TEAC 524E CD-RW

Review Pages

1. Introduction
2. Data Tests
3. RW reading tests
4. DAE Tests
5. CDR Tests
6. Writing Quality Tests
7. RW Writing Tests
8. Conclusion

TEAC CD-W524E IDE CDR-W - Page 8

Conclusion

Positive (+)

Negative (-)

- High speed ROPC promises maximum quality
- Excellent Seek times
- Supports "Burn-Proof" anti-coaster technology
- Very Good DAE ripping performance
- Almost perfect DAE ripping quality
- Will write ANY media at 24x
- Supports HS-RW standard (10x re-write)
- Supports DAO-RAW
- Can produce accurate SD2 backups
- Supports reading/writing of SubChannel data
- Supports CD-Text (reading/writing)
- 2years of warranty (applies only for Europe?)
- Huge MTBF > 100.000 hours
- Very quite during reading/writing
- TEAC promises support for MT. Rainier with firmware upgrade
- Good price ($117 OEM - $135 retail box)

- Drive arrives late at the market...
- Reading performance with pressed/CDR media is lower than competition
- Limited overburning (up to 89minutes)
- Low Packet Writing reading performance
- Low PSX ripping speed
- Very bad CloneCD reading performance
- No build-in quality detection system for low quality media
- The OEM version supports only up to 32x DAE

Again TEAC did not let us down. Even if the drive is lately shipped in the market, when most other manufacturers have shipped similar products, TEAC's proposal is very interesting. The drive supports 24x writing speed, 10x re-writing and 40x reading speed. TEAC has made several improvements at the CD-W524E and the test results show that clearly.

The drive's writing performance is very good. It will write ANY inserted media at 24x writing speed, since no build-in media detection system is attached. The writing quality with 24x certified CDs is very good but you might have some problems with very low quality media. The excellent seek times and the good transfer rate is welcomed. CloneCD users will be happy from the writing part; SD2 is fully supported, and disappointed from the reading performance. TEAC also promises to support Mt. Rainier format by the end of this year with a future firmware update. So far only Yamaha 3200E support such feature.

The competition from LiteOn/Plextor and AOpen is very hard, but the TEAC CD-W524E has many good features to win the user's heart. TEAC's estimated retail price will be around $135 for the retail package and $117 for the OEM version. Note that the OEM version has reduced (32x) DAE reading speed.

You can find AOpen CRW2440 around $90, LiteOn LTR-24102B at $89 and PleXWriter PX-W24102B at $165. If price is the absolute criteria for your eyes then there are certainly cheaper solutions. If not, you know what to do... ;-)