[narcissus]

I had a Sony Spressa and there was nothing but trouble. Conflict, conflict, conflict!! I tried to get help from Sony and the response was that "It sounds that you are not pleased with the way that it works" That was the case... I did expect it to mount in Finder. I did expect it to not directly conflict with my DVD-RAM drivers. The Spressa CD-RW is a good product for a windows machine. However I don't use one any more.
My question is... What is a good CD burner that uses FireWire or USB that comes with decent/good software??

[iPaul UK]

QPS Que FireWire drives are good.

I think nearly all CD-RW drives come with almost exactly the same software, Adaptec Toast. Which works pretty well for most jobs.

[Cipher13]

Yamaha 8424FZ or FW - not sure exactly.
8 X write, 4 rewrite, 24 read.
I have the scsi version of this burner and I have never had a problem with it.
Comes with Toast.

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 06-17-2000).]

[iBorg]

I'm in a dilemma with CD-RW also. I have a Pismo 500, and want to get a Firewire CD-RW. I've seen many posts about Que's unit, and I've seen higher speed units now by Sony (10x4x32) @ $449, and LaCie (8x4x32) @ $379, compared to Que 8x4x32 @ $399.

One disadvantage to Sony's unit is the "Mixman" software instead of Toast (when I looked at it at CompUSA, anyway).

Since LaCie is generally a "good name" in peripherals, and it's cheaper, does anyone have any experience, good or bad, with this unit?

Some of the earlier posts complained about Que not including Direct CD, even though it was advertised on the box. Any recent purchasers to comment on whether it now comes with it?

Lastly, any disadvantages to going with a Firewire unit vs. SCSI? (Next month a new Firewire/SCSI adaptor comes out).

TIA

iBorg

[narcissus]

I got burned by Sony. There support sucks. My suggestion is that you stay away from there product until they back it up with some decent Mac support.
I don't normally talk badly about a company but I am pissed.

[Cipher13]

Personally I don't trust FireWire. If I could have got my burner in FireWire when I got it, I would still have opted for SCSI, even though I had to buy a SCSI card.
SCSI has withstood the test of time. FireWire is still young. Personally I'd go for a SCSI burner. But thats just me...

Cipher13

[Stogieman]

iBorg, If I were you I would go with the Que Fire 8x4x32. I've had mine for a month and absolutely love it. You can get it at egghead.com for $369 which is $10 cheaper than the LaCie drive you mention.
Secondly, if you have a Prismo 500 why would you want to go with SCSI. Didn't they elimate the SCSI port on that model? If you want to use a SCSI drive, you'll have to go through the firewire port anyways. But you'll need a firewire-SCSI adapter which will add to the cost. I would stick with a firewire drive and totally forget about SCSI. Just make sure you have Toast 4.1(which comes wth the drive) and Apple's firewire extension 2.3.3 or higher. This combination has made my Que drive rock solid. After experiencing firewire I never want ot go back to SCSI.
Oh, and I checked the box of my Que and it does state that DirectCD is included (which it is). But they forgot to mention that it was for Windows only. The Mac version sould be available real soon. Hopefully, I'll be able to download it for free when it's available.
And one last thing, I think the graphite color would look good with your Prismo. Plus, the Que comes with it's own carrying case. Which makes lugging it around with your laptop much easier. I hope this post helps some.

[iBorg]

Stogieman,

Thanks for the info! Egghead currently sells the Que Firewire 8x4x32 CD-RW for $365, minus a $30 rebate, for a flat $7 S/H fee. This brings it down to the price of similar SCSI units.

My comment about SCSI was that if there were problems with Firewire, I could get SCSI and buy the adaptor for this - fortunately I won't need it!

I hope Que comes out with the Mac Direct CD soon. I'm always a little leary of manufacturer's promise for "Mac version available soon." I'm glad it comes with Toast 4.1. Is there any advantage to buying Toast "Deluxe?"

Anyway, thanks for the help - I'm going to order this unit today - can't wait to start burning CD's!



iBorg

[rambo47]

I'm using an Xcarat CD-RW expansion bay drive from MCE in my Wallstreet and love it. They're available for the Lombard and Pismo models as well. Unfortunately you pay a high price for the convenience of expansion bay simplicity. $449 for any model. Ouch! On the bright side3 it shipped with Toast4 and uses the standard Apple driver that runs the factory CD-ROM.

------------------
Peep my iDisk: rambo47
"There is no spoon."

[omarv]

definetly the firewire is the way to go today, I have the qps fire drive and it is awesome, I've burned over 30 CD's in two weeks and not a single bad burn!!, this is the best drive I've ever worked with, I tried a usb and it was slow and problamatic, and the scsi ones were always giving me errors. go with the qps fire drive.