Pioneer has released a well documented supported media list for the X13 Blu-Ray series, that is recommended to check before buying unknown media. In any case we tried all the available media at our labs to get an idea of the drive's overall performance. You should expect writing speeds up to 48X for CD-R and 24X for the CD-RW media formats.

Maxell 700MB CD-R 52X Silver top

The Drive can write up to 40X. We expected full CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) writing strategy, however the drive performed P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), probably to improve writing performance after 40mins.

The Pioneer drive can read the same disc fairly well, even the reading curve is slight messed after 40mins.

Using the Disc Quality measurements from the same drive, we can see good C1 errors with some C2 spikes..

The BenQ DW1620 reports good C1 errors with no C2 errors and good Jitter curve.

More information is available from CD Bler test.

, while NeroCD-DVDSpeed has separate E11, E21, E31, E12, E22, E32, BLER and Jitter graphs.

Scanning the same disc with Plextor PX-891SAF Plus again gave us good results

Lastly, the HLDS BH51N drive gave its own opinion for the burning quality, since it reported C2 errors...

 

Maxell 700MB CD-R 52X Printable top

The drive can write up to 40X with specific. Again P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) writing strategy was used.

The Pioneer drive can read the same disc fairly well, even the reading curve is slight messed after 60mins.

Using the Disc Quality measurements from the same drive, we can see good C1 errors with some C2 spikes..

The BenQ DW1620 reports good C1 errors with no C2 errors and good Jitter curve.

More information is available from CD Bler test.

, while NeroCD-DVDSpeed has separate E11, E21, E31, E12, E22, E32, BLER and Jitter graphs.

Scanning the same disc with Plextor PX-891SAF Plus again gave us good results

Lastly, the HLDS BH51N drive gave its own opinion for the burning quality, since it reported C2 errors...

 

No Name 700MB CD-R Silver top

The drive can write up to 48X with specific media and used CAV writing strategy.

The Pioneer drive can read the same disc fairly well, even the reading curve is slight messed after 60mins.

Using the Disc Quality measurements from the same drive, we can see good C1 errors with one C2 spike..

The BenQ DW1620 reports good C1 errors with no C2 errors and good Jitter curve.

More information is available from CD Bler test.

, while NeroCD-DVDSpeed has separate E11, E21, E31, E12, E22, E32, BLER and Jitter graphs.

Scanning the same disc with Plextor PX-891SAF Plus again gave us good results

Lastly, the HLDS BH51N drive gave its own opinion for the burning quality almost perfect results...

 

PlexDisc 700MB CD-R Printable top

The drive can write up to 40X with specific media and used P-CAV writing strategy.

The Pioneer drive can read the same disc fairly well, even the reading curve is slight messed after 60mins.

Using the Disc Quality measurements from the same drive, we can see good C1 errors with some indication of C2 spikes.

The BenQ DW1620 reports good C1 errors with no C2 errors and good Jitter curve.

More information is available from CD Bler test.

, while NeroCD-DVDSpeed has separate E11, E21, E31, E12, E22, E32, BLER and Jitter graphs.

Scanning the same disc with Plextor PX-891SAF Plus again gave us good results

Lastly, the HLDS BH51N drive gave its own opinion for the burning quality, with several C2 reported errors at the end of the disc...

PlexDisc 700MB CD-R White Top

Writing was 40X with P-CAV writing strategy

reading the disc was very good, even at the end there were some upside/downs.

Writing quality seems very good.

very low C1 errors also with the Plextor PX-891SAF burner

, while the HLDS BH51N reported some C2 errors, and very low C1. Overall a very good performance with the PlexDisc 52X CD-R media.

 

Verbatim 700MB CD-R Silver top

The drive can write up to 48X with specific media and used CAV writing strategy.

The Pioneer drive can read the same disc fairly well, even the reading curve is slight messed after 60mins.

Using the Disc Quality measurements from the same drive, we can see good C1 errors with some indication of C2 spikes.

The BenQ DW1620 reports good C1 errors with no C2 errors and good Jitter curve.

More information is available from CD Bler test.

, while NeroCD-DVDSpeed has separate E11, E21, E31, E12, E22, E32, BLER and Jitter graphs.

Scanning the same disc with Plextor PX-891SAF Plus again gave us good results

Lastly, the HLDS BH51N drive gave its own opinion for the burning quality, with very low C2 reported errors at the start of the disc...

 

Verbatim 32X CD-RW Disc

The drive used Zone-CLV writing strategy with the 32X CD-RW media and went from 16X->20X->24X.