Problems Playing/Ripping Polygram CDs

[Editmaster JT]

I have a Dell computer with an NEC NR-7900A CD drive and I've always had a problem with long (70+ min) CDs in the Polygram family.. namely Casablanca. I first noticed this with the original 'Bad Girls' disc when I went to make a copy.. the last few tracks would always come out with awful noises or I'd get a message saying "message missing".

The same happened with "The Casablanca Records Story" and at the time I just figured they have some very tiny scratches and perhaps Polygram discs are for whatever reason more sensitive about this or something.

But then I got the 'deluxe' versions of "Bad Girls" and also "Diana" (Motown) and wouldn't you know it.. brand new discs and the same thing happened.. and this time I also tried just playing them on the drive and they'd break up, have awful noises and freeze on the last couple tracks of each disc. I thought it might be copy protection of some sort, but Universal Music Group swore to me that these discs were not copy protected. I tried a number of different ripping programs btw. (normally I just extract with Sound Forge and prepare copies manually)

Suddenly it hit me, that this must just be a problem that my drive has with Polygram discs, as weird as that seems.. I mean, I rip 80 minute discs all the time and never have any problems except with Polygram.

So I was wondering if anyone else has had similar problems or perhaps knows of an upgrade for the drive.

[Bernie]

For the last year I have been ripping a large number of CDs to iTunes and I have had a handful of CDs give me trouble when it gets to the end as well. I'd probably say no more than ten CDs have given me problems out of the whole batch. Now that you say it, most have been Polygram discs. In some cases a very careful examination of the disc showed some hairline scratches near the outer edge so I'll have to assume it's not some copy protection scheme.

They play fine on my home stereo, but pretty much lock up the burning process when it gets to the last song of the disc on my Mac, which has a Pioneer Superdrive. No matter what program I use to rip or play these few discs helps so it must be a drive/disc sensitivity issue.

[BrunoRepublic]

There's a bit of voodoo involved with ripping CDs. I have a couple of discs that fail every time in one of my PCs, but work fine in the other. 80-minute discs are particularly problematic.

[Forrrce]

I've had two NEC drives and they freaked me out a bit because the hard disk light would shine whenever they were used, which isn't right. They also froze the system a few times, so I won't use them again.

The old Pioneer caddy-style drives (like the DVD 104s and 106) are good for ripping. You should be able to pick them up cheaply now. I currently use LiteOns and LGs for ripping and recording - they're quite robust and sometimes they'll play discs my other drives won't. I've always read about Plextor drives being the enthusiasts' choice and I'll investigate them one day.

Try ripping programs (if you haven't already) like CDDAE, or Exact Audio Copy. Both are free and can overcome errors is some cases - but they re-read suspect sectors continuously (and slowly) and this can take hours.

[K-Bee]

I recently ripped the Diana Deluxe cd myself and experienced no problems whatsoever. I used the ripping option in the Jetaudio jukebox and it worked just fine.

[Editmaster JT]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have been thinking about upgrading to a DVD drive for awhile so maybe I'll get lucky and solve my problem that way. I just can't stand to play new discs anymore.. I always make a playing copy and put the original away in a mylar sleeve. LOL. Life was a lot more fun when I just didn't care, but stuff keeps going out of print so I'm paranoid :-?