Yup! I've just tried another drive, a pioneer slot in drive. There is a BIG difference!!!
I know that my Plextor drive has something called autostrategy, that means it scans the surface and develops a reading method for the very disc you put in it! Then it adjusts a lot of parameters to read, and then it remembers that particular disc and uses the method again
the next time you insert it.
This evidently works!
Hm! Nice!!! It's audible, it is!!!

I wonder what would happen if you mated this type of reading capability to a "audiophile" disc player..

would it be better?
After testings with EAC the 760 A Plextor has shown to have ZERO read error ... zero jitter... or is that the right word? I don't know.
Imperial