I'm looking to buy a new CD-RW or DVD-R/RW and all that jazz. Thus i am wondering if anyone has any suggestions on which drive i should purchase. I really want one that is able to read and burn into the Lead-In and Lead-Out, So that i can burn and read hidden tracks.

I checked out List of DAE Drive Features, however I wasn't sure how recently that list had been updated as the drive i saw that looked the most promising says it's now "End of Life". That being the case, anybody have any suggestions?

Please, let me know

There are several threads about this already. The NEC 3540/3550 and the BenQ DW1640 are good choices.

I got a 3550 today, looks good so far.
I'd recommend the 3550 or the 1640 just as CiTay

OK, cool, these models are cheap here in the US&A: does EAC understand them???

Plextor PX-716, period. The BEST optical drive on the market, by expert review. No other option. Also, you get the use of PlexTools Pro, which sweetens the deal.

But for less than half the price you can have a drive that does just as well, or buy 2 drives for less than the PX-716 that will do everything it does.

and that drive for half price would be . . . ?

Plextor. Nec, LiteOn or BenQ won't cut that.

Also, BenQ DW1640 fails to produce good quality burns on many type of CD-Rs, while it is really useful for DVD-burning.

Plextools Pro is also very useful for bypassing some pesky copy protection algorithms.

LiteOn: very untrustworthy for cd-r, not very good with dvd-r and way too optimistic for generalisable scans of c1/c2 (or pie/po).

Nec: very good with cd-r (up to 24 or even 32x), good with DVDs, not the best ripper (not in the class with BenQ & Plextools and definitely not with LiteOn) and can do also read scan error reporting.

If you really want lead-in/lead-out (even the small amount offered by current drives) then your pick is Plextor PX-716A.

Some people will always prefer Hyundais to BMWs. Plextor is the BEST. I don't know how else to say it. Tech support is fantastic, and there's a huge enthusiastic user base you can get help from also. The Plextor PX-series has just about every feature you could wish for. Documentation is clear and informative. The development team constantly releases updates to improve the functionality and compatibility of the drives. And you get Plextools Pro, the venerable diagnostic utility that is exclusivlely for Plextor.

So sure, run down to the dealer and buy two Hyundai Elantras. Or buy a single BMW M5. Your choice. I've been the proud owner of a PX-716UF since last winter and I'll gladly swear by it. GO PLEXTOR.

doesn't that Plextor use something from the BenQ 1640 anyways? either head or chipset. the benq seemed to do the best burns for the money in the anandtech review.

i sure have no qualms about mine. took a sexy LaCie external CDRW, gutted it, threw the BenQ in it, i can free up my IDE bus now (and produce burns at LEAST as good as my pioneer A05 when it was in its first thousand DVD/CDRs)

Of all the CD/DVD drives I have the plextors are amonst the worst for ripping CDs (with AccurateRip on my plextor does not read as well as a NEC DVD writer and often a rip comes with errors, where as the NEC has no problems). It is funny that there is perhaps a myth that has built up around plextor, want a reliable car.. that will be Mercedes or Volkswagen (but looking at JD Power and those two marks are in the bottom 5!, pure myths that take ages to die).

BTW almost every other CD drive is able to get past copy protected CDs by issuing a 2nd session read command, Plextors cannot - they have their own propriety command - which is fine if you want to rip only with Plextools, so in that way they are not as standard as most cd drives out there...

I have the NEC 1300A and a Plextor PX-708A (I have two other Plextors whose DAe is also excellent). There have been many times in the past that the NEC has failed to reliably extract the audio from a CD and my Plextor could. It got to the point that I thought there must be something wrong with the NEC so I replaced it. The new units behaviour was very much the same. For me, it's no myth.

The NEC 3550 and BenQ DW1640 are excellent choices. Last I checked, the DW1640 was 37 bucks and the 716 was over $100. Ironically, the 716 isn't any better.
Documentation is clear & informative? That's weak. It's not exactly rocket science, it's only an optical drive...
The cdfreaks forums are *filled* with comparisons, and it's obvious that paying triple for Plex is a waste of money.
So forget Plextor, they were the best five years ago but not any more.

Neither for me ... the only recent Plextor drive that doesn't quite live up to the expectations (regarding DAE, that is) is the PX-712A.

Premium and 716A are among the best DAE drives I have ever encountered.

Regarding the new writer:

If DVD writing quality is important to you, stay far away from LiteOn or Sony (which are LiteOn OEM units up to DRU-800A) ...

If you are looking for a pure, no-bulls**t DVD writer, the BenQ 1640 might be the best choice for you ... the SolidBurn technology really works for DVD writing but DAE capabilities (especially in problem cases) are not among the great advantages (although EAC will work with it).

The rather expensive Plextor PX-716A is (in my opinion) the most versatile unit on the market right now ... it is picky with some media at high writing speeds (feed it decent Taiyo Yuden or MCC and this won't be a problem) but excels at DVD ripping and DAE. With Plextools Pro and EAC, there won't be much left that cannot be ripped ... ... additinally, the drive is very small (good for barebone systems) and comes with Plextor service policy (in the EU, at least) ...

The biggest disadvantage of the 716A might be the oncoming 760A which will be available in two weeks ... if this drive keeps what Plextor promises, this will be some serious s**t ... If I were you, I'd definitely wait for the reviews before making a decision ...

In the end, it is always the same ... you have to reflect upon what's important to you and decide afterwards. My BenQ 1640 and Plextor 716A do peacefully coexist and add up to each other quite well.

The most important thing to me is being able to burn hidden tracks on Audio CD's. I work with alot of bands helping them out with websites and such and many times fall into doing alot more computer work then just designing their website.

Often they want to add a hidden track at the end, which usually jsut ends up being the song with 3 minutes of blank, then the other track. I personally, think it's awesome to be able to hide the song before the CD starts so they have to rewind to it. Not many people know about it, but the ones that do often appreciate it cause it just makes them feel like they've got a special CD. Like they got their money's worth.

So basicly, burning would be my highest priority, however i would like the ability to extract a hidden track too if possible.

The 716 is a rebadged 1640 with worse firmware. So much for Plextor elitism!

The 716 is a Plextor-made product. The PX-740 is the rebadged 1640 with Plextor firmware.

I just ordered one of the last available Plextor Premium

This will be my seventh Plextor after PX-32TS, PX-40TS (still working), PX-R820T, PX-W1610TA, PX-W2410TA (still working, will be replaced by the Premium) and PX-712A (still working).

This tell you something about how happy I've been with them.

I was thinking about waiting for the PX-760A (as you see I still doesn't have DVD DL capabilities), but... I couldn't resist. It was maybe my last opportunity to get the famous "Premium".

Sergio

Which Plextor models have you used to come to that conclusion? I've ripped and copied copy protected audio CDs on my PX-716UF successfully.

EDIT: Computer Shopper named the PX-716 the best burner of 2005:

http://shopper.cnet.com/4002-7409_9-6359975.html?tag=fnav

Liteon uses the sum-1 scanning interval for DVD pie/po scanning. The results it reports are not generalized, but are based on the scanning interval it uses. BenQ uses sum-8.

Edit: Typo.

Yes, it should not be overlooked by the Plextor fanboys in regards to the fact that the PX-740 is a rebadged BenQ.

Err.... what has that do with anything

First of all, liteOn dvd burners report PIE/PIF, not POE (they are a different thing).

Second, LiteOn has very high jitter tolerance when reading back discs, reporting relatively low amount of PIE/PIF even with discs that completely fail to be read on many other readers.

Third, LiteOn's PIE/PIF values when scaled to de jure standard consecutive PIE/SUM8 and PIF/SUM1 values are much lower than most of the competition, giving a false sense of "quality" if one uses those values only as a general indication of the quality of the disc.

Hence, using LiteOn's for analyzing dvd disc burn quality can be not only misleading, but hazardous to your archival or disc compatibility. Then again, using ANY single drive to do that (with read error levels, which are causal, not direct disc measures) can be very misleading.

When you combine this with the fact that LiteOn 169xx series burners really are not very good on a big number of CD-R discs (burning them, that is), you may get an idea why I do not recommend them myself.

regards,
halcyon

PS This has nothing to do with being a fanboy. One picks the best tool that one can find and afford that fits the job at hand. Sometimes it's a plextor model, sometimes a benq, sometimes nec and sometimes something else. One has to know how each model performs and what they are good for.