GOOD IDE CD-ROM

[seek]

Hi, who knows of the best IDE cd-rom for not a ton of money. I want to get another one to add to my panasoni 8x4x32 which sucks at reading. I want one with very good seek time and fast enough, and makes very little noise/vibration. Oh, and I want it to do this thing...Say win98 wants the cd, I want to be able to just put the cd in and hit ok, instead of waiting for the cd to spin up before I ok. My old crappy 12x cyberdrive let me just hit ok, but my new crappy pana doesn't.

I was thinking samsungs looked pretty good.
Tell me what you think. Also I'm interested in a dvd drive with similar features. I have a fast enough comp (1G t-bird) so hardware decode doesn't matter.

 

[LXi]

Acer 40x is a good CD-ROM with a low price, TEAC 40x cost a little bit more but its very good for DAE, both good readers. Toshiba is also nice btw.

 

[Shooters]

As far as DVD's go, the Pioneer 115 is a good one. TEAC makes good CD-ROMS. I, like quite a few other people here, have the Asus 50x. It's a good fast drive that's reads anything, but it is a little on the noisy side. Whatever you do.....AVOID THE CREATIVE LABS 52X AT ALL COSTS!

 

[Wingznut]

Toshiba 48x is an excellent CD-ROM. As for DVD-ROM, either the Pioneer or Toshiba models are good. The Pioneers have a better price though (~$90 for a 16x/40x).

 

[John]

Kenwood 72x

 

[gcliv]

The Asus 40x are very nice, and very quiet too.

AGREED, STAY AWAY FROM THE CREATIVE 52X!!!

 

[Wuming]

i think asus and aopen drives are both good and reliable. i am using the asus and my friend the aopen and we haven't had complains about it!

 

[Wingznut]

I had the Kenwood 72x for a while (eventually replaced it with a DVD). I really liked the drive, but I find it hard to recommend with all the previous issues that Kenwood has had.

 

[XRdirtHead]

Asus....

 

[divinemartyr]

If you want the best CD-ROM as far as speed and quietness my vote goes to the Kenwood 72x. Some of the drives do have problems, however, the one I have works superbly. I love it and wouldn't trade it for anything else on the market. I am thinking of eventually going to a DVD-ROM but at the moment I have no discs which I really WANT to access the ROM content on and watching them on a standalone DVD player is far superior.

Also the Toshiba 48x Wingznut recommended is a great drive for reliability and it isn't too loud. Also the cost is excellent compared to either the Kenwood or a DVD unit.

dm

 

[Wingznut]

dm, your Kenwood works great? Funny, the one that I had worked great too!

 

[divinemartyr]

Wow what a coincidence!

Oh wait, I have your old drive, forgot

dm

 

[billandopus]

I like Toshiba myself. A biased opinion ...

 

[NotoriousJTC]

AVOID AOPEN!!! Man, mine is as loud as Rosie O'Donell........

 

[mztykal]

Surprised no one mentioned Afreey. Compusa has em on special for 20 bucks. Good quiet drive. Extracts at like 20x and up for me. I bought it awhile ago. I like it. =)

 

[LXi]

Wingznut PEZ:

Whats with the Kenwood not working great? Mine does and so do many other people's.

 

[Wingznut]

Actually LXi, I stated (twice) that my Kenwood 72x DID work great. However, their previous offerings were sh*t. That coupled with more than a few complaints I've seen about the 72x, just make it a bit difficult for me to recommend it without hesitation. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to own another one. But I'm a bit more flexible/capable if things go south.

 

[milehigh]

Egghead has a decent price on the Asus 50X and I like the Acer 50X drives to.

I need to join in on the Creative 52X bashing as well - stay away from that or you'll be shopping for another CD-Rom within 2 months!

 

[Noriaki]

I have the Asus 50x and I love it.
They even have a CDSpeed tool that lets you change the drives speed if it's too loud or takes to long to spin up or something you can slow it down.

I've never used a Kenwood so no comment.

I too much join the creative bashing!!!

I had a Creative 32x...died, got replaced with a 36x which also died.
I took the 36x back and they had to send it away because they had no creative's in stock or something....
Well I didn't want to wait 3-6 weeks or whatever for the return...so I bought a new 48x Creative (at a different store)...that was dumb... My 48x creative also died and was replaced by a 52x...
By this time my 36x had come back to me, and was a new 48x

So now I have a 48x and 52x creative. I put the 52x in my system and gave the 48x to a friend. Both are dead now :| I had the 52x replaced again and my roommate has the new 52x....(I moved away for a co-op term)..

That's a 32x, 36x, 2 48xs and a 52x. All in the space of about 18 months.

I will not buy a Creative optical drive again.