I need to purchase a USB CD-RW for a Rev. C iMac (no FireWire option). The main goal is to burn CD's from MP3's. The iMac has 192 megs of real RAM and is running OS 9.0.4. The hub in use with it is a powered, 7-port Belkin hub.

I've done a search on past posts from previous user's experiences (and, in some cases, nightmares) using the Que! USB and Sony Spressa USB burners.

I've got it narrowed down to either buying a Iomega ZipCD or the APS CD-RW 4x4x24 USB Pro2 drive (with a good review from MacAddict magazine). I believe that each come with Toast 4.1 OEM.

Any real world experience from iMac owners who have bought either of these drives and have had success burning converted MP3 files (AIFF)? How about record speed? Any luck burning at 4X for audio? Or is everything flaky above 2X?

Finally, connecting the drive to a powered hub...does it work, or do you have to unplug your hub and plug the drive in directly for successful recordings?

Thanks in advance for your info and suggestions!

Recently Purchased a ZIPcd here in Australia. I have a 500Mhz G3 SE Imac with 128mb of ram(only), graphite (not that colour makes a difference). I dont have a USB port, but run the ZIPcd from the spare port on the Mac. I have had no issues with Data CD-r and CD-RW at 4x. I did waste a couple of CD's trying to write audio at 4x. These are now costers under my coffee cup!.. I only discovered a couple of minuets ago in another topic here that there are issuies with USB and 4x. Especially when Music (AIFF) audio is being written. That the USB system runs a lot lower avergae transfer than its peak quoted figure. I had no problems with the writing of Audio CD's at 2x (all 35mins worth, its a long wait). and have used toast to export cd audio and then write, and also soundjam to convert mp3 to aiff and write this. Only at 2x. The 4x bails after about 5mins. I would have brought a Firewire writer but here in australia they are costly. the USB writer is about $250-$300 US and the firewire ones are Closer to $500US.

Goodluck, hope my dribble helped.

thanks
Andrew
VK2TWO
QF56OD
Sydney, Australia.

[mac freak]

Get the Sony Spressa... dirt cheap (got mine for $230), reliable (I've had two coasters--weird ones. A CD-I and a UNIX disc), and fast enough (full 74 minutes of music in about 18 mins.).

Although FireWire burners will always be faster, they cost $200 more. NOT worth it.

[Ca$h68]

Whatever you do, don't buy a que drive. Im still pissed.. they advertise it as a 4x drive, but it will never ever ever burn that fast. 2x it is. >sigh<

Ca$h

[Cipher13]

Check the peripheral forum, where this should be - there have been numerous posts on this exact issue...
Please search before posting!

Cipher13

[Toad]

I got a ZipCD 650 USB 4x4 and I've been very happy with it. I burn mostly MP3 CDs and data.

It's a snapy little device and priced well, I got mine for about $250. It comes with Toast 4.1

Toad

[Trapper]

I'm very happy with my ZipCD 650. I can strongly recommend it. And unlike what some people have reported, I myself have had no problems burning audio at 4x. I simply convert the MP3 files to AIFF *before* I start the burn, and everything seems to work out well.

------------------
Travis Hreno
Department of Philosophy
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
CANADA
threno@julian.uwo.ca

[PeteL999]

Yea I'm pissed to about the QUE USB it can only do 2x recording it sucks

[jzaw]

also dont forget that these are *USB* drives

so no matter if the maufacturer says they are 4x4x24 or what ever high speed for reading they stated

they are lying

it just physically cant be 24x read

its usb only 12Mbits/s max if youre lucky

divide by 150K (ie 1x speed) and youll get the max theoretical transferate expressed as a multiple

ie (in theory) about 8x

in reality youll only get about 6x read speed

so actually if youre getting 4x write youre doing well!

------------------

do acts of random kindness and senseless beauty!

[mac freak]

Right...

Then tell me, how come games run at the SAME SPEED whether the CD is in my "6x" (24x) burner or my 24x built-in CD-ROM drive? If you're right, shouldn't Deus Ex, for example, run A LOT slower?

if you have firewire ports,
i highly recommend a firewire cdrw.

usb is too low-bandwidth (and chatty)
for what cdrw drives seem to require.

if you crank up the buffer rates, you
might get higher speeds on the usb
channel.

but i definitely recommend firewire if you
have the ports.

I have a 333 iMac and an early Sony Spressa (1M RAM cache in the drive). If you buy one, get the 2M version -- it also uses a better USB connection. The early ones use a Shuttle converter to get to USB.

With a Newer UHub and a Quantum Fireball external SCSI drive (with USB adapter by Microtech), my Spressa did OK with the Sony Discribe software that shipped with it.

Over the weekend I got Toast Deluxe 4.1, and it ROCKS. I've burned audio (either directly from the CD or from the scratch drive) at 4X and I've burned DiscCopies at 4X so far.

Toast is seamless to this point. I love it. It does everything I need. Just amazing.