What are your opinions of the Kenwood 72x truex cd-rom?

[BlvdKing]

I just lost *another* 40x cdrom drive and was thinking about upgrading to a Kenwood True 72x cdrom drive. What is the general consensus about these drives? Are they reliable, long lasting, and compatible with all CD's? How well (how fast) does it rip MP3's? Does anyone experience buffer under-runs when burning CDR's from the true 72x? Thanks in advance for your opinions.

 

[madthumbs]

They are poor readers that slow down tremendously on most CDR, and only play some CDRW. Half the time mine slows down on some factory pressed CD's. Their own benchmarking program shows that they are cpu hogs, and suck at audio extraction. I wouldn't dare burning drive to drive from my 72x, I found out about it too late. In many cases, my old Acer 24x was better. There is a review site that did an excellent job of reviewing it, but I lost the site.

 

[ndee]

why don't you go with the Pioneer 16x DVD Rom?

 

[mosdef]

It's excellent for DAE but it has trouble reading some CD-R and CD-RW as mentioned before. I didn't realize it was such a CPU hog. It is very quiet.

-mosdef

 

[Wingznut]

I have both the 72x and the Toshiba 48x.

Sure the 72x is faster. I can copy cd's drive-to-drive on the same IDE channel, which I can't do with the Toshiba.

I haven't had a problem yet, reading burned media... But after having so many problems with my Kenwood 52x, I can imagine it being a problem sometime.

Overall, if you were to ask for my recommendation... I'd be safer by saying to go with the Toshiba. It's a very nice drive, without the "finiky-ness" of the Kenwood.

 

[hungrypete]

i have yet to find any problems with cdrs, and most of the disks i put in it are cdrs. Cdrws are very slow though. ITS VERY QUIET. I'm happy with mine, though some people don't like thiers. I got a big performance increase by doing the firmware update, make sure if you run amd to grab the special amd version of the update. In RealJukebox my kenwood rips & encodes at about 16x. This really is a very fast cd-rom, but the price is indeed quite high. Don't know about the buffer under-runs, my reader and burner are both scsi....
<EDIT> I understand there were lots of problems with the 52x kenwood, and people seem to assume that the 72x will have the same problems. Only time will tell, but i know a guy who has had one 6 months and its still working great. I've had mine a month, so too early to tell. </EDIT>

 

[Viper GTS]

I've had my 72X for probably 8 months, &amp; it's been perfect thus far. I don't know why some people think it sucks at DAE, it rips audio at ~33X, I've made around 200 MP3's with it from CD's that I own, &amp; have yet to get a bad track.

It's extremely fast, &amp; extremely quiet.

I have no problems whatsoever recommending it.

Viper GTS

 

[Smbu]

You should check out the ATAPI/IDE cdrom round up to check out it's performance over at Storage Review. It won their Editor's choice in the round up, but they say

&quot;Things were not so rosy for our five drives when it came to CD-RW performance and compatibility. Although only the Kenwood utterly failed this test, all drives took a significant hit in read speeds with our test CD-RW disc.&quot;

&quot;Although Kenwood's highly touted 72X unit failed our CD-RW compatibility test, that was about the only weakness we could find.&quot;

 

[StickHead]

I heard they fall apart after a few months of use.

 

[NoreagaCNN]

I have a 72x, it's pretty fast and quiet but it sucks sometimes cause it won't read some CDR's, especially VCD's. I have to use my CDR to read CDR's, :[
It's still a great CD-Rom Drive

Peace,
Nore

 

[BlvdKing]

Are there any problems with AMD? My system is unstable enough with an MX card and an Irongate chipset (TBIRD 800). The CDRW incompatibility is only a slight problem (the burner obviously reads them fine). I don't want to get a DVD ROM because of the cost. If there aren't major problems, I will order one tonight

 

[LXi]

Most of the negative comments are off, at least not with the 72x.


<<They are poor readers that slow down tremendously on most CDR, and only play some CDRW.>>

Thats been a problem with their 40x and 52x, the 72x does not suffer these problems, not nearly as much as the older generations. The newest firmware handles the CDR/RWs impressively, not quite perfect but very good.


<<Half the time mine slows down on some factory pressed CD's.>>

Unless you've been brutally abusing those CDs, the 72x should have no problems. None of my factory pressed CDs were having problems with the 72x.


<<Their own benchmarking program shows that they are cpu hogs, and suck at audio extraction.>>

I dont know where you pulled that out of. This is one of my examples, with my old Acer 40x, when I insert a CD and it starts autoplay, my MP3 player will have to pause until the Acer finishes spinning up, the 72x autoplayed in a breeze and my MP3 was never cut off. The audio extractions, when the 72x reads the CD fine its usually multiple times as fast as typical 40-50x CAVs.


<<I wouldn't dare burning drive to drive from my 72x, I found out about it too late. In many cases, my old Acer 24x was better. There is a review site that did an excellent job of reviewing it, but I lost the site.>>

I use to worry about that too, but after all the 72x impressions, I will not have a doubt about burning a CD from the 72x.

Further more, the 72x is completely silent comparing to most typical CAVs, even reading at optimal speed its still quiet. If you ask me for a CAV recommendation, I'd say go with TEAC 40x or Toshiba 48x.

 

[BlvdKing]

Well, I just ordered one a true 72x; it costs $100 from Axion Tech. I hope it works well. I let everyone know what I think of it on Thursday when I get it.
Thanks everyone.

 

[fitzhue]

My friend has this drive when he first built his computer a few months ago. We were amazed at how fast it was. Game installs/audio rip (50x sometimes) were all good. But he just RMA'ed it because it stopped working. It literally just stopped working. It's extremely fast, but maybe he's just unlucky

 

[Moonbeam]

I grabbed mine at best buy for $79. My 52X stopped working after I vacuumed it.

 

[madthumbs]

When I finally got the call from Kenwood Tech support, he told me after I updated the firmware that it would more likely slow my drive down. Luckily kenwood isn't that big in the PC hardware arena, so I wont be tempted to buy their crap again.

 

[RGN]

Sometimes mine doesn't like CD-RW discs. But other than that it is the best CD-ROM drive I've ever seen!!!