CD Burners wich Brand/Model

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scooter B
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Scooter B

Scooter B

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I am looking for input from you kind folks on the best bang for the buck in CD-R burners (for $200 or less)!

While I am only doing 4-track cassette at the moment I need a CD burner for computer back up now and plan to do some PC recording and mixing in the future.

Dragon had high praises for the Maxtor brand but I seldom see them on sale locally and they have not dropped in price as much as many of the other manufacturers. I do want value but I don't want coasters. No Duh! So whats the consensus? The more I save on the burner the more I can save toward a sound card etc.

I have seen in the $100-200 price rangeCD-R burners from; Phillips, TDK, Yamaha and many others. Let me know.:)
 
maxtor makes a cd burner? didn't know that.........i'm using TDK Velocd 16x, it came with NERO ........i paid $150....i know i paid too much.......it's hard to go wrong with a cd burner if you buy a name brand and know what speed and software you want..........you can probably get something for less than a hundred that meets your needs...check out pricewatch.com........16x is pretty fast for burning..........
 
I've heard good things about the TDK's, never tried them personally. The Plextors are good burners as well, in the upper price range, put certainly under $200, probably around 150-190. USD.
 
I've got a Yamaha CRW8824EZ, a little slow by today's standards, but works great.
 
I've got a Plextor 4/8/32. Paid about $150.00 for it a few months ago (probably less now). Good burner and Plextor's are highly rated.

BTW, I personally think speed in a CD burner is overated - particularly if you're doing primarily audio. I burn most audio at 1X (2X on rare occasions). Therefore, save yourself some money and go for an older, slower burner (IOW last week's model).

If you plan to also use it as a CD-ROM, then speed might have some relevance (at least the CD-ROM speed). However, I would recommend buying a cheap CD-ROM for that purpose. This will lessen the usage hours on your burner and give it a longer life span. I think CD-ROM's are under $40.00 these days.
 
Just picked up a Plextor 12x10x32 for $150.00. There are many cheaper burners on the market- I see them all the time for $89.

However, Im hoping by buying a Plextor, I won't have to replace it in a year. I've also heard high praise for the TDK Velo.

Whatever brand you choose, look for the ones that advertise "Burnproof". It's a technology that reduces buffer underrun errors.

I also agree you should buy a cheap CD drive for loading software etc. to reduce wear and tear on the more expensive burner. You can pick one up for $29.

Twist
 
Many Thanks for your input!

I mis-remembered the original brand name I inquired about. Plextor is the one our Dragon friend spoke of in his tutorial (not Maxtor).

Yes my PC already has a CD/DVD ROM for the primary drive so the burner will be for burning only.

The consensus seems to be the best deal is any name brand with "burn proof" buffering.
But as they say...NOTHING is truly fool proof to a truly talented fool.

Dragon also mentioned his preference for SCSI over EIDE for reasons that went above my head, any experiences/recomendations in this department for 1st grade level computer skills?

Scott
 
Plextor + SCSI

Don't settle for anything less. The way prices are falling on drives these days you might as well get the best. SCSI CD-RW drives supposedly sound better because they use a dedicated clock for burning, whereas EIDE drives rely on the computer's clock signal which may be a little iffy at best. I have no idea if this is accurate, but it sounds reasonable and when I first heard this I was pretty glad I'd gone with SCSI. And don't let anybody convince you that SCSI is inherently more difficult or troublesome than EIDE. It might be ever so slightly more difficult to set up initially but if you can handle installing the interface card and plugging things in right (or you have a trained chimp), then it will be no problem.
 
scsi vs ide vs brand vs whatever

Have been using cd burners for about 5 years now. First was a sony scsi 4x burner. Thought I was buying quality by Sony. It SUCKED. Back to factory 3 times in 2 years.

Next was yamaha scsi 6x, very good and will overburn with the right recording software.

Next bought Nec scsi reader only to put on same scsi controller (same scsi chain) as the yamaha so I could put source in it and copy to blank in one pass. Worked great! Still works great!

That was and is the main reason to buy a scsi drive, I believe the clock issue is totally bogus. SCSI is the only way that has been proven to me to NOT have to copy to hard drive first.

That said, most people DO NOT need or want scsi because configuration can be a REAL headache, and I have worked on systems for 27 years plus.

The last CDRW's (got 3 of em) I bought were from www.mwave.com and were acer brand made by ricoh (like the copiers, big japanese electronics company) with 'JUSTLINK' teknology wooohoo! Have not burned coaster yet, these use eide interface, mainly just plug them in and go.

To sum up...try www.mwave.com (good prices, policies), use ide interface, acer/ricoh works for me.

ps any cdrw advertising 'justlink' will be ricoh oem.
 
i love the ezquest line. i bought one from here (for mac) or here (for PC)after doing much research on prices and couldn't be happier. i've never had a coaster and the external units are solid and extremely quiet. mine in hooked to my mac via firewire and is fast as hell.

good luck!
 
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