Plextor Premium or PX-712A?

[eyeteeth]

I used the search function to read much of the positive commentary of Plextor products and competitors such as Lite-on already. Although right now my priority is audio and the Premium appears to be the better choice, I am tempted for a few more dollars to get the plextor PX-712A with its non-audio abilities (2 birds with 1 stone). They both have the same audio software. Would the Premium out perform the PX-712A with audio in any way? Speed is not important to me at all, only lossless quality.
Thanks.

 

[1UP]

Eh? You mean for DAE quality? Not sure that Plextor really has a performance advantage in that regard any longer. You could check on www.cdr-info.com - their reviews are very good for such things. Last I knew Plextor were now selling rebadged drives from <some asian manufacturer...yamaha?>

 

[eyeteeth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1UP You could check on www.cdr-info.com - their reviews are very good for such things.

"Combining the two scores from the tests we get an average total score of 71.15 points out of 100. This performance was rather dissapointing for a Plextor drive and probably this should be improved with a new firmware revision."
http://www.cdr-info.com/Sections/Rev...=9346&PageId=2

Not so hot.

 

[Glassman]

premium czech optical storage technology review website always check drive's ability to correctly report C2 errors during CDDA extraction, they use HIGHLY scratched CD which is often unreadable to the end or there are lots of C2 errors, but.. Lite-ON DVD writers are able to read the CD without any C2 error altogether! paired with KProbe, where you can check, wheter the CD is read correctly, view C1 and C2 error count.. what more can Plextor offer?? and for what price..


Plextor PX-712A

Sony DRU-700A (rebaged Liteon SOHW-832S)

Liteon SOHW-832S

Liteon SOHW-1633S

 

[eyeteeth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glassman what more can Plextor offer?? and for what price.

Of interest to me is the VariRec Technology for writing. (If that is as effective as suggested?) If a similiar amount of control is available through Lite-On, that would be great.

 

[Glassman]

are you really trying to get this?

 

[eyeteeth]

Glassman,
what is your Lite-ON DVD or CD-R writer suggestion that I can investigate?
The Lite-on SOHW-1633S.

 

[morsel]

Liteon is a better value than Plextor for DVD reader and CD burner drives, but the best value DVD burner is the NEC ND-3500A. Check out this recent review:

AnandTech Fall 2004 DVDR Roundup

Note that a CD burner makes higher quality audio CDs than a DVD burner.

 

[Glassman]

for the highest quality CDDA reading, all LiteOn drives from 812s to 1633s show the same results as you can see, I should add that no other drive tested had zero C2 errors, the closest was some drive with a few tens of C2 errors detected and some missed..

as for writing CD-R, there's a graph showing all drives tested up to date.. the lower the better (showing C1 errors count):

the interesting thing is how terribly firmware affects results, because LiteOn 812S, 832S and Sony DRU-700A are exactly the same drives just with different firmware as well as NEC ND-2510A and ND-3500A and possibly ND-2500A I'm not shure with this one though..

draw your own conclusions.. I bought black 812S and flashed to 832S, the drive was terribly cheap when I bought it, it was discontinued model at that time..

 

[simplelife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glassman the interesting thing is how terribly firmware affects results, because LiteOn 812S, 832S and Sony DRU-700A are exactly the same drives just with different firmware as well as NEC ND-2510A and ND-3500A and possibly ND-2500A I'm not shure with this one though..

NEC ND2500a is the same hardware as ND2510a as well as ND2100a (dell) and couple other drives with different firmware. 3500a is completely different hardware.

 

[Glassman]

oh, you're absolutely right, I was mistaken.. I'm not that into NEC drives because they are terrible readers so they have never interested me, although they are perfect writers

 

[eyeteeth]

Having never paid any attention to specs before a day ago, you'll understand my simple questions I hope.
Wouldn't the drives in the better half of the survey be performing close enough to eachother that comparisons of their performance are beyond human perception and can only be determined mathematically? And would not some of the drives trade places on the test with a variety of different manufacturers media used? I noticed as well the write tests are usually done at the drives maximum speed, which I suppose does ultimately test the drives abilities, but for myself intending to write at slow speeds errors should be reduced?

 

[Glassman]

any drive can write a CD without single C2 error.. C1 errors are common errors and can be corrected without any loss, however if there's real high number of C1 errors, the correction fails and C2 error occurs which cannot be losslessly restored, so that the reader have to skip that sample or interpolate, in other words guess.. I again repeat that none of the drives produce any C2 errors, but the lower C1 value, the safer..

as for reading, you want the best reading abilities you can get, that's logical, because you want to be able to read any disc, even highly scratched, without any guessing, just perfect, exactly what was stored on the disc.. on the other hand if some burned CD wears out, you can burn another from the perfect data you can rip off the original..

as I said, burning quality is strongly affected by firmware version and media used as well.. with both LiteOn and Plextor you have utilities that can check your burned discs and report error count, so that you can try whatever blanks you can get and choose the one which gives the best results with your burner/firmware combination..

 

[roadtonowhere08]

Eyeteeth, if you are aiming for just audio CD's, the Premium is regarded as THE burner for CD's. Great DAE and error correction. I read all about it, but I decided to get thier PX-708A instead.

With regards to Plextor's new 12x and 16x DVD burners, I would hold off on them. They appear to be spotty in quality.

Given the two choices, get the Premuim for audio and some other cheaper dual format DVD burner down the road.... unless you NEED DVD burning now. I use mine for storing data and burning CD's, LOL!

 

[eyeteeth]

Thanks for your help guys!