Creative labs vs. Plextor

B

Brian Ferrell

New member
I am probably going to buy an ABS computer. They give you a choice between a Creative Labs 32x8x4 burner or the more expensive Plextor 12x10x32 ($109 more). I don't care that much about speed as I do about quality of the audio recording. Does anyone know if it's worth the extra money for the Plextor?

Brian F.


[This message has been edited by Brian Ferrell (edited 06-25-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Brian Ferrell (edited 06-25-2000).]
 
Thanks for your help, Torpid-X. Looks like you saved me $109. Computer Shopper's review said that Creative 8432 was a good burner, but I didn't know if they meant for pro audio. There was no review of the Plextor.

Brian F.
 
No problem, glad to help. One piece of advice while using it, don't touch the computer while burning a cd, that goes for any burner. and when copying a disc, do not use the "on the fly function" make sure the data goes to the hard drive,(if you have a cdrom too)before writing to cdr.

Rich
 
Yeah, funny you should mention not to record a cd 'on the fly'. I just now read another post where someone suggests that it's easier and quicker to record to hard disk first and then to cd, rather than direct from cd to cd.

Brian F.
 
I say go with the Creative. is a time difference of 5 minutes max worth $109.00, the 8432 has more time testing under its belt(s). I have had no problems with mine (8432), the Audio quality will be the same on both though.. as long as it successfully burns the cd. Use the money to buy a 100 CDR discs on a spindle and a 10 pack of CDRW's

Rich
 
Did you get the drive yet Brian?

One thing you should consider is OS support. Creative tends to cater to the gamers who are typically running Win9x. If you are at all considering NT4/5 you should make sure that there will be TOTAL support for your drive...that is, the software that's bundled with it, and the drive itself.
I have no opinions on Plextor.

Does anyone have any comments on Plextor drives? Always remember too that deja.com is a great tool for this kind of research.

As far as burning CD's from the hard drive being faster....well, your speed is really limited to the speed of the burner as long as the source drive is about 3 times faster than the burn speed. However, there is greater chance of error when going from CD to CD, and most people make an image on the hard drive before burning multiple copies.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I've heard for years that Plextor was the cat's meow for CD products. Never heard a bad thing about them. I got a Plexwriter 8/4/32 (an EIDE one) and so far it's worked like a top.

It's a good idea to check the hardware sites for some insight into these things... try
www.tomshardware.com www.anandtech.com www.pcmech.com

for starters.

-AlChuck
 
No, Slack, I haven't gotten either the drive or a PC yet. Like Alchuck, I've been reading up on the subject of Plextor and as yet haven't read one bad thing- just good things., particularly the 8x4x32. A friend of mine had some minor problems with copying games on his Creative Labs burner using some kind of copying system, but in general, he's pretty satisfied with the burner. I've also read some good reviews of the Creative Labs elsewhere. I'll keep in mind what you said about the Creative Labs and Windows Os, Slack. Also, thanks for the extra research sites, Alchuck and Slack. I've already been on tomshardware.com, but I'm always eager to learn more. A local builder is sending me a quote on a system armed with the 8x4x32 Plextor. It seems like the more solid choice, but Creative Labs would probably do just fine. There's only a few dollars difference between the Creative and Plextor 8x4x32s.

Brian F.
 
Well, I finally did it. After seven months of research and bugging you guys and my friends, I finally ordered a PC. I ordered it from Cyberpowerinc.com and thanks to Slackmaster 2000, I didn't make the mistake of buying the Creative Labs 8x4x32 burner with it. I checked into the issue of the drivers that come with it and found that they only support Windows 98 and 95. If I want to dual boot using Windows NT, I guess I wouldn't be able to use that burner unless they have drivers that I could download somewhere (?) I checked Creative's website and they didn't seem to have any there. Trouble is, I can't find any info on what OS the Plextor 8x4x32 supports. It seems like they want to keep it a big secret or something. I emailed their sales dept. yesterday and haven't gotten a reply yet. I called their tech support hot line and was told I was fifth in line for help and that the guy who was being served then had to wait 45 minutes! Also, their tech support shuts down at 5:30 PM PST.......not too impressive. Anyway, thanks for your sharp advice Slack and also to everyone else for helping me thru this grueling but fun ordeal of buying a recording PC.

Brian F.
 
Brian,

Funny, it's not as obvious as you might think it should be... I looked in the manual, in the beginning, and in the specs in the Appendix, and it never really said. But in the section titled "Make Sure the Drive is Recognized" in the installation procedures, it has one section labeled "On a PC with Windows 95 or 98" and another labeled "On a PC with Windows NT." So I guess it supports NT.

-AlChuck
 
OK, thanks, Alchuck. Maybe they should hire YOU at Plextor, because I've yet to receive an email reply from their tech support dept. on the subject.

Brian F.
 
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