thoughts on trayloading cd/dvd roms

Farbio

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2000
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this is theoretical question that i have. i know many people are involved in high end audio and consider themselves audiophiles. now, being such, you know that expensive, good cd players use one of two basic methods of transport, either they have a top loading mechanism where the cd is placed on a tray and usually secured by a heavy weight or magnet. the other style is a tray loading mechanism but not w/ the normal silver side down, rather facing up on a flat tray that looks almost like a record platter with the laser reading down, rather than up.
both of these mechanisms are used for the same reason, which is to reduce the flutter, wow and jitter inherint when spinning a small light object at higher speeds, which means a much cleaner laser read and pick up, which in turn produces better and cleaner sound. makes good sense to me

now, onto computer roms. why, as we are spinning these small, light cds faster and faster, do we continue to use this old method of transport? as burners reach 40x and cdroms are up to 72x, wouldn't it make more sense to use the methods of transport as relied upon by the high end audio manufacturers? the first method would be relatively implausible as it would require a case to have a sliding opening on the top, but the second method would be at least decently feasible, just perhaps switching the way that the tray spits out, moving it to the bottom of the actual rom casing and the lasers and internals upside down on top. does this seem to make any sense to anyone else, or is it just me?

thoughts?
 

Evadman

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Feb 18, 2001
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Expense is the big thing.

Also, my 50x never gets over 15x actual read speed anyway.
 

Farbio

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2000
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i guess i could understand the expense deal, but how much more would it cost to basically flip over everything inside the burner?
 

Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
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Upside down isn't all - you still need a heavy turntable to have the media rotate on. Probably all that won't quite fit into an 1.6" drive bay ...
 

SuperPickle

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2001
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<< ..used for the same reason, which is to reduce the flutter, wow and jitter >>


While it's true that wow and flutter are caused by inconsistant transport speeds, this is not an issue with digital media the the data is bit-rate and sampling frequency dependant rather than speed. Jitter?--I think I have good ears but I can't say that I've ever definitlyely heard jitter but that's not to say that it's non-existant. That being said...

To your question: perhaps, besides cost of manufacturing and demand for such drives, makers are still playing to the lowest common demominator of users. How often would these drives be loaded incorrectly by some less-than-savvy person?
 

Sahakiel

Golden Member
Oct 19, 2001
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Last I checked, the only 72x rated cd-rom used TrueX and didn't get very far past 52x or so in testing.
 

Jerboy

Banned
Oct 27, 2001
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Because it's expensive.

Plextor is one of the best CD recorder out there and it's 1.5x to 2x the cost of standard drive. IMO, it's worth it. Not many go for Plextor because it's expensive. Now imagine how many would go for upside down loading CD drive that features a 500g rotational inertia turn table at 4x the price?

That thing oughta use TONS of power to accelerate up to speed..
 

Evadman

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Feb 18, 2001
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<< Are the hubs in current CD-ROM drives belt-driven? >>



None that I know of are belt drive. They are all direct drive ( the ones I have dis-assembled :) )
 

Mday

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
18,646
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yeah, they are gear driven...

anyway...

i agree with the cost issues.

--

there is a technology which used a beam splitter to split the laser into 7 beams reading the media faster, called ZEN, kenwood made some drives. anyway, these drives produced a lot of transfer speed at a much lower rotational speed. however, this technology did not catch on, due to licensing costs prolly. these drives also had a high failure rate. mine works though. but this produces soooo much heat, its hot at idle, which sucks.
 

454Casull

Banned
Feb 19, 2002
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Well, the Burmester 969 is belt driven, and I'll be damned if that isn't a high-end transport. :)
 

454Casull

Banned
Feb 19, 2002
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Yup, the TrueX drives had very on/off QC. My friend swears by his 52X, but I know of some that just broke within the year.