Recently while trying to copy a CD from my CD ROM to my CD WRITER, Nero said that my CD ROM only reads audio at 1x. It's an outdated 8x burner, but just wondering if that could be any type of program glitch? Has anyone dealt with this problem, and if I was to buy a 32x CD ROM, what does that read audio at??? Thanks GreG

I thought that they all read audio at the same speed. The only reason to change your cdrom is if it can't keep up with the writer. Causing buffer underruns. Which the other choice is to copy the cd disc to the hardrive and write it form there.

CD roms do not read audio nowhere near as quickly as they read data. The max speed for reading/copying audio can be 1 or 2x, this is probably why its alot slower than if your copying data cd's. I dont think it will not make any difference if you upgrade your CD rom to a faster speed.

DAO (digital audio extraction) is the process in which the CD drive makes an exact copy of the CD into sound files (usally wave on PC's) on the hard drive. This process is also known as "ripping" The speed in which it does this is always lower then the advertised Cd drive speed. The best way to copy a CD is to rip the songs off using the burner because it will rip at close to the write speed (in your case 8x) the burner is more accurate for DAO and usally faster, and the second reason is that the Hard drive can be read off of faster then a CD drive, preventing buffer underruns. Some CD drives rip quicker then others. So you may get a speed increase depending on the drive.

Digital Audio Extraction varies from drive to drive. My 20x cd-rom can extract audio at 2x speed. My 32x CDRW can extract audio at 8x speed. So I use my CDRW as the source and destination drive. Yes, you have to swap out the source cd and insert the destination cd at some point but since it is extracting audio at 8x and then writing audio at 8x on the same cdrw drive it is still a lot faster then trying to copy from a 20x cd rom that only extracts audio at 2x which limits your cdrw drive to copying at 2x. So I would use your CDRW as the source and destination drive.