CD-ROM plays audio full speed

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Slater
  • Start date Start date
P

Paul Slater

I just replaced my Soundblaster AWE64 with an SBLive 5.1. Now any attempt to
use digital audio to play music CDs causes the CD drive to spin at full
speed. This is annoying, pointless and loud so that the music can't be
heard. This happens with both the Creative software and Winamp 5.03a. If I
put the audio back to analogue the music plays OK but I have to swap between
line-in and auxiliary to get various other sound related things working.

I've googled and googled but can't seem to get the right search phrase to
find anything useful. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person on
the planet with this equipment - is there anyone out there that can help
resolve this. I really want to use the digital stuff but can't bear the
drive spinning all the time

TIA, PAUL

Win2kPro
PIII 866mhz 1Gb ram
LG GCC-4880b DVD-ROM/CD-RW
SBLive! 5.1
Creative PlayCenter 3.02.70
WinAmp 5.03a
 
Paul Slater said:
I just replaced my Soundblaster AWE64 with an SBLive 5.1. Now any attempt to
use digital audio to play music CDs causes the CD drive to spin at full
speed. This is annoying, pointless and loud so that the music can't be
heard. This happens with both the Creative software and Winamp 5.03a. If I
put the audio back to analogue the music plays OK but I have to swap between
line-in and auxiliary to get various other sound related things working.

I've googled and googled but can't seem to get the right search phrase to
find anything useful. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person on
the planet with this equipment - is there anyone out there that can help
resolve this. I really want to use the digital stuff but can't bear the
drive spinning all the time

TIA, PAUL

Win2kPro
PIII 866mhz 1Gb ram
LG GCC-4880b DVD-ROM/CD-RW
SBLive! 5.1
Creative PlayCenter 3.02.70
WinAmp 5.03a
Click to expand...

The reason your drive spins faster playing digital audio is the way the disc
is being accessed. With analog mode, the drive plays the disc at 1X (or a
slightly higher oversample rate) through the small cable connecting your
drive and audio card. This does not require much spindle speed. When you
play digitally, the data is extracted as a stream and decoded by your audio
card, and the transfer happens through the ribbon cable for the drive.
Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) can happen at very low or high rates; Yamaha
claims as high as 52X on some of its drives. To achieve 52X (which I find
highly unlikely, but that's a different subject) the drive would have to
spin somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000RPM on the OUTSIDE track. Look
at CentreCOMs product page for their Sony drive for some details:

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=281

As you can see, this drive does 14X DAE and spins at 7000 RPM to read the
INSIDE track of the disc at that rate! This would be pretty noisy to say
the least. If you want to get the high transfer rates without the extra
rotational speed, try a Kenwood/HiVal True-X drive. They spin quite a bit
slower, but with 7 lasers they pick up data more efficiently. Toshiba is
also known for good DAE rates and quiet operation.

--

Mike Brown
Asset Forwarding Corp.
EPA-compliant Recycling
DoD 5220.22-M Data Elimination
http://www.assetforwarding.com
 
Back
Top