Need your opinion on CD-ROM Drives

[nikogian]

Hi,
can you please recommend a good cd-rom drive (no matter how you define this).I am not interested in SCSI drives. What I really want from a cd drive is to read old, tired and scratched CDs who have seen year of service. I currently have a Philips 40x and it is really awful when reading old CDs.
Thanks in advance for your help

[tonym]

I've been using ACER 50x's in my systems and haven't encountered a problem. The only criticism is that the disc tray moves like an old lady...it takes like 5 seconds for the disk to pop out of or go into the drive!

Tony

[Dominus]

The Kenwood TrueX series are the fastest cdrom drives on the planet.

I've had a TrueX 40X, 42X and 52X, and they are all incredibly fast. Sisoft Sandra reports them as actually being faster than they are rated as. I have some screenshots that would blow you away!

[Bleeding Edge]

The Kenwood's are fast. I too had the 40x and now have the 72x. Its used to load programs and for gaming. The audio extraction is very fast (up in the mid to high 40s) but is not 100% accurate all the time.

On the other hand, I use the Plextor UltraPlex 40x for high-speed audio extraction.

There's an inexpensive Toshiba 40x that's in another machine that will read damaged cds very well. It can read a CD-R that has been used as a coaster (literally) for four or five months or more... Hot mugs of tea/coffee have been placed on the data surface. It's stained and scratched badly. The Toshiba reads all the data on it without problems. It'll even read the data off a cracked disc.

I like all these CD-ROMs for what they do best.

[Dominus]

What version of SCSI1HLP.VXD are you using for audio extraction with that Kenwood, Bleeding Edge?

[Axel]

Another thing to try is pick up an old 4 speed - as some of the older disks weren't balanced quite right, high speeds make them shake badly in the unit. There are also disk reconditioning kits out there that overcome some scratches.

[shadow]

I have heard some really good things about the Asus cdroms.

Mine personally are **** but they work for what I need em for.

I would probably buy an Asus 50x if I were in the market for one.
http://www.onvia.com/canada/products/index.cfm?Task=ViewProduct&CategoryID=30057&IdCatalog=44209

That's a Canadian site by the way, and the price given is Canadian $$

PW

[SysOpt]

Check these out:

http://www.sysopt.com/userreviews/products/cdrom.html

[Bleeding Edge]

D,

That file version is 4.10.1998 -I don't know, seems like an older file..?

I use CD-Speed (http://users.pandora.be/erik.deppe/cdspeed2.htm) and CD-DAE (http://users.pandora.be/erik.deppe/cddae.htm) to test the drives' initial performance range.

CD-DAE will report errors on couple tracks per audio cd for the Kenwood.

The Plextor comes with it's own software for DAE which provides excellent results.

I guess the true test is how well it works with the program we choose to use..


[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 04-28-2000).]

[Barney]

I have no complaints about the Afreey 50x.Not about the price either.It is a DMA-2 (aren't they all nowadays?).

Ronald

[K6-Freak]

Never buy ANYTHING from Digital Research Technologies!!! They always have specials on their cd-roms and they are nothing but pieces of ****!! Beware.