Ricoh CD burners... any good?

[Duncan]

I've just found a couple of *fabulous* deals on Ricoh CD burners. There's a model 7063A (6x4x32) going for $169, and a 7083A (8x8x32) for $199 - that's in Canadian dollars too. So, I've now got no excuse NOT to get a burner...

Except, I've heard some very bad things about the Ricoh 7060As (6x4x24). Namely, that they start choking about a month after purchase, and need to be disassembled and lubed - which I am NOT comfortable with. I know the 7063A is a revision of the earlier model, but does it fix this problem? I've also seen superlative reviews of Ricoh's latest models - would I be safer going for the more recent 7083A? Granted, it's only $30... but I'm a starving university student, and that $30 will buy an initial supply of CD-Rs.

Advice? Mocking comments? Anyone got a burner they want to give away? =)

 

[Duncan]

I've just learned that the Ricoh burners do no support CloneCD, and generally suck at copying protected media... is this a huge problem? How prevalent are CDs with copy protection?

Also, there's a Mitsumi CR4804TE (4x4x24) available. This one is $10 cheaper, and does support CloneCD. However, it's a fair bit slower, and I have no idea about what sort of quality it is. The Ricoh drives are renowned for giving great sound quality, both in DAE and in burning. Is Mitsumi comparable? I have an extremely discerning ear, so even minute issues would bother me.

HELP ME!

Thanks in advance...

 

[IamDavid]

If your going to spend up to $200 buy a Yamaha or HP. Ya might even be able to find a Plextor.

 

[GT578]

I don't know if I'm just lucky or not...but I have a Creative 6x/4x/24x which is a rebadged Ricoh drive. I've had it for over a year now and its been pretty much trouble free. The only times I had bad burns was when I was trying out different brands of media...or trying to do on the fly 6x cd to cd burn ...that works half of the time. I guess ricoh drives are okay but I would try to look for plextor or yamaha .......

 

[astro]

Just my 2 cents worth....I've got a Ricoh MP6200S that I bought new about 3 or 4 years ago and it's still going strong. Yeah, it's a little slow but it still works great! Never had any problems with it and get a good burn everytime. Don't use it alot, but I've probably burned 300 or 400 CD's with it over the years. Friend of mine bought the same drive at the same time that I did and I know he's still using his, with well over 1000 burns under his belt.

Don't know how the quality is on their new drives, but if the old ones are any indication......

 

[4824guy]

About 2 years ago the Richo 6x4x24x and the 4x4x24x where the top rated units by cd-copy sites like CdFreaks and several others. I managed to upgrade to the 6x4x24x then and have been happy with the drive. I have only recently heard of the rail unlubrication problem, and haven't had to grease mine up so far.

 

[bulldawg]

I had good service from my 7040a, but I would rather have the Plextor I have now.

 

[CalebTG]

The 7063A and 7083A are both supported by CloneCD and are different (and better) drives than the 7060/7080 models.

They're not the best drives around, but for that price, they are pretty good

 

[Duncan]

Cheers guys! I'm off to grab myself a cheap-ass Ricoh and a metric tonne of CDs.

You people rock!

 

[Maniac9127]

My Ricoh 4/2/12 drive is nice, full CD in 20 minutes. Only thing I don't like is it's got an ultra high CPU utilization, so no using the computer while burning a CD. Other than that it's great. Only time I ever burnt a frisbee is when I had tried burning a CD+winamp+netscape, my bad.

 

[queequeg2]

I've got an old MP6200S that I bought back in the summer of 1997. I've burned a few hundred disks with no problems so far. Yes, it is slow. Unfortunately, the damn thing keeps on working so I have little excuse to blow the money and buy one of the new fast Plextors.

queequeg