TEAC stringently follows the rapid market growth and presents even two new products: With the CD-W548E and the CD-W552E, the Japanese company presents two superlative CD-RW-drives, which are even more efficient as far as their write and rewrite speed is concerned. With a burning speed of 48x in write and 16x in rewrite mode and a 48x reading speed, the CD-W548E is once again setting new standards among the competitively priced and yet high-performance CD-RW drives. But that’s not all, as simultaneously its competitor, the CD-W552E, is already doing brilliantly on the market. With a burning performance of 52x in write and 24x in rewrite mode and a 52x reading speed, the high-speed CD-writer is the second, even faster counterpart. Thanks to the Mount Rainier industry standard, it is possible to write files onto CD-RWs just as reliably as onto disks.

While the 48x CD-RW is being offered on the market at a top price of € 99,-, the higher quality and faster 52x disk drive is slightly more expensive, although the exact price has currently not yet been decided on.

Here the CD-W548E highlights at a glance:
Speed: 48x write /16x rewrite /48x read
Access time: 100 ms
Data transfer rate:
Max. 7.2 MB/s write
Max. 2.4 MB/s rewrite
Max. 7.2 MB/s read
Cache: 2 MB
ATAPI/IDE
Mount Rainier standard
Supports multiread (CD-R/RW disk readable)
Standards: audio CD, CD-ROM/XA, video CD, CD-I, photo-CD (multisession), karaoke CD, I-Trax and CD-Extra, CE-Text
Write proof technology prevents “buffer underrun” errors
Supports: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/NT, Netware, SOC, UNIX and LINUX, OS/ 2 Warp/ MPC level 3 and is supplied in a kit with a CD-R and CD-RW blank, premastering software for Windows as well as all connection cables.

- The little technical dictionary: Mount Rainier Industry Standard
TEAC supports the Mount Rainer industry standard with its new CD-RW. Mount Rainer is a collection of specifications that is designed to enable problem-free use of CD-RW media. Instead of supplementary programs, the support is anchored in the hardware and in the operating system.

The core of the specification is the division of the media into two-kilobyte blocks, a management for faults in the drive and a background formatting of the media. The user need worry about nothing! Using traditional CD-RW media in a Mount Rainer environment is as easy as pre-formatting floppy disks.

- Write Proof
The CD-W548E kit is delivered with write proof technology. Write proof includes both protection, which prevents “Buffer underrun”, and “Running OPC” (Optimum Power Control). Following an analysis of the surface of the blank CD, this function automatically regulates the writing speed, and consequently avoids faulty burning processes with writing speeds that are too high – a double protection against the interruption of the data stream when burning.

- Zone CLV
In order to achieve the high writing speed, the new TEAC drive works with Zone Constant Linear Velocity as recording technology. With Zone-CLV the CD is divided into three zones, internally and externally, in which the write speed varies. In more simple terms, the drive is able to automatically synchronize these three zones when burning and consequently can always achieve a linear speed.

- Up to 48x Digital Audio Extraction (DAE)
With read-out of music data, the data is transported via IDE and not via the analog exit of the drive. For many drives, fault-free reading of music CDs (e.g. in order to copy the data on to the hard disk), still poses problems. But not with the TEAC CD-W548E. All data is read-out precisely and with a DAE rate of up to 48x.