CD drive improves HD rip quality?

""I would like to see a Krell or Levinson type, audio only, USB CD external drive. Something with three beams, designed to specifically rip audio and recover from read errors.""

Exactly.Or at least some PC drive that looks at least a bit more serious and with more weight.Any reccomendations?

Can you read non-music CDs OK without problem using your computer cd drive?

If so, your music CDs should be fine as well. All it has to do to rip to disk is extract data correctly. There is no sound production involved at this point (that comes later when streaming to the DAC). So I don't think there is much merit to an "audiophile" CD drive, at least for consumers. Vendors might be able to turn a pretty penny marketing such a thing though!

I think the software used probably makes much more difference. Recent versions of Windows Media Player for example work flawlessly as best I can tell.

Hi Mapman,
Yes, non music Cds also work fine.
I thought exactly the same as you.But then i tried Milenium CD mat on top of the music CD in the drive while ripping.It is just ones and zeros, but the difference is pretty obvious.
Then i thought about improving on the drive.If CD mat improves this much,then the drive also could,right?I think PC audio can go a long way.

I suspect the problem has something to do with how the ripping software is configured to handle errors when they occur.

Different optical drives will have different error rates for sure, some better than others requiring less re-scan. Software has to be configured to rescan as needed when errors occur. Re-scanning will make the rip take more time as parts of the CD are read multiple times to get all the bits correct.

Its possible that the gadget reduces the error rate to a level that the ripping software can handle better as configured.

I think the key is getting the software configured to handle errors correctly. Fewer errors from the drive will help things run smoother and faster as well.

I was lucky I think in that the Toshiba laptop I use seemed to come with a good quality optical drive that matches well out of the can to Windows Media Player to enable consistently good ripping. On some disks though, it can take a significantly longer time to rip than others.

I've ripped a couple hundred disks so far. None have failed. All sound flawless to my ears. I did have one disc ( one of three in a box set) that seemed to run forever while ripping, but it never stopped trying. Eventually, I had to just stop the ripping process on that one and give that one disk a free pass. It does seem to play fine on my Denon player though. Go figure!

Denon probably has a better laser,i guess it is the same reason why some CDs can be copied with one cd drive, and the other one does not recognize them.
Similar with DVD players and PC DDVD drives...