On Saturday, 3 January 2026 16:44:56 Greenwich Mean Time Alan Mackenzie wrote: > On Fri, Jan 02, 2026 at 15:44:06 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > On Fri, Jan 02, 2026 at 10:43:05 +0000, Michael wrote: > > > On Thursday, 1 January 2026 21:46:27 Greenwich Mean Time Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > > > Hello, Gentoo. > > > > > > > > Happy New Year! > > > > > > > > On my (no longer quite so) new PC, I've still not managed to get audio > > > > CDs to play properly. Originally I was using the program aqualung, > > > > but > > > > that gave a constant crackle on top of the music, making it unusable. > > > > (But it was fine on my old PC.) > > > > > > > > I've since moved to deadbeef (officially called DeaDBeeF), which > > > > though > > > > much better is still not right. What I get now on playing a CD is: > > > > (i) the first track of the CD gets ~6 seconds of crackle at the start; > > > > (ii) at each subsequent track (regardless of whether there are any > > > > actual > > > > > > > > gaps between the tracks) there is about 2 seconds of crackle at the > > > > beginning; > > > > > > > > (iii) if I pause the playback and restart it, there is no extra > > > > crackle; > > > > (iv) on moving the playback to a random part of the track, I get the > > > > ~6 > > > > > > > > seconds of crackle; > > > > > > > > (v) there are random moments of crackle in the middle of tracks, too, > > > > often ~6 seconds after an audible drive head movement. > > [ .... ] > > > I think I am just going to buy a new drive. At ~25 Euros, it's just not > > worthwhile trying all these things on the current one. > > Well, I've bought and installed a new drive (made by ASUS) and it hasn't > helped in the slightest. :-( > > Maybe modern DVD drives just aren't capable of reading audio CDs > properly. After moving the read head to some position on the CD, it's > necessary to start reading the sectors accurately straight away. Maybe > these newer drives positioning of the heads leaves them wobbling, or > something, and rely on software error correction to reread erroneous > sectors. On playing an audio CD, I don't think sectors get reread at > all, just erroneous values get transmitted to the DAC. > > Or something like that. > > [ .... ] > > > Maybe I'll get this sorted out in the next week, or so. Thanks again. > > Or, maybe not. :-(
Unless I've misunderstood something, through a process of elimination you have concluded your audio CD crackling problem and DVD sector reading problem is caused by the drive itself. Your old PC DVD drive exhibits no such problem, but the new PC's DVD drive and the ASUS replacement you just bought both show the same symptoms. In your process of elimination, did you also replace the DVD drive cable on the new PC? Is the audio CD crackling evident both on new (factory recorded) audio CDs and writeable CDs you burned yourself? If the latter, did you try more expensive disc brands and different (slower & then higher) burn speeds to see if the crackling goes away? Another trick which may work is to increase the cache size on the media player, e.g. 2x, 4x, 8x. It should give more time for the drive to perform its error correction gymnastics and hopefully overcome any media error. The crackling/reading problem at the start of CD/DVDs can happen because of light scatter from the transparent edge to the initial data tracks. I recall reading somewhere if you use a black marker pen at the back of the transparent region, you can fix this problem. The difference between old and new PC drives could be related to cheap-ification in components, lower energy laser, etc. If the new drive doesn't address your problem, hopefully you should be able to return it.
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