CD-BURNERS

[Hunter11]

Does anybody know the best kind of cd burner there is for a good price? I don't know much about them I just want one. What do I need to look for in a good one?

 

[CougarX]

Hewlett Packard. They aren't the cheapest but they have a very good reputation and good software. I have one and have never had a problem with it and my CDs work an all of the CD players that I have tried so far.

I don't know about other brands but I have been very pleased with mine.

 

[RFR2212]

There is a brand named Plextor...They're excellent
Pete

 

[JTang]

Yamaha's are pretty good too. Like the Smart and Friendly brand that's won all those awards is really just a Yamaha burner and a nice card to go with it.

If you're looking just to go with a burner for audio, I don't know about other people, but I only burn at a max of 2x. I find that any more and I get glitches. That and when you burn you MUST leave the computer ALONE. It's dedicating all its resources to burning and when you even move the mouse, the memory is interupted. Well, that's in my experience, so in conclusion, you can go with a more inexpensive higher name brand even if it's older cause I never use all the speed anyway...

 

[Hunter11]

I see these number with the different burners like 16x4x2 or someother numbers like that. Is it the bigger the numbers the better or what?

 

[jgriffin]

Those numbers are the speed. I forget the order, but one is the speed it will play at, one is the speed it will write at and the other is the speed it will rewrite at.

 

[Kris Guilbeaux]

I have a Sony in my computer and it had never let me down.

 

[Trckmagik]

Go with the Hewlett Packard. Great burners.

 

[RFR2212]

16x4x2....The numbers mean read speed-write speed-rewrite speed...hope that helped
Pete

 

[sphaugh]

IOMEGA

I recently bought an IOMEGA ZipCD 650, external USB.

Excellent all around. Portable (definite plus if you have friends). CD creation software is by Adaptec, which I would bet most of the other mfr's are using.

mine's only 4x write, but it gets the job done & I bought it at sam's club.

 

[rock883]

The numbers go like this: 1st number is the number it writes at, 2nd number is the speed it re-writes, and the 3rd is the speed it reads at.

As for the bigger the better, yes the bigger the numbers the faster it writes, re-writes and reads cds. You will definately want something faster because it takes a long time to write things at 2x compared to 12x, I know this from experience. But as far as what JTang said about the quality of the cd, I think he may be right about that. Because lately, after we got the 12x, my cds have been scratched up very easily, and my portable cd player can't play them very good, although I think that cd player is messed up. But I think he is right about the quality being effected by the speed. But it sucks having to wait for the cd to finish. But I have an Iomega 12x4x32 burner and it does pretty well.

 

[tdavis]

Buy a plextor.

You can't wrong, it's known as the best on the market.

They are designed to rip audio at 12x speeds - realibly.

As for the write speed, it's partially up to the quality of the blanks you use also. Some blanks can only write at 2x - some can write at 6x.

I can rip an audio CD, and burn a CD at the same time on my Linux box - it's got a Plextor reader, and a Mitsumi writer. So that mean's it's upto the OS also - Higher quality OS's than Win9x can do better on the same hardware.

Also, plextor's now have burn-proof technology, which means the writer can now stop/start the laser without creating a coaster.