Need advice on dvd/cdrom drive

[AAjax]

Im bad when it comes to making up my mind sumtimes, so perhaps you can help me out.. What would you get?
1)16xDVD Rom 48x cd for 75$
2)Cheap 52x CDROM for 34$
3)Kenwood 72x CDROM for 68$

Background I dont watch DVD's that much but was thinking that it might be good to have one to use the new dvd software that is coming out, however I dont want to spend the $$$ for somthing Ill never use. Mainly this will be to pair with my 12x burner to make copy's with CD clone.
Thank you for your input,
Jax

 

[John]

I'd go for (already did) the Pioneer 16x DVDROM

 

[AAjax]

thanks, Ill check it out
Oh yeah, there isnt any real advantage to the slot dvd other than it looks cool eh?

 

[AAjax]

Was reading on the cdrinfo page that the pioneers had lacking performance on clonecd, any feedback on that?

 

[bacillus]

the toshibas all seem clone cd compatible but not sure of the x16 version though!

 

[Kaan]

I use a Pioneer 16x and clonecd. Haven't had any problems.

 

[fishingeek]

The Toshibas are rated as the best readers for CloneCD. I have the 16X (1502) and it works great with Clone. The Toshes are also much quieter than the Pioneers.

 

[AAjax]

Ya I think Im gonna get the Toshiba as Ive read sum good stuff, any firmware hacks to nuke the region lock on this drive?

 

[bacillus]

taken from firmware site re the toshiba x16 dvd drive

Toshiba SD-M1502 (16X/48X) 1012
(Known firmware : 1008 / 1010 / 1012)
The 1012 firmware is RPC-2 (region protected). No RPC-1 firmware available yet.
RPC-2
looks like you'll be out of luck for the present!

 

[Scratches]

1) I hear the Pioneer 115 has a digital audio extraction problem.

2) However, it has something like 44x max CD read speed. Most DVD drives are rated at 40x, I think. Still, it's no huge boost. It's also a bit faster at DVDs. So I guess the Pioneers are faster, while the Toshibas are a little more reliable (better with CloneCD and DAE) and more quiet.

3) I don't think it's worth the price premium to get a 16x DVD over a 12x (but if you can find them for the same price, great!), since DVD movies all play at 1x, there are hardly any DVD data discs out there, and most DVD drives read CDs at about the same speed.

I bought my Toshiba M1402 (12x) at myinfinity.com for about $65 because I was getting a hard drive there, too (Deskstar 75GXP 60GB), but you can find them all over Pricewatch for $60-65. I haven't gotten it yet, so I can't give a review.

 

[AAjax]

A couple places have pioneers and toshibas for bout 78$ shipped, only about a 5-10$ total diff on average from the 12's. For that I think Ill get the 16x, and the Toshiba is 48x rated on cd read I think.
Wont be doin any dig-audio extraction anytime soon, but if there is a problem hopefully they will fix it in a frirmware update.
Jax