best external drive for ripping CDs

I got one of these off OWC. Built like a tank, and connected to my iMac via USB C

They are mostly all pick-one-of-‘em cheap builds with an eventual lock to fail. They do a yeoman duty until then with their quirky noises cuz there is no quality power supply supply on a USB powered external unit, As pointed out, there are a relative few that are anecdotally reported as a better build than the cheap masses.

The CD ripping programs do their own internal cross checks from original to properly ripped copies, if there is a problem on the ripped digital copy , you know it. That’s not a worry point.

If you are progressing past a silver disc ripped copy and onto copies made to a large mass storage on an external HD or a NAS drive,… then Think SAMSUNG or an equivalent better quality build OEM brand and also  think SSD HD if possible.

If so, I would spend more attention to securing only a quality build external storage medium. The cheap POS units have reported extra “noise”, a longer load access time, A more irritating jitter on reading and playback, and a lock to fail earlier.

DBPowerAmp tells you if the CDs were accurately ripped.  If so, no other CD drive will make for improved sound.

I started with an Apple Optical drive. It died after a few hundred rips and I replaced

it with a Bryston Optical player (at the time I was using a Bryston BDP 3.). It was built like a tank, etc, and completely didn’t work. It ripped about 5 CDs, then couldn’t make it through a single CD (it was a “factory refreshed” model from Audio

Advisors). I sent it back to Bryston for servicing, at my expense for shipping. It came back weeks later, after I had to call Bryston, in exactly the same condition.

It is in a landfill now, the worst audio purchase I ever made.

Since I use a Melco NAS, I decided to buy their optical ripper (both the Melco and the Bryston can be used as CD Transports with their respective players). The Melco has worked great, ripping hundreds of discs without error, and yes sounds excellent as a CD transport.

I was in a thrift shop a few months back and bought a used Apple Optical player for a fiver. It ripped a few CDs well. The main reason I bought it is because it attaches to our MacBook and can play DVDs. We take train trips to see family a couple of times a year and Amtrak’s WiFi is no go for most of it, so we bring a few movies for the road