Hi!
The last days i tested a couple of Drives on their DAE-Features.
I thought to have nearly the best Drives:
Plextor Premium
Plextor PX-54TA CD-Rom
Plextor Ultraplex40x
LiteOn 52327S
Teac CD-540E CD-Drive
My first disappointment was the PX-54TA, which is definitely not produced by Plextor! It seems to be a Mitsumi...
This Drive reads Audio-CDs with max. 32x... - just slow for a "real" CD-Rom!!!
The LiteOn and the Plex Premium were both quite fast with Neroīs CD-Speed:
They reached both (depending on the current CD) speeds up to 50x, where my older UltraPlex (FW.: 1.05) reaches max. at 24x
and my old Teac reaches max. 40x...
With EAC in Sec.-Mode my UltraPlex reaches max. 12x and an average about 8x.
Thatīs seems quite normal, for me! (max. DAE/2 in Sec.-Mode)
The Premium & LiteOn reached in Sec.-Mode max. 10x...!!!
The normally slower Teac reaches even speeds up to 14x...
Now my questions:
Whatīs the "phenomenom" UltraPlex & EAC? - Why is it the only Drive, that reaches the theoretical max. speed (max.Speed/2)
and why does even Plextor not produce a modern Drive with the same good characteristics?
Hiwi
Full Version: Plextor Ultraplex & EAC
QUOTE
Whatīs the "phenomenom" UltraPlex & EAC?
I didn't realize there was a phenomenom about that drive - I like it, its a good drive especially for DAE but I wouldn't call it a phenomenom.
The problem with that drive comes down to that it is on SCSI, while I am fortunate to have a SCSI adapter I cannot imangine why people would buy into SCSI now with SATA starting to replace PATA and offering comparible performance for considerably less $$$. Hence I'm a bit suprised that the UltraPlex hasn't been discontinued unless they are just selling off the units they have now.
It is hard to sell quality computer parts because for the vast majority of people when they go buy a CDROM and they see two units, a Plextor xxx and a Chinese no-name for $5 less, I can tell you which one they buy. So Plex has to produce decent drives to stay in the market but not as good as they could build them because the price would be too high.
QUOTE
So Plex has to produce decent drives to stay in the market but not as good as they could build them because the price would be too high.
Should it really be so much more expensive to produce a CD-Rom like the Ultraplex again? QUOTE
It is hard to sell quality computer parts because for the vast majority of people when they go buy a CDROM and they see two units, a Plextor xxx and a Chinese no-name for $5 less, I can tell you which one they buy.
And did peopleīs buying-pattern sooo extremely change in the last few years...
Anyhow, Plextor produced this Drive! And i guess it was no mistake for them...
But thatīs all more likely philosophy or marketing...
I just wonder, why the faster Drives nowadays (at least in burst-mode) are so much slower in Sec.-Mode...
I always thought the max. Speed in Sec.-Mode will be ~ half the max. speed in burst-mode...
Hiwi
I guess you would have to look at it from a marketing perspective - when i bought my ultraplex maybe 4 years ago SCSI was still a consideration, although an exspensive one, these days fewer & fewer people buy SCSI, I think there was a recent article at Tom's hardware where they are already calling it the end of SCSI - while it still will be around for some time in the enterprise market it is going the way of the 5.25" floppy. So Plex has no reason to build any newer versions on the SCSI front.
If we talk IDE then will the cost of redesigning a SCSI ultraplex, setting up a production line and all involve costs of doing this - I think the cost of that would be so much greater than the net profits of selling this drive to a few elitests who want the DAE quality. The CDROMs are also on their way out - the thing they could do is build that quality into a DVD recorder, the profit margin on CD-ROMs is too small to invest in that venture.
The pattern does not change - people still balence what they want vs how much they will pay vs what is available. A few years ago CD-ROMs were $300-400, it is a normal progression of technology is that the first units are built better, with better components so that the products are accepted and have good reputations, the selling price also offsets the manufacturing costs. However there comes a point of market saturation where because of mass production there is price competition, and to reduce costs they start building things cheaper. This is the prevalent marketing stratagy that has been going on for the last 40-50 years, most common in electronics - things like VCRs are a prime example. I would be very suprised if any companies were designing more quality VCRs since the technolgy is dying and the market is shrinking.
The pattern today is the same for DVD burners - people want to have one but again the vast majority will buy the cheapest one regardless of quality thus forcing the price down, while plex will continue to produce better products (the marketing strategy) they still have to keep their prices reasonable.
So at the end of the day it really is more about philsophy & marketing more then being able to produce better drives.
my guess is that most drives have poor DAE because the clamping mechnaism is not as good (again cheaper parts might produce more vibration) and hence it has to slow down the spin rate to get accurate results.
The theoritical maxes never concerned me much, since EAC always is reporting the average for the Ultraplex which is about 8-9X for me. My Lite-On gets about 5-6, I really don't notice the difference much since I usually am doing other stuff so the speed is not a big concern, incept the other day trying to read a scratched CD - 14hrs to rip it with errors! - oh well
If we talk IDE then will the cost of redesigning a SCSI ultraplex, setting up a production line and all involve costs of doing this - I think the cost of that would be so much greater than the net profits of selling this drive to a few elitests who want the DAE quality. The CDROMs are also on their way out - the thing they could do is build that quality into a DVD recorder, the profit margin on CD-ROMs is too small to invest in that venture.
The pattern does not change - people still balence what they want vs how much they will pay vs what is available. A few years ago CD-ROMs were $300-400, it is a normal progression of technology is that the first units are built better, with better components so that the products are accepted and have good reputations, the selling price also offsets the manufacturing costs. However there comes a point of market saturation where because of mass production there is price competition, and to reduce costs they start building things cheaper. This is the prevalent marketing stratagy that has been going on for the last 40-50 years, most common in electronics - things like VCRs are a prime example. I would be very suprised if any companies were designing more quality VCRs since the technolgy is dying and the market is shrinking.
The pattern today is the same for DVD burners - people want to have one but again the vast majority will buy the cheapest one regardless of quality thus forcing the price down, while plex will continue to produce better products (the marketing strategy) they still have to keep their prices reasonable.
So at the end of the day it really is more about philsophy & marketing more then being able to produce better drives.
my guess is that most drives have poor DAE because the clamping mechnaism is not as good (again cheaper parts might produce more vibration) and hence it has to slow down the spin rate to get accurate results.
The theoritical maxes never concerned me much, since EAC always is reporting the average for the Ultraplex which is about 8-9X for me. My Lite-On gets about 5-6, I really don't notice the difference much since I usually am doing other stuff so the speed is not a big concern, incept the other day trying to read a scratched CD - 14hrs to rip it with errors! - oh well
The PX40 is not a phenomenon ... but this drive was manufactured at a time where secure DAE was a myth for most major manufacturers (I remember my first crappy cyberdrive 24x CDRom that could not do accurate streaming *g*).
Nowadays, every modern drive is capable of doing secure DAE so the PX40's main domain now is bit-true image ripping (due to overread I/O capacity) and, of course, copy protections (where it still beats any other drive AFAIK)
Nowadays, every modern drive is capable of doing secure DAE so the PX40's main domain now is bit-true image ripping (due to overread I/O capacity) and, of course, copy protections (where it still beats any other drive AFAIK)
Hello!
I also own a PX-40TSi and a PX-40TS external device.
The internal device has a max burst read speed of 24x, but the external drive reaches around 42x max read speed at the end of a disc.
Is this normal? Does anyone else experience this?
I also own a PX-40TSi and a PX-40TS external device.
The internal device has a max burst read speed of 24x, but the external drive reaches around 42x max read speed at the end of a disc.
Is this normal? Does anyone else experience this?
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.