I'm tired of having my CD-RW drives fail or stop working properly after about 6 months. I'm looking for a reliable drive that burns at at least 8x speed. Someone told me the plextor 12x is one of the best cd-rw drives ever made. Should I opt for this or go for something faster ?

i happen to like the lite-on line. mine is a 32x about a year old. burn on it regularly. I bought this one because of the correct efm encoding and raw 96 r/w. i don't copy much stuff that is "protected" but with it i have the option to. Granted it won't copy some of the newest protected cds but it will do almost all that any other will without special software.

no problems with it so far - i would buy another if the need arises.

it really depends on what you want your writer to do. some more specifics about what you would use it for would be helpful. are you going to be copying games, music, or just general data backup burning? there are cheaper writers and there are also more expensive writers. do you have a price range??

lite-on has my vote - i am sure others have their preferences as well

I have a Sony Spressa Professional CDRW drive (Model 160E-A1) 12x/8x/32x , since August 2000.
It's an extremely reliable drive and quite silent , it's capable of almost everything you might need.It doesn't have the "C2 Error Correction" feature (useful if you rip CDs with EAC).
It doesn't have any buffer underrun protection but it has a 4MB buffer.
It does very good DAE (12x max) , not very fast but quite reliable (accurate stream).
Never had a problem with it , I made only 1 coaster in my life (burned loads of CDs).
If I'd have to buy a new drive I'd probably buy the latest Plextor (it is said that Plextor is the most reliable and fastest at DAE) or maybe the latest Sony drive.
I guess TDK and Teac are another brands I would consider but still Plextor and Sony are the top from my point of view

iam still happy with my teac CD-W58E,
http://www.teac.co.jp/dspd/product/optical...al/cd-w58e.html
(altho this days i would never go for a nonburnproof and 8x only device, when there are >40x devices out there, also i got the feeling (wrong one?) that burners are getting actualy better, (not only plextor))

what kind of burner will die after 6 months?

I got a LG 40x [burn proof] which works pretty fine up to now (5 months old). I burn like, 12-18 cd's a week and had no problems with it, only that some older (like 1998 & -) cd-rom drive sometimes have trouble reading 40x burnt cd's. Before I bought this LG, I used a Yamaha 4x SCSI [not burn proof] (freakin' expensive) but I can assure you that every single burnt cd's worked perfectly!!!!! (except maybe for majoy system crashes!!).. but of course... SCSI si a lil' more expensive..! Now for not much more you get burn proof burners... but if you don't play games while burning cd's... I don't think is ""necessary"" to have that (can you be gentle with your comp' CPU for less than 3 minutes..!??! that's what it takes to burn a 700 mb cd's..!!)

hope it helps!

l8

::ryd

I'm very happy with my liteon ltr 24102b. It's burned every type of media I've throw at it. I also use of for DAE. It has c2 error reporting and low offsets (+12 read -6 write).

If it ain't Plexy, it ain't mine!

I have a Pioneer DVD-116 for ripping (comp crashes in secure mode but paranoid works very well for me), and an old clunker of an HP 8200a for burning. It's only 4x/4x/6x but it gets the job done! Haven't had a single buffer underrun problem in 2½ years on 2 different PC's...

bad experiences:
yamaha.. owned an 8x for a year and had it replaced twice. my brother also owned a yamaha 4x, and needed a replacement, and then a fan replacement. not reliable.
just bought a cheapie 32x MSI burner (the motherboard company) a few months back and am happy with it. At $80 cdn it doesn't really matter if it breaks, and its handled everything so far fine.

I've heard really good things about lite-on as well; probably would have purchased one instead of the msi, but they were out of stock at my favorite store. Of course Plextor has the good reputation; if you can afford it they are probably a good buy. Personally at the prices they ask, I'd rather save a bit more and buy a dvd burner however...

Another bad experience: Acer (now Benq). The open/close mechanism on my 8x4x32x failed after a month; the replacement I've got (since Jan 2001) has also started to exhibit problems with the disc tray recently. Sometimes when I press the open/close button, I hear the tray move, but it will actually take several seconds before it opens.

Apart from that, it's generally a crap drive - it has *really* bad error correction, it sometimes crashes my system if it fails to read a CD after a minute or so. It's slow on audio extraction. And it can't cope with any copy-protected CDs. Stay away from Benq, I say.


A friend of mine has a 16x LiteOn burner which is actually based on a Plextor drive - so far, it hasn't choked on one single CD (protected or not), and of course it was a great deal at 100€.

My last CD-RW drive was PLEXTOR PlexWriter 12/10/32A that was not writing to ANY RW's (I tried plenty of them ...) and when I last dropped it it was writing only 2/3 of cds that I try in any speed. After 18 months after purchase I have dropped it. Stay out of any Ricoh products as cd-rws, three of them given up writing to cds in my hands, so I do not have any good impression w/ricoh. Now I am using a Lite-On CD-RW (40-12-48) that is 4 months old, everything seems ok except sometimes easy cd creator fails to write/continue multi session 'ed CDs.
In My Opinion Plextor is producing BEST CD-RW Drives among the others, but due that they have requested flat 150 euro for repairing my failed PX-W 12/10/32TA (reason was end of warranty time) I decided not to buy a new Plextor product from that time on.

The following list Best RW Drives List according to me (in descending order from best to ...)

Plextor
Teac
Sanyo
Yamaha
LG
Sony


by the way Best CD-Rom drive is Kenwood 72X - TrueX (IMO perhaps).

Want a good drive -> Get a Plextor
If you are broke -> Get a LiteOn
Wan't to be original -> Get a Yamaha F1 (this should be very good as well, but DiscT@2 is just freaking cool )

Plextor isn't really that good anymore... It's still one of the best brands for DAE but not for burning... Lite-On has more features, is hell of a lot cheaper and have up to 52x on the latest model... I see absolutely no reason what so ever why anyone should stick to Plextor, except if you're a fan-boy and only care about the brand...

OK, one word: CRW3200.
All you wanna know in this review.
I own one, perfectly satisfied. It can read and write -anything-.
Or, the new, more powerful Yamaha F1, probably the best CD-RW burner on the market right now. *15* page review.

Comparison charts by Yamaha:
3200
F1
The most noticable difference in my opinion is that F1 can burn "870MB (99min. disc), 790MB (90min. disc), 700MB (80 min. disc),
650MB (74min. disc), 550MB (63min. disc)" and 3200 only up to 700MB.


Yep...now this thread fits here much better than in that *DVD* -READER- topic... (my senses weren't working well, thanks for removing that )

I agree with someone who said that Acer drives suck.I bought an Acer CD-ROM drive in 1998 (the internal mechanism & optics are from Phillips).It worked fine for one year , then had problems reading CD-Rs.Its DAE is lousy with pops and clicks , now it can't even play a pressed audio CD without skipping.A piece of trash.Quite expensive trash in 1998 ($150!!).
I also haven't had a good experience with an old Creative drive , it worked for two years and then went down.
Needless to say both drives were treated with extreme care , not like I was using them to hold my mugs.
It's funny how this Lite-on brand seems to be so good according to this thread.A few years ago I received an offer for a Lite-on drive but finally got a much more expensive Sony drive.I thought that Lite-on was crappy.I''ll think twice next time.
Another cheap brand that it is said is very good is AOpen (I personally can't tell).

I've got a Lite-on (24x12x40), which I've had for about 6 months, and cost me £60 (yes, I went for the cheapest). I have burnt an average of 2 cd's / day, and not one failure. Also, it reads accurately easily (albeit usually about 5-6x speed in EAC), and would probably manage to extract some digital audio from a buttered piece of bread.

Really, it has read some cd's that are in a worse state than the worst state you've ever seen a cd in.

lite 24x and later supprots thise AND it fully support reading and writing 90 and 99 mins cd's

liteon makes some of the best drives from a technology (copy protection) viewpoint.

I currently am using a Ricoh MP7163A drive, and no problems at all with it. Working perfectly full 100% quality audio rips using EAC which also go full speed as well. Copy protection I don't know yet cause in Australia I don't think there is much copy protected CDs out well I haven't bought one yet. CD-RW writing is excellent as well, I use this function often to transfer large files between my desktop and notebook.

If I may ask, would it be possible for you to provide some links or other hard data of the more recent (48x - 52x) Liteon drives, especially compared against Plextor?

I would be especially interested in performance of Liteon drives in the following fields;

• Overburning in 95+ minutes area
  
• Digital audio extraction, results from a really scratched disk
  
• EAC Secure mode speed when using an errorless CD
  
• Reading and writing of copy protected titles, i.e. Safedisk v2 etc.
  
• The longevity and compatibility of written disks

I already know Plextor drives are excellent in all of these, but I haven't heard so much positive about Liteon ones.

Real hardcore CD-RW tests seem to be pretty rare, all I could find with Google were "tests" based some stupid Sandra benchmarks and impressions on the drive exterior. I found a few pretty through tests but unfortunately only for the 24x era drives. Many things could have changed since then.

And then, is the 52x Liteon better choice than the 48x model? Sometimes recently introduced drives perform worse than older models.

Otherwise, I would surely buy a Plextor drive but the price tag of 75 € is a bit more alluring than the 150 € Plextor one

1. As said earlier, all Lite-On burners since their first 24x are capable of burning +99 minute CD:s...
2. Plextor is still the best for this one even though Lite-On still is very very good at DAE...
3. C2 or no C2?
4. Lite-On wins on this one... It has the capability to read most (or all that I know of) copy protected CD formats, including SafeDisc 2...
5. This one I don't know... You'll probably have to wait a few years to even notice any difference between them, if there is one at all... (Compatibility? It works in other CD/DVD-ROM:s... Is that enough? Or do you want it to be compatible with your old tape deck too? [Lame joke, I know... ])

Unfortunatly I don't have not seen any reviews of it yet... Probably because it wasn't long ago it appeared on the market...

But no it hardly performs worse than the earlier drives... Even though I don't own one myself, I do know how it works and performs since I've tried a friend's one...

Feature wise, Lite-On is the CD-RW burner for its price... (If you've seen the complete specs...?)

And this leads me to another question; Is C2 information accurate with Liteon drives? If it is, then with C2, else without. I tend to think that a 100% working C2 implementation is necessary because of these *cough* copy protected titles...



More than anything, I meant the CDDA issues, namely standalone CD players. Especially cheap stereo combos and ghettoblasters seem to have trouble with burned CD's. Plextor + Prodisc phthalocyanine discs seem to be an unbeatable combination at CDDA, I wonder would Liteon be?

Or in short form: do Liteon drives burn audio discs as well as Plextor drives when using top quality media?

I just ordered a Yamaha 44x24x44 for my lab at work ($149, not including $20 rebate which I plan to keep for my troubles). We'll see if it works out ok.

ff123

I wouldn't trade my LG 8120B (12x) for anything. Burns any brand of disc I throw at it. Only coasters it has made has been from user error or the fact that I tried to use EZCD w/ WinXP. Over 2000 burns and it still averages a speed of 13x.

And just my two cents, but leave the DAE to another drive. DVD drives tend to be better for this anyway and why put more wear on your burner? Or just pick up a CD-Rom for $15 somewhere.

1. Yes C2 seems to be fully working, but EAC has some problems correcting the worst errors... Even buffered burst works better sometimes, which is a bit strange...

2. Well, when it comes to burning CDDA, nothing beats Yamaha... Really... Yamaha for CDDA burning, Lite-On for copying and burning data CD:s and Plextor for DAE...

P.S. I asked my friend to try ripping with EAC using secure mode with and without C2 (and buffered burst too, just for the fun of it)... Max speed with C2 was ~20x and 13x without... (The CD was around 75 minutes long...) And buffered burst was as always fast as the speed of light...

I'm into DVD burners now but don't waste your money on anything that writes above 8X ... 8X will write 700mb in 10 minutes. If your stand-alone CD player has a problem in playing your copies ... drop the record speed.

If you're leeching and you're getting "FREE" music ... 10 minutes isn't a long time.

I have 3 DVD players and I have never had a problem burning CD's and playing them on any of the DVD players. The CD's even work on my car CD player. I never go above 8X even on my EX-16X CD burner.

All I know about the CD burners I had is that they were LG ... cheap and steady.

Speed Kills

I have a Yamaha F1 for 3 weeks now and everything i threw
in burned flawlessly.

I decided to buy this drive cause i wanted to play around
with this audio master mode. Also i decided cause of the
good implementation for selecting burn speeds automatically,
The only drive this seems to work like it should.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/S...CD%2DRW&index=7

With audio this drive produces constant quality with audio
from 1x-44x with the mitsubishis they selled as Vetbatim
50piece boxes for 15Euro here. You can guess my drawer is
full of them

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/S...D%2DRW&index=10


During time i collected some strange behaving CDs and did some tests.

EAC doesn´t like the drive to much.

But with EAC some drives seem to like some errors more than others.
Overall i decided to use my Asus CD-S500/A for grabbing. And believe
me, i tried a lot of drives cause i have the chance at work to do so.

At work i also ordered a Plex 4012A, but was totally dissapointed with
grabbing quality against the Asus.

Wombat

Well, so far I am not impressed by the Yamaha crw-f1ze, at least the quality control aspect of it.

When I tried to open the CD tray for the first time, it only came halfway out. After several tries, I just pulled the tray out with my hand. After that the tray went in and out ok by itself. However, the unit doesn't read CD-R's, including the Nero installation disk. Back to the store!

ff123

problem: my teac/os sudenly decided to switch to pio mode altho i have 'use dma' option enabled, any ideas on why that might happen? (on winxp)

Two of my Lite-On drives have died. LTN-403 and LTD-163..

I'm getting a Teac. I have a 16x that's been operating flawlessly.

XP changes mode from DMA to PIO if it detects transfer problems on the bus.
You should be able to restore it back to DMA by searching with regedit for 'MasterDeviceTimingModeAllowed' (if the drive is master) or 'SlaveDeviceTimingModeAllowed' (on slave device) and change all the entries you find to 0xffffffff. Do the same to 'MasterDeviceTimingMode' (or 'SlaveDeviceTimingMode') and reboot, this should fix it. If this trick didn't help, try uninstalling your IDE drivers and let Windows reinstall them after reboot.

I have the 24x LiteOn CD-writer.
I've had it for a year now.

With over 100 CD's made, it has never ever made a coaster.
It does a perfect job at DAE, and the drive noiselevel is royal.

LiteOn has my best recommendation.
Their CD-writers are just lovely.

Along the years I've tried several burners from many brands. For example, I've worked with Aopen 12x without just link, 24x and 32x models; Teac 12x with and without burn proof, 16x and 40x models; Plextor 12x and 16x models; Lite-On 12x, 32x and 48x models; TDK 40x; Creative 6x model; HP 4x, 8x and 10x models; Acer/Benq 40x; Yamaha 16x, and many more brands and models I can't remember right now. The starter of the thread asked for a robust drive. From this point of view, and from my experience, the answer must be one and only one: Teac. The Teac drives are almost like a Tank, you can kick them, throw them, stomp them, then plug them into your system and they'll work just well. More seriously, those drives have a lifespam really awesome, and are worth the money a customer asking for reliability and robustness may spend on them. Now for the common myths:

Plextor is not the best manufacturer just because it is "Plextor". The cd-rw race doesn't end and you only can be considered the best manufacturer if drive by drive, they are all better than the others offer. They achieved big succes with the Plextor 12x10x32x, one of the best burners of all time. But as the time goes on, they only seem to go worse. Plextor is not the best for DAE, nowadays almost every manufacturer makes fast DAE drives. The 48x Litey is faster than the 48x Plex in this matter, but, referring to the audio cd's protections, Plextor is the clearly winner. The best drives for recording music are by de facto, the Yamahas, due to the Audiomaster system. Otherwise, for recording regular audio, without using the Audiomaster feature, there are many drives that can perform this taks flawlessly, like Plextors, Yamahas, Lite-Ons, Aopens, and many more, as long as they have good writing quality (low c1 errors on burnt disc). There is another common myth, LeFlore pointed it out before. I'm talking about his/her statement of "speed kills", that's not true, or at least not totally true. The quality of a burnt disc, and its readability depends almost solely on the level of c1 errors occurred during the writing (and of course, on the level of c2 errors, but if these occur too much, you better change your burner). This can be tweaked via firmware, and the media support included in it. As an example, we have the Lite-On 48x (model 48125w). This drive gives good or very good writing quality at speeds of 24x or more, but it performs really bad in the 16x and less area. Nowadays, probably the best drives for copy protected programs and games are the Liteys, but this can change any time. As a general hint, don't relly on myths or in the past achievements, as the cd-rw world is constantly changing.

tnx, that seems to do the trick, it says 'multi-word dma mode 2' now, i do hope that is the correct mode since i cant remember what was there before,

specs says:

so i guess thats it?

btw - it is conected as a slave device on secondary ide port.

Hey, guys and what would you say about NEC? (7900, 9100/A)
Here, in Ukraine and in Russia, it is considered to be the most reliable and the best, but I don't know, whether it is really true...