[huh?]

Hi,

I've heard a lot of talk about one brand or another being a better cd-r/cd-rw mechanism. My question is this... How do I know what brand of mechanism a given drive uses? For example, I've heard that the new QPS Que drives use Teac, but I have no idea where to get this info on my own. I am particularly interested in the Sony CRW1600L-A2 but, more generally, I'd like a source of this info for cd-rw drives in general. I've been to the Sony web site, checked the technical specs, etc., and found nothing. Thanks.

huh?

[druber]

Well, that's one of the risks you run buying a non-branded cdrw like Que. You can't really be sure of the mechanism until you get it out of the box and can check it with a bus probe. A friend of mine actually just bought the Sony CRW1600L-A2. Burned at 12x straight out of the box, worked like a dream. Highest recommendations I've read have been for the Sony and for Yamaha drives, then for Plextor. For reviews and news, head to the Firewire page on XLR8yourmac.com. Enter your computer's specs and you'll read cdrw reviews by people with the same setup as you. Downright handy.

[finboy]

Yeah, and don't assume that because Que uses one mechanism last week that they'll use the same one next week. They use whatever they have on hand and whatever they get for the best price. I think LaCie doesn the same.

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Shop smart, shop S-Mart! You got that?

it is true in fact that the new QPS Qué CD-RW drives use Teac mechanisms. And reports are that they are nothing but nightmare on a Mac. It is also true that the Teac mech first appeared in QPS's 12x CD-RW a couple months ago, after that drive had been shipping with a Plextor mechanism for some time. So ordering one of those drives, you really could only guess based on the date as to the probability of getting a Plextor (which work well on Macs) or a Teac (which don't). By now they're *probably* out of those plextor mechs.; )
one way to get some idea of what mechanism a drive might be shipping with is to visit the drive manufacturer's website, and search for "firmware" on their Support section. the mech's they have firmware for should be the mechs they ship in their drives. still, if they ship more than one different brand of mechanism in the same drive, you really can't know what you're getting until you actually plug it into your computer and open the System Profiler.