10-15 years ago. My Lite-On DVD burner from 2008 rips faster than my year-old LG Blu-Ray burner (which stopped burning Blu-Rays properly about 6 weeks in).

The same exact settings that I used to do about a dozen other discs within the same hour and they all spun at a really high speed and ripped much faster.

I do not "Know" it is not errors, but 4 discs in a row all ran only at the lower speed and they were all in pristine condition, and all from a box set. The 1990 Led zep box, to be exact.

My burner normally runs quite fast on most all discs, but these 4 it did not...?

 

[Bill Ferris]

I then bought an external LG with a proper power supply, and my rips are way faster.

 

[Bill Ferris]

The method I use, after experimentation, starting back about 5 yrs. ago, results in very fast rips/burns, like a couple of minutes or so, per burn copy.
My master music file ripping/storing/burning computer is a purposed Win. 7 laptop.

I rip to WAV.in, & burn from that digital master music purposed machine.

I use a Nero burn program(BTW.it`s burning speed is set to automatic, by default), that came included with the various DVD/BR optical drives that I`ve purchased over the years, both internal for desktop, or USB connected external portable type.

The fastest burns I get, are obtained, by configuring optical drive to optical drive in Nero`s setting`s, instead of optical to a image, and then back to optical, and even faster results using newer LG brand DVD/BR ones that I bought as spares/upgrades compared to the (circa) nineties 52X R/W CD leftover ones that I originally started out burning/ripping with.

The slowest burn times I encountered, were because I have to clean, and sometimes polish, rough/abused CDs that are/were owned by others, and had to be first checked out by a test rip and then listened to, because the computer`s playback error correction will not always expose any apparent minor playback glitches, but a WMP test rip, or Nero`s pre burn optical source data check will expose it..

Yes, I know about EAC, and have played around with it in the past, but my simple method works very well for me !

Of course, doing this fast rip/burn method with a laptop requires that I use my SATA to USB type 3 adaptors to connect the internal desktop type BR optical drive to the laptop`s USB type 3 port, but I have 3 of the adaptor/interface device with their own wall wart SMPS`s to power the drive, whether a optical, or even a power hungry spindle based HD.

The Nero program also allows me to run a file integrity check compare/confirmation of the burns accuracy, if I choose, after the burn is finished, and also a pre check of the CD, to see if it can even be copied, if I`m concerned/doubtful.

When I had to re-rip ~1000 + of my CD collection, after finding out my first uneducated non WAV. attempts were flawed, I started experimenting with the desktop type internal optical drives connected to a inexpensive IDE to USB adaptor, and ended up with this very fast, IMHO/E, method.

I have noticed, when I burn a copy of a Gold MFSL, OMR CD to a Gold CD burn media blank, that, for whatever reason doing so slows down the CD to CD burn copy effort by a minute or so extra time, compared to the same burn copy to regular silver blank media.

When I need to just burn from a digitally stored music file/s(a flash/internal computer drive), it burns pretty quick too, especially transferring from a computer with a SSD, which all my machines are.

FWIW, folks, go with whatever method works best for you.