Non MMC compliant ripping Qs

First post -- don't kill me.

  How well does cdparanoia  do DAE on non MMC compliant drives compared 
to EAC, etc?  I'm a Unix geek so using EAC is out of the question.  I 
typically use a Plextor PX-1210S for DAE.  I noticed that it along with 
my PX-8XCS, and PX-20TS don't support MMC.  Now, I have a stack (7) of 
toshiba 5401Bs but they have MDI firmware on them.  CDParanoia can't 
get them to read audio at all.

So I guess this is a basic question in the ways that rippers in general 
extract audio and why some drives can and other's can't (be they MMC 
compliant or not).

Karl