How come Kenwood 72x True-X CDROM Discontinued

[TurtleMan]

Does anybody know why ? i was gonna buy one, but now it is all discontiunted , and it doens't even support xp and win2k ..

 

[Mday]

You dont need drivers really, they are just cd-roms.

Anyway, Kenwood was the only company to use the zen technology to increase read speeds. However, they had a VERY HIGH failure rate. And this implementation never really caught on. And these drives are HOT!!!! I mean, at idle these drives are very very warm. Even more so than my burner.

I was one of the lucky ones with my 52x version. Mine actually worked, well, its out to pasture now... but the read speeds are real. Truly the fastest CD-ROMs ever.

 

[cressida]

still have my 52x from 2 years ago

 

[LordThing]

Truespeeds are neat drives. I bought one of the original 40x drives. Expensive bitch. Failed on me twice and got it replaced by the manufacturer both times. The 3rd drive was stolen out of my office. Still want to beat those @ssholes that took it. I know they did, but no way i could prove it.


Sigh

 

[TapTap]

Kenwood 52x former owner.
Thing ran hotter than Chernobyl.
Mine lasted 2yrs, and I sold on AT

 

[Viper GTS]

I owned two 72X's. I sold the first one to buy a DVD drive, then regretted it & bought the second. The second I sold when I wrecked my car since I couldn't really justify it.

Kick-ass CD-ROMs when they work right, but they're expensive & failure prone.

I hope someone else decides to use the technology, there was rumor about a 100X CD/25X DVD being in production, but it hasn't been released yet.



Viper GTS

 

[JetBlack69]

I own the Kenwood 72x and it great. The only problem is that it doesn't always read CDRs or CDRWs well. For installing a program or OS, there is nothing better. BTW, it does work in XP and 2000, how else would I install them?

 

[Rent]

I had a 52x... and it failed. I could never get in touch with Kenwood to get it replaced either :|

So I opened the sucker up and poked at it for a few days and then threw it away.

 

[TurtleMan]

hahaha but still why it went out of production ? bc it got too hot ?
so overall 72x is not good eh ?

 

[crypticlogin]

<< hahaha but still why it went out of production ? bc it got too hot ?
so overall 72x is not good eh ? >>


My guess is that the CDROM drive market, no matter how fast you can get one to go, just didn't have the profit margins to keep Kenwood interested. Zen Research itself is also branching out into TrueX DVD solutions so staying in the CDROM market might not have been a possibility. I vaguely recall an article at The Register when the TrueX CDROM production ended, but I don't remember enough about it to refind the article.

edit: Just found this at the Zen Research website...


<< Following the reduction in workforce of the Multibeam ? division which Zen Research plc (?the Company?) announced in its previous quarterly report, Zen has ceased support for all Multibeam ? projects with previous licensing partners. The Multibeam ? group?s primary activities have been reduced to protecting patents, continuing to improve its intellectual property, and exploring opportunities and applications for the use of Multibeam ?.

Zen currently has no active projects in Multibeam? and at this stage has no revenue expectations from previous Multibeam ? projects.

The Company continues to work with the video player licensee and nonrecurring engineering revenues are being recorded which cover Zen?s development costs only. Completion of this project is expected before the end of 2002. >>



Looks like Zen holds most of the fault in ceasing Kenwood's TrueX drives. And forget TrueX DVD as well...

 

[Johnnie]

I have owned a few of these

 

[TurtleMan]

Ahh i see ... i see.. cool thanks for solving my question :]

 

[jeffrey]

Awesome drive and I don't see myself ever willing to part with it. It's just too fast. I have the 72X TrueX model and it does run at its rated speed.... IN WIN2K!! The drive starts spinning/reading around the mid to high sixties and then hits a TRUE72X all the way across most any pressed disc. The 40x drives were the ones with problems and their also was a kenwood 62X truex drive out for a while. IMO the 72X got most of the bugs out, is whisper quiet, and fast as hell. If you have room I'd shoot for a dvd drive, a cdrw, and a 72X drive.

 

[gooseman]

<< I have owned a few of these >>




Yes, quite a few I would say.


I have one that I've been running for a little over a year now, not one single problem out of it. The thing is great. Fast as hell, like JetBlack69 said, for installing an OS, game or anything else, there is nothing like it. I love mine.