Distorted sound with certain CD's

cd's (mostly those made in the late 80's)

CD's can and will deteriorate over time. There has been a lot written about deterioration of CD's.  I suspect that is the case with these, especially the early CD's that are not as "stable" as newer CD's.  Commerical CD's (and even CD-R blanks) have been greatly improved since the early ones.   

There is a lot of info on CD deterioration if you do a google search.  HERE is one article.

You may be able to "rip" the songs to the hard drive (as wav files NOT MP3) and then run the songs from the CD's through some audio processing software such as the shareware "goldwave" audio editior and then burn new CD's (and burn at 16X or less - I have a recording studio and use 8X as my audio CD burning standard).

I use Goldwave in my studio and I also use Audiograbber (free) for CD ripping.  Audiograbber

Hi many thanks for your reply.

I dont think the problem lies with the CD itself. The CD is brand new, no scratches etc and it plays fine in my old Dell pc and every other device. The problem definitely is with the new XPS 8000. I'm thinking something (i dont know what!!) needs to be updated by new drivers/firmware etc. Though i really cant think what it is.

There are some CD/DVD drive firmware updates listed on the Dell downloads for the 8000.  If your drive is listed, download and install the firmware and see if that makes any difference.  

If there isn't any firmware update or if the firmware update does not make any difference, for a test rip a couple songs from the CD's that are distorting to the hard drive as wav files (not MP3) and then play them from the wav files on the hard drive and see if that makes any difference.  Download the free "Audiograbber" ripping program and use that (what I use to rip CD's).

Hi thanks again for your reply.

On further investigation i think the problem definitely lies with the "TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653G ATA" drive inside the new pc. I borrowed a portable dvd drive, plugged it into my XPS800 via USB, and the problem CD played absolutely fine. (before i tried the portable dvd drive, i also tried to copy as a wav file and used the audiograb program, neither worked ok. Also the latest firmware update from the Dell website for the internal drive was the same as i had installed)

I guess i'll have to wait for another firmware update for this drive and mention this to Dell. Bit annoying really, but i guess these things happen...

Ummm also how do i unistall the audiograbber program now? I try to and a message come up saying this:

"The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher"

I don't know if you can convice Dell that the CD drive is defective.  The other option is to replace it yourself with a different drive.  CD/DVD burner drives are relatively inexpensive (under $25 US).   I have two SATA drives in my home built system and they were $22 each.  I have five USB connected CD burner drives (that I use  for Audio CD burning in my recording studio) and they were all in the low $20's.  I bought them all from www.newegg.com

I don't know about uninstalling Audiograbber. As I noted, that is my CD ripping program of choice so I've never had a reason to uninstall it.  There is no support for this, so trying to contact the (German) programmer is not an option.  But, you can use the System Restore function and restore the PC back to a date prior to instlaling it and it will be gone.  System Restore can be accessed from Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools.  System Restore will not delete any user data or e-mails.

I have the same problem with a Dell and the "TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653G ATA"

I have tried changing drivers/firmware etc and none of it helps.

I found it affected about 10% of my CDs.

A friend of mine with a similar Dell and the same drive has the same problem, and both machines have problems with the same discs. The problem occurs even if just playing the CD. (Not just ripping). I have installed a second CD drive which works perfectly.

I would be interested if anyone with this drive and any Led Zep (1-4) album can play it without distortion.

Ouch! thanks for the info, I'll keep this in mind if someone else posts the same problem.

Has anyone posted this drive problem on the Disk Drive section of the forum (the forum section for CD/DVD drive problems and where this should have originally been posted since it's a drive problem).

Hi. I originally posted this in Audio because I couldn’t prove it was Disk Drive specific when I first had the problem.

I had the drive replaced, by a Dell engineer, with another "TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653G ATA" - This also had exactly the same problem. Fortunately, after much hassle (despite everything, Dell wasn’t happy to accept there was a problem with this manufacturer's model - they wanted to send me ANOTHER same drive), Dell were kind enough to provide me with another drive by another manufacturer - this has been absolutely fine with the "problem" CD's.

Hi,

Sorry for reviving an old thread, but I'm having exactly this problem with the TS-H653G in my Precision T3400.

I suspect it is the copy protection used on certain CDs.

RolyUK, could you possibly tell me the make and model of your replacement drive that successfully plays these CDs?

Thanks,

Dave

I eventually managed to get Dell to replace both my drive and my friends.

Both were replaced with model (GL) HL-DT-ST DVD+RW GH50N ATA DEVICE.

These worked fine in both computers. I have had no problems with any CDs since.

During the process they also sent another 3 of the original model and all were "faulty" in exactly the same way.

Brilliant, thanks timmyo. That's exactly the information I need.

Time to ask Dell for a replacement!

Just a quick update to this - I've now replaced my TS-H653G with a GH50N, and as expected, the CDs that were distorted on the TSST drive now play perfectly.

and the older CDs play fine on another PC?

Chris, I don't have another PC handy to try the CDs in. They work fine in audio CD players though.

It's not necessarily older CDs though - I've had the problem with several brand new releases (actually remastered versions of older albums, though that's probably irrelevant). It seems highly likely that the problem is a copy protection method thought to be used by certain companies (notably Warner), which (according to information on Wikipedia) works by corrupting certain frames of the data on the CD. This is done in such a way that the error correction in audio CD players can correct these frames by interpolation, to produce a smooth signal with (allegedly) no audible effects of the copy protection. Some computer optical drives don't have sufficiently sophisticated error correction to handle this, hence the corruption is clearly audible.

So, if this is the cause of the problem, then judging by the experiences of both timmyo and myself, it would seem that the TS-H653G does not have the ability to correct these deliberate corruptions, and the GH50N does.

Hi. I have exactly the same problem and found this thread via Google. I have a new Dell XPS 8100 with a TSSTcorpDVD+- RW TS-H653G DVD/CD-ROM drive and can't play about 10% of my CDs. They distort badly, especially the higher frequencies which just sound like white noise. The problem is the same regardless of whether I play via iTunes or Windows media player. If I try to rip the CDto iTunes the track retains the distortion. Several of the CDs are Warner CDs including Madonna "Music" and "Confessions on a dance floor" (embarrassing but true). I have the same problem with some non-Warner CDs such as the Flaming Lips "Yoshimi battles the pink robots" and "Soft bulletin" and Damien Rice "O" to name a few. Of course the CDs play fine on every other CD player and computer known to mankind.

Dell have been pretty unhelpful and have blamed Windows 7, the CDs, and even suggested that it isn't a problem that my computer won't play a number of my favourite CDs. After many frustrating hours they have at last agreed to send out a replacement CD drive but won't accept that there is a problem so I suspect that many others will have to endure the same frustrating response from Dell.  It is a shame that they don't take the problem seriously and sort it out rather than giving customers the run round. Ah well feel better for getting it off my chest.... Good luck to anyone else with same problem, you will have to persevere with Dell to get it sorted.

I'll let you know if the new CD drive solves the problem.