Damnit! I accidentally pressed a key and posted my message before I even got the damned Title typed. lol!
I bought this drive under the Cendyne badge (4816A) for $10.00 after rebates at Office Max last weekend. I heard bad things about BenQ/Acer drives, so I didn't expect much. The drive came with the latest firmware (as of this writing): version 9.EK.
What's not to like about this drive? It's reasonably quiet, my former Lite-On is much louder yet it was only a 40x.
I've run DAE tests using CDs from Mozart to Metallica at speeds up to 37x, all ripped files pass data verification tests with ZERO errors and the drive gets a DAE quality score of 10 with accurate stream in CDSpeed2000.
I also ran the CDSpeed2000 Advanced DAE Quality Test (not the advanced error test) and the drive passed with a perfect score of 100, although it couldn't read audio subchannel data. The Data CD creation and verification test also passed with zero errors.
Ok, so there are a couple flaws:
The drive doesn't read audio subchannel data directly, so the ability to read scratched/damaged audio CD tracks is severely limited. I've never had to use this capability myself, and its doubtful I ever will.
The 'Seamless Link' buffer underrun protection is strange. The buffers are all over the place, dropping from 98% to 2%, then gradually back up to 98%, then dropping to 10%, etc. This was mitigated quite a lot by reducing the drive write speed to 32X instead of 48x. The culprit here is probably my hard drive. Nero measures its performance at only around 11,500KB/s.
That's ok, though. I actually write all my discs at speeds lower than 'maximum' write speeds of the drive. I would rather have that extra assurance of write quality/data integrity than to write a disc 20 seconds faster.
Overall, an excellent drive. Well worth $10.00!
I bought this drive under the Cendyne badge (4816A) for $10.00 after rebates at Office Max last weekend. I heard bad things about BenQ/Acer drives, so I didn't expect much. The drive came with the latest firmware (as of this writing): version 9.EK.
What's not to like about this drive? It's reasonably quiet, my former Lite-On is much louder yet it was only a 40x.
I've run DAE tests using CDs from Mozart to Metallica at speeds up to 37x, all ripped files pass data verification tests with ZERO errors and the drive gets a DAE quality score of 10 with accurate stream in CDSpeed2000.
I also ran the CDSpeed2000 Advanced DAE Quality Test (not the advanced error test) and the drive passed with a perfect score of 100, although it couldn't read audio subchannel data. The Data CD creation and verification test also passed with zero errors.
Ok, so there are a couple flaws:
The drive doesn't read audio subchannel data directly, so the ability to read scratched/damaged audio CD tracks is severely limited. I've never had to use this capability myself, and its doubtful I ever will.
The 'Seamless Link' buffer underrun protection is strange. The buffers are all over the place, dropping from 98% to 2%, then gradually back up to 98%, then dropping to 10%, etc. This was mitigated quite a lot by reducing the drive write speed to 32X instead of 48x. The culprit here is probably my hard drive. Nero measures its performance at only around 11,500KB/s.
That's ok, though. I actually write all my discs at speeds lower than 'maximum' write speeds of the drive. I would rather have that extra assurance of write quality/data integrity than to write a disc 20 seconds faster.
Overall, an excellent drive. Well worth $10.00!
