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Hey all,

I'm about to buy a new CD-RW burner, but there so many brands and it seems that no one can say which is the best manufacturer.

after reading lots of reviews I narrowed down my options to these:

1. LITEON 52x24x52 CD-RW - RETAIL

2. SAMSUNG CD-RW 48X24X48 - (8MB buffer)

3. Sony 52X24x52 CD-R/RW (CRX220A1)

which one is the best?

and what about Plextor and Aopen ? do they make high quality cd burrners?

Thanks

Welcome Tarkules
Of the drives you have listed I would go wiht the LiteOn. The sony drive is a LiteOn drive where sony has done their own firmware for it you can reaad mor on it here http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=10858&highlight=crx220a1. I have personaly used an Aopen burner without expericing any trouble value wise though the LiteOn would be a better drive to go with. How good is the Plextor compared to the lite on I can't answer since I have not used a Plextor drive before this link though might help some though http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=11287.

I would deffinetly pass on the Sony and the Samsung. If you are looking for a cheap, standard burner, go with the Lite-On. If you want a high quality drive, with tons of features, go with the Plextor Premium. It costs a little more, but it is well worth it.

Tarkules: I totally agree with David on not even considering the Samsung! AOpens are lousy drives, they don't support many features, and are generally slow in most areas. The sony is only worth buying if it is cheaper then the LiteON (which CAN happen though is VERY rare), since it is the same drive as the LiteON.

as for Plextor...LOL! well, I don't want to get into another war with aviationwiz, but the fact is that Plextor's are 3x the price of a LiteON (or more) and there is no proof that they have higher writing quality. Now I know having said that, that Aviationwiz will immediatly say I'm wrong, so I'm going to do something to proove my point:

This is a review I wrote on some Taiyo Yuden media, take a look at the tests done at 16x and 24x (since the discs were 20x certified)
http://digitaldolphin.netfirms.com/Yama ... wPage1.htm

This is a review I wrote on 40x Maxell CD-Rs made by Ritek, take a look at the tests done on media burned at 40x.
http://digitaldolphin.netfirms.com/Maxe ... wIntro.htm

All the discs were burned with my LiteON 48125W. I'm sure you will agree that the quality of the drive is awsome. Perhaps aviationwiz will provide some comparative tests? (it should be easy since it is T.Y. and Ritek media!).

also, if you are concerned with testing your media, LiteON drives are the only one's that can do it properly. If you want to do overburning, LiteON drives are awsome for it (so are LG drives actually), and if you want to make game backups, LiteON is the best way to go.

There is *ONE* thing that some plextor drives can do that LiteON drives can't however, and that is rip some protected commercial audio discs. Some of the nastier protections pose a problem to most drives, but the 2 newest Plextors (also the most expensive drives available) and the Yamaha CRW-F1 can copy these protections.

I don't have any Ritek disks but I will post results for my TY media burned at the same speed as you did very soon. I just have to burn and test the disk out. Might I also add that this is more of a media compatibility test, not a quality test. Different drives like different disks. I know for a fact, that the Premium likes Verbatim (Mitsubishi) disks more than TY or CMC.

My first results from long ago are:

http://tasman.lrehosting.com/test.htm

MC=Mitsubishi Chemicals

There were no C2 or CU Errors at all so I did not put them in the table.

Please keep in mind that all of these were done at 52x. A much higher speed than his tests were done at. I am going to do my test with my TY media at 20x.

What drive did you do the testing on, and what speed to you test at? (not the burn speed, the testing speed).

Having tested a few hundred CDR's on a variety of drives, I can say, with no hesitation, that the LiteOn 52x is the best burner on the widest range of media that you can buy at ANY price. It puts the others to shame. Plextor is a nitch drive, designed to perform better in a small range of areas like low-speed audio burning. If you want the Plextor, get the 48x as it's the same hardware as the 52x32x, minus the new firmware and software package. It will soon also be re-packaged as a 52x24x, also the same hardware. Apart from the software and firmware package, the Plex Premium is a real yawner of a drive - nothing specatcular. The newest LiteOn 52x32x will likely offer improved RW quality on all RW media (as does the Plextor), and it's as yet unknown what other improvements it may offer, but it may be worth waiting a few weeks for it to ship. Price will likely be around $80 US to start.

dolphinius_rex wrote:What drive did you do the testing on, and what speed to you test at? (not the burn speed, the testing speed).

Testing speed is 24x on the Premium.

These results do suck. But before, I give you the results, I'd like everyone to look at the test results for high speed media on the the LTR-48125W, it is all way to high.

Burned at 20x

Here we go. A side by side comparison.

http://tasman.lrehosting.com/tyvsty.htm

I urge you to look at all his tests done at high speeds such as 40x and 48x. They are terrible.

http://digitaldolphin.netfirms.com/Reviews.htm

What I see, is that the Lite-On writes better at slower speeds. However, when writing at high speeds, the Lite-On can not compete to the Premium.

The bell has rung.
Begin round two.

http://tasman.lrehosting.com/ltr481248.htm

Those suck. Those are all burned at high speed. Look at my results.

http://tasman.lrehosting.com/test.htm

Buy a Plextor if you plan to spend your time burning test discs trying to convince everyone of its superior writing quality or buy a Lite-ON and burn disks that are good enough at least.

Plextor drives should come in Macintosh computers.

avaiationwiz, i am interested in your testing results.
however they are lacking in clear information.

please provide clearly the following info on each test disc:
drive the disc was burned.
speed the disc was burned.
drive the disc was tested at (+ program used to test the disc)
speed the disc was tested at.

also preferably use the same software to burn the discs (Nero?).

if possible, use the same drive+program to test the discs.
even more interesting: for each test disc, test it on both Lite-On/KProbe and Plextor/PlexTools (this would acturally be a comparison of the testing equipment).

I still have not proven that the Premium's writing quality is higher than Lite-On's? I just showed you those graphs. 1-3 C1 Error Average vs

0.2-1.0 C1 Average

Gee, which one is better?

Lite-on 52x24x52
---------------------
http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=173

Good notes I consider important:
* Very good media compatibility. Can write at 52x with a large selection of media
* Includes Ahead Software's Nero Burning Rom, InCD and Nero Media Player
* Affordably priced

Bad notes I consider important:
* Slow rewriting performance

Plextor 52x32x52
---------------------
http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=185

Good notes I consider important:
* One of the first drives to rewrite at 32x
* Features Plextor's GigaRec (may be useful for you?), SecuRec(may be useful for you?), ... snip ... technologies. (I won't comment on the rest)

Bad notes I consider important:
***** High media requirements
* Tendency to slow when reading pressed data and audio CD's
* Had a hard time reaching its rated speeds when reading pressed and CD-R discs (Plex used to be *the* name for CD reading, but I guess that isn't the focus anymore)


(Secondary addition: pay close attention to signatures as they say alot about ones point of view.)

dodecahedron wrote:avaiationwiz, i am interested in your testing results.
however they are lacking in clear information.

please provide clearly the following info on each test disc:
drive the disc was burned.
speed the disc was burned.
drive the disc was tested at (+ program used to test the disc)
speed the disc was tested at.

also preferably use the same software to burn the discs (Nero?).

if possible, use the same drive+program to test the discs.
even more interesting: for each test disc, test it on both Lite-On/KProbe and Plextor/PlexTools (this would acturally be a comparison of the testing equipment).

All of my disks (except the one that says is burned at 20x) were burned at 52x on the Plextor Premium. All of my disks were tested on the Plextor Premium using Q-Check at 24x. All of my disks were burned with the latest Nero.

dolphin,
having just visited your review site, i wonder, why only such obscure brands? why no Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden (not just 20x Yamaha which are obsolete now)? etc...

ack, see what happense when my internet goes down for a couple hours, 10 billion posts I need to respond too LOL!

ok, lets do this in reverse order:

dodecahedron: Why obscure brands? because it is what I have access to. Also, I'm buying really cheap stuff right now since I don't have a job currently, and need to conserve $$$. Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs are REALLY expensive over here, except for the Yamaha 20x which is the cheapest media currently available to me, hence the test and 75pcs I purchased for personal use

aviationwiz: I find your info to be totally impossible to understand, with the expection of the screenshot you posted. You are lacking some very improtant details, and making one monumental mistake.

let's deal with the mistake first: STOP TESTING ON THE PLEXTOR, it doesn't return C2 errors as accuratly as the liteON, you may not like to admit this, but it is a fact.

gripe #2: Burn THE SAME DISC, at THE SAME SPEED, on BOTH DRIVES. and then do the testing on the LiteON. Don't start comparing different speeds wth different speeds, and different discs, that ruins the whole testing procedure!

Gripe #3: I'm sorry, I don't believe your test on the T.Y. media. It doesn't make ANY sense. Especially with my experience with that particular drive and the media. The only way you could have accomplished those results is if you got REALLY old media, and pushed it beyond its true capabilities (which would be a media failure and not a drive failure).

You know what, two can play this game. I have a friend with a plextor. So I will have some results of my own to show, only I will include the little details missing in your tests.

Yeah, you guys all have nice enough drives, but check out my Memorex CRW-1622:




I bet you're all seething with envy now...

And not only that, but my drive is bigger than yours.

Seriously, to each his own. They are all good quality drives, so "best" boils down to personal preference, for which there is no right or wrong.

cfitz

cfitz wrote:Seriously, to each his own. They are all good quality drives, so "best" boils down to personal preference, for which there is no right or wrong.
cfitz

I resent the posting of an intelligent comment in this thread.

"Personal preference, we don' need no stinkin' personal preference"

There is only one right way, and that is my way. My favorite burner is the only quality burner, and anyone that thinks otherwise is wrong, wrong, wrong.

aviationwiz, i must concurr with dolphin, your posts aren't clear and don't provide clear information...or else i'm thick.

example:

aviationwiz wrote:I still have not proven that the Premium's writing quality is higher than Lite-On's? I just showed you those graphs. 1-3 C1 Error Average vs

0.2-1.0 C1 Average

what am i supposed to understand?which figures go with which drive?

in your answer you said all your discs were burned by the plex. so it's not clear which were burned on the Lite-On.
you did put up some Lite-On burns. did you burn these or not?

and once again, no direct comparison, the Plex burned discs tested on a Plex, the Lite-On burned discs tested on a Lite-On.

i wish you and rdgrimes and dolphinius_rex would finally get it that these comaprisons means absolutely nothing!