CD-ROM drive recommendation

Question: I am planing to buy a new CD-ROM drive. Any tips?

Answer: Angela has a TEAC CD516S (SCSI), which also has an ATAPI version, and she is very satisfied with it. The drive should theoretically read at 16 speed - on the A3000 we could only measure 12 speed. But the drive has a number of advantages:

• Reliable reading of audio data (CDDA). There were no noticeable differences in the CDDA files on the A3000 when reading at quad speed, with the exception of being a few bytes out of synch (which is to be expected). When reading at 8 speed, there were a few small inaudible changes every million bytes or so.
• Excellent error correction. Even scratched CDs read well. Angela could read CD-Rs that were completely unreadable in other drives.
• No detectable reselection problems, even though the A3000 is very susceptible to these!
• Quiet -- the drive is supposedly quieter than most other 16-speed drives, although we have not been able to compare the noise to other 16-speed drives.
• FlashROM -- the firmware can be updated with the help of a PC should the need arise.
• drawer technology, so caddies are not required.

These tests were carried out with a TEAC CD516S, firmware version 1.0D. The firmware version 1.0g is reputedly even better and resolves a few problems. e.g. firmware version 1.0D swaps the audio channels of the TEAC, but this has been resolved in firmware version 1.0g. Therefore we recommend updating to 1.0g.

Note: the new version of this drive, the TEAC CD532, is supposed to be good too.

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