CDR Tests

The Yamaha CRW3200E is the first recorder that support 18-24x (P-CAV) writing speeds. This new approach of 24x writing speed is faster than traditional 24x Z-CLV. Let's see a comparison chart between various recording technologies:

The Yamaha drive starts writing at 18x (0 minutes) and continues increasing the writing speed up to 24x (around 14mins) and writes at 24x till the end of the disc. The competitor drives use Zone-CLV and as you can see are slightly slower. In the following table we can see the average writing speed of the Yamaha 3200E, PleXWriter PX-W2410A, LiteOn LTR-24102B and AOpen CRW2440, according to the Nero CD Speed:

Yamaha CRW3200E has an average writing speed of 23.61X, very close to 24x (CLV). The Zone CLV recorder are slower with 0.84X-1.55X. We will see later the differences in time.

Yamaha CRW 3200E starts writing at a very high rotation speed (9000rpm) which is gradualy reduced towards 14mins. After than the drive has the same rotation speeds with PleXWriter PX-W2410A. The higher rotation speeds produces more noise but also give higher recording speeds.

- Procedure

We tested the Yamaha CRW3200E with Nero v5.5.5.1/4/6, Ahead InCD v2.32/3.12, CloneCD v3.1.0.0 and, Padus DJ v3.50.799 software. We used various of media for performing our tests: Mitsubishi Chemicals 74/80min 24x certified, Mitsui 74min 24x certified, Taiyo Yuden 74/80min 24x certified, Ricoh 74min 24x certified and Ricoh's 74min HS-RW.

- 74min CD-R Tests
We created a "DataCD" job with data slightly more than 74mins (74:03:65). We burned the same job with all 4 CDR-W drives:

As you can see, the Yamaha CRW3200E has the lowest burning time, despite the fact that Yamaha says 16x writing speed is P-CAV. As the test results show, 16x recording speed must be CLV. The drive needs only 310 secs to end the task and simply beats the competition.

Things at the 24x writing speed are much more interesting. Yamaha promised shorter recording times than Z-CLV recording technology and has kept its promise. The 3200E is currently the faster ever CD-RW drive, until of course 32x recorders arrive. Its best recording performance was with MitsuBishi Chemicals 24x certified media , only when OWC (Optimum Write Control) was disabled. The competition is slower closest second performance is Plexriter's - 5sec. In the case of both LiteOn/AOpen 24x recorders, the Yamaha drive is 18-19secs faster! The CPU Usage also seems less than the competition.

- 80min CD-R Tests:
In our normal burning tests the 80min CD contains slightly more than 80min data (80:01:47):

Again the Yamaha CRW3200E is the faster drive at the 16x writing speed.

The time differences at the 80min CDs are higher between the Yamaha and competitor drives. PleXWriter/LiteOn drives are 9 secs and AOpen CRW2440 19secs slower! Yamaha CRW3200E takes a clear victory!

- Overburning Tests

Using Nero CD Speed, we saw that the drive can overburn up to 93:54minutes. However the drive denied writing 99min media, since we had "Power Calibration Errors" even we selected 8x writing speed and OWC disabled. Yamaha did said that from their tests, drive can write up to 94mins with Ritek's 99min CDs.

- CD-Text Results

We created several AudioCDs with CD-Text enabled. The Yamaha CRW3200E can read/write CD-Text AudioCDs without any problems.

- CloneCD Writing Tests

The CloneCD v3.1.0.0 reports that the drive supports the DAO-RAW feature. We performed our usual tests and we confirmed that the drive fully supports DAO-RAW writing mode (Safedisc 1.0, LaserLock 1/2 and SecuROM 2).

- SD2 Support
For the SD2 test we used the "No One Lives For Ever", "Max Payne" and "Emperor Battle of Dune" game titles. We used the Yamaha CRW3200E both as reader/writer. The produced backup did played at the CRW3200E but failed in most other drives we tested. Therefore the new Yamaha model creates partial SD2 working backups.

- 8cm mini CDs

The Yamaha supports 8cm CDs both in reading/writing. As Yamaha said the drive will not support business cards or weird shape CDs at 4x or 8x.

- Buffer Underrun tests

Yamaha 3200E supports"SafeBURN" anti-coaster technology. This system will protect users from buffer underrun and from what our test results showed worked very good. We made several on-the-fly copies with CloneCD v3.0x series without any problems and we also stopped PC (with ctrl+shift+del) several times. In all cases the drive continued writing!