Strange.
At my home PC I have two DVD-R drives (Pioneer, A03, A05.) I do all my ripping at home. The A03 only gives me about 2.5x speed. A05 gives about a 6x. Decided I had some free time at work while having other windows open, I would let a few CD's rip away. I have a A06 (Also Pioneer) and an OLD DVD-RAM drive.
The A06 rips horribly. The tinest scratch can't be read thru. Max speed is LESS than the A03 at home.
The DVD-RAM, which it never occured to me to even use until after the first few CDs rips at, like 20x!! WTF?

Why all the kookiness with the Pioneer drives? I mean, they're the best on making DVD-Rs and such.. Jeez.

Me.

Mebbe the old DVD-RAM drive has two completely separate pickup assemblies, one optimized for CD and the other optimized for DVD, whereas the newer ones attempt to get the job done with a single unified pickup assembly?

I'd believe it. The thing was never used because it's DVD-RAM/DVD-R handling was absolut crap. I only tried it after the Pioneer couldn't read a non-scratched disk. I'm half-tempted to take the RAM drive home and use it on my home PC, ONLY for ripping music!

Me.

i only will use my cd drive to rip
my a05 is slower, and id rather not introduce wear to it that is unnecessary
my 52x24x52 cd drive can rip very very well