Michael:

I have three Yamaha SCSI CDRW drives and find the quality very good. Only
the Plextors at the college seem better quality. 16x is nice but I rarely
record at that speed at home because of mild concerns of defects in the
media (even those CDRs rated at 16x or higher). I record data, not much music.

I have heard nothing bad about TDK but assume that since TDK is in the
media business, it outsources their drives (please feel free to correct
this assumption with facts).

SCSI drives are nice because there are hardly any underruns while
multitasking. However, the IDE burners appear to advertise higher recording
rates.

HP is going out of the CDRW market within a year and will migrate to DVD
burners (so there may be HP CDRW deals soon). Most makers will follow since
there is very little profit margin in selling CDRW drives. Thus, I
recommend you buy on the price curve and save your money for a DVD burner
(when the prices fall next year). Stay with a trusted name brand supported
by the software you prefer.

Software bundles are lite versions of products so that's a meaningless
wash. Buy Neo or Easy CD Creator Deluxe if you are a serious CDRW user.

Regards,

John Chin



At 12:07 PM 10/20/2001 Michael A. Wosnick wrote:
>I am in the market to update my current 6x4x24 CD-RW drive.
>
>Advice sought between the TDK VeloCD 24x/10x/40x vs. the Yamaha CRW2200
>(20/10/40). Obviously the TDK has a bit more speed in theory, but the Yamaha
>is cheaper and has a better software bundle.
>

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