pablogm123 wrote:Understood. Check if both are aligned. For example, use any hex editor, open both files and check if non-zeroed samples starts at the same offset. If so, do a binary comparison, which reveals differences. If not so, try fff -crc=$[The CRC32 of DB] -size=[Size according to DB] [INPUT FILE] [OUTPUT FILE, any name you want]. If success, your dump is the same of DB, but shifted. Perhaps, your drive fails sometimes to be accurate stream (just a hypothesis, nowadays this is really very weird, an accurate stream drive is a drive with constant read offset, as expected nowadays) and reads that track with another offset.
Well huh. I loaded track pairs 2 and 3 into a hex editor, and the versions are exactly 352800 bytes (aka, the pregap length) apart, the fixed one with the pregap silence, and the broken one with no pregap silence.
Looking closer at the rubyripper pregap detection, I notice that tracks 2 and 3 (note, rubyripper counts tracks starting from first *audio* track) aren't detected as having gaps, so that would explain those two tracks
Silence detected for track 3 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 3 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 4 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 5 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 6 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 7 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 8 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 9 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 10 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 11 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 12 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 13 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 14 : 150 sectors
Pregap detected for track 15 : 150 sectors
Track 6 is even weirder, it appears to have several seconds of track 5 at the start, then the pregap, then track 6...
The first two appear to be an issue with rubyripper, and the others seems to be like you said, the drive isn't staying true to it's +6 offset during track changes, I'll give those other drives a go, and find out if there's a way to get rubyripper to detect all track pregaps.
Edit: I converted track 6 of both versions to flac and played them, the broken track 6 does indeed have ~6 seconds of the end of track 5, then pregap, then track 6 at the start