Conclusion

The Yamaha 3200E is the first drive that supports 24x writing speed with a different technological approach than competition. The 18x-24x P-CAV writing technology is faster than the 16x-24x Z-CLV that competition uses. The real time differences however are not high, at least with the PleXWriter PX-W2410A, but are present and can give Yamaha as the faster writer ever until the next generation of recorders apear in less than 2 months.

The main gain of P-CAV technology is the theoretical better quality because of its link-less design, which however didn't confirmed fully from our tests results. The Yamaha CRW3200E also includes "Mt. Rainier" and "Audio Master Q.R.", features that competition also misses. The drive's embedded 8MB of buffer and "SafeBURN" will reduce buffer underruns while the low seek times will help you reading faster the contents of your written media. The DAE ripping speed is very good but cannot reach the top.

Let's now pass over the other side and list the drive's negatives. The biggest problem is the lack of full support of SD2 backups, which competition offers. The high spin-up time will also trouble you and DAE quality with scratched CDs isn't as good as competitor drives offer. Last the announced drive's price ($199) is a drawback since some competitor drives (LiteOn/AOpen) have almost the half price...

Yamaha's biggest problem is again the very late arrival of a new recorder at the market. Other 24x recorders have been shipped from June and have established their presence at user's mind. In addition ,the next generation of 32x recorders, based again upon Z-CLV, will be appeared at early December making the decision difficult. The Yamaha CRW3200E gets our "Editors Choice Award" for its fastest 24x writing speed around, among with impressive unique features.