Best CD-ROM?

[derek79602]

I have a Kenwood 52trueX, and although it's fast, it's not cd-clone compatible.
I have personlly seen some pretty shoddy work... Delta and Afreys, to be specific. And all I seem to find is those cheap drives that CompUSA gets $45 for.
Looking around on user reviews, it seems that there's an awful lot of junk out there. Even Creative, which I thought was pretty good, seems to be unreliable. What is the best, quietest, most reliable, fastest cd-rom out there?

[shadow]

A good quality 32x drive seems to be the most reliable and the best all around. Names like Toshiba, Kenwood, etc. My Toshiba 32x is the best drive I have.

[otheos]

See here for some general info

and here for a list of drives and theri abilities.

[Bob The Great]

I have a delta 52x. It's fast, but not reliable. Sometimes it will just sit their, making the game pause for increadible amounts of time. I have a 40x liteon, that seems very nice! It's quite (also the 52x sounds like a tool chest falling down some stairs), and reliable!

[derek79602]

Yeah, I had a Delta 50x, and it worked great until the cd's started slipping around in it. You can still see the scratch marks on the core of my Win 98se CD. I eventually superglued a couple of flat pieces of rubber to the spindle, and it worked pretty good after that. I got a 40x MagicSpin (I/OMagic) free after rebate from CompUSA about 4 months ago, and sold it on Ebay, I wish I had it back now. Come to think of it, I still haven't seen that rebate...

[jdong1]

Stay away from Sony. My 48x is noisy as a jet when spinning

[Nighthawk]

I love my Pioneer DVD-106S so far (had it since yesterday). Runs quietly, spins up quickly, and is generally MUCH nicer than my old Asus 40x one.

They have a tray version of this drive as well (DVD-116), but it doesn't have a digital audio out (2-pin header instead of 4-pin analog).

It cost me $65, shipped, from newegg.com. Specs