Partial-CAV verus Zone-CLV - Page 3

Ricoh 74min 24x Test Results

We used the latest 20x and 24x recorders from various manufacturers in order to see how they perform with specific media brands under their maximum speeds. All CDs burned with Nero 5.5.3.5 and were Audio CDs with 74:51:27 lengh size.

- Test Results

In order to simplify the results we have gathered them in the following table:

As you can see, when recording approaches 20x speed (either P-CAV or Z-CLV), each drive from a different manufacturer gives much different results. In order to have a much more clear opinion about the drive's performance you must study the graphs of the drives (C1 versus Time) that follows in the next pages.

In this test, Ricoh 7200 was the best performer, especially when recording was done with JustSpeed turned off. The drive gave the lower C1 average error value. This should not surprise us, as the tested media comes from Ricoh :-). The drive did performed slightly worse when JustSpeed was turned on, due to a max peak value of 39, which of course also raised the average C1 error rate. So does the Ricoh Mp7200 seem to perform better when JustSpeed is turned off? Yes and No. When the Ricoh drive is tested using the Ricoh 24x media, it seems that the answer is yes, but with media from other manufacturers, it may as well be no. More tests must be carried out in order to be able to reach a definite conclusion.

The Yamaha 2200E seems to also perform very well in our tests. With OWC (Optimum Writing Control) enabled, it gave us slightly higher C1 values than the Ricoh MP7200. With OWC turned off, things are, unfortunately, much worse. It seems the drive is in an urgent need for firmware upgrade in this area :) You will have to spent some more time during burning with this drive, if quality matters for you.

Ricoh MP9200 seems not to be able to perform as well as we expected. The drive gave much higher C1 errors than its MP7200 cousin. Again, JustSpeed should be left on for getting the maximum possible quality.

The Plextor's PX-W2410A PoweRec II system also gave us the unexpected results. Of course, the drive had the lower recording time among the rest of the competition, but (unfortunately) the average C1 errors are also higher.

The LiteOn's 24102B Smart-BURN also doesn't seem to be a front runner when it comes to recorded error rates. The drive had much higher C1 errors than both the Ricoh MP7200 drive and the Yamaha 2200E.

Our last tested drive, the Acer 2010, is not only the slower drive among all, but also gave us the highest C1 error rates in our tests. When the drive changes speed from 16x to 20x, it produces many C1 errors. At the lower 12x and 16x writing speed it seems that it is performing very well.

At the 24x Zone-CLV writing method, Plextor's PowerRec II system seems to make the difference from the competition. The Plextor drive not only gave back the lower recording time but also the lower C1 error rate. The Sanyo CRD-BP1500P comes second with a one second higher writing time and a somewhat higher C1 error rate. Last, the LiteOn LTR-24102B offers the higher burning time and C1 error values as well.