plextor or yamaha?

[Moving Target]

Just got a Plextor last week, so far I love it!

 

[NOX]

Plex, time to have sex...

 

[*kjm]

For me it has to do with the cost of the drive and what you get for your money.
IDE=Plextor with BurnProof
SCSI=Yamaha

 

[billandopus]

Yamaha cannot use CloneCd which is a major turnoff. AFAIK Yamaha can do SAO RAW but not DAO RAW. If you can use MakeCd on the Amiga (not to be ignorant but they still make Amigas?) it is not the same as a Plextor using CloneCd. There really is no comparision.

If Yamaha could take advantage of CloneCd then it would be right up there. Otherwise it's a prizefighter with one broken arm.

BTW, my Plextor has a 4mb buffer, not 2mb. So that's out the window.

 

[*kjm]

With the Yamaha's I use CDRwin. I have yet to find a program I can not back up with it. CloneCd is a good program but it is not the only one out there.

 

[Noriaki]

I have the yamaha 8/8 and I love it...excellent performance for the price.

If you do *alot* of burnign though it may be worth it to get the plextor, I don't do enough to justify the extra cost, but if you do plextor.

If you just do the occasional burn go Yamaha.

 

[Teatowel]

bill_n_opus

Nope, thet y don't make AMigas, but there is a strong community with some great software, MakeCD being the best example..it is the best burning software I have ever used. The only software I haven't used is CloneCD as I have a Yamaha

 

[AMB]

PLEXTOR

 

[Possum]

I upgraded to a Yamaha 8x8x24 SCSI back in August. I haven't had any problems with this drive (had to reinstall CDRWIN, but that was a software issue). Since I've never used a Plextor, I can't vote for or against it. I just wanted to put a good word in for the Yamaha.

P.S. How do you guys/gals know the Yamaha doesn't work with CloneCD? I've installed CloneCD and it detects the drive, but haven't burned anything with it yet (what would I be burning with CloneCD? ). What should I do to see that CloneCD doesn't support the Yamaha?

 

[Noriaki]

My yamaha 8x8 does DAO RAW and is supported by CloneCD

The newer 12x10 plextors only have a 2MB buffer becuase they have burnproof so they feel they don't need it
the 8x4 plextor certainly does have a 4MB buffer...plextor didn't get their reputation by brainwashing people, they well deserve it they make good drives, and something like the buffer size can make a big difference.

 

[SatCP]

<< Yamaha here. Yamaha has 4MB of buffer vs. Plextors 2MB >>



The Plextor does have 4 MB buffer too - http://www.plextor.be/English/products/pxw8432a.html

 

[AMB]

SatCP, I was just about to say that too, after reading through the replies

 

[GreenGrinch]

Plextor!!
I had Yamaha 4x4x16x, after several months it has hard times reading CDRW, still copy fine though. Then I upgraded the firmware, then it fell apart. It won't even ready any CD now, and it's out of warranty by then... .
The replacement is 12x10x32x Plextor, so far so good!

GGrinch

 

[Shagga]

Either. I vote Yamaha, only because I have one and it's a rock.

 

[Pauli]

I have used CloneCD with my Yamaha 4416E and it works fine for a couple of games that I could not copy successfully with EZCD or Nero. So don't say that you can't use CloneCD with Yamaha's. It is true that they don't support DAO raw writes, but that doesn't mean that CloneCD won't work at all with them.

 

[dummjock]

Wow! I had the same problem as Andrey! My drive wouldnt close all the way so I sent it RMA. It also had a really hard time reading CD-RW discs. It was reading at less than 1x. Finally I tried buring a CR-RW for the first time and it unformated an RW disc... not good

 

[billandopus]

I did not mean to offend Yamaha or Yamaha owners. Like I said before - Yamaha has a great rep and i'm sure that they make a fine product. All i'm saying is that with Plextor you get have your cake and eat it too.

People are saying that they are able to use CloneCd to a certain degree with their Yamahas. If so, that's great. However, it is my understanding that to be fully CloneCd supported you have to have a burner that does MMC-DAO RAW and I believe that Yamahas only do SAO RAW. Here's an exerpt from the ElaborateBytes site:

CloneCD says, that my writer is compatible. If I start writing, the Computer freezes, and I have to turn it off!

This happens, if you have a writer, which was manufactured by YAMAHA and sold as a different brand (e.g., Philips PCA460RW). YAMAHA drives tell CloneCD, that they are capable of writing MMC-DAO-RAW, but if CloneCD tries to do this, they crash (and take your computer down, too).

&quot;Real&quot; YAMAHA drives (those sold under the &quot;YAMAHA&quot; name) are detected by CloneCD and any attempt to write to them is blocked.

There is no solution for this problem at the moment. You should not continue to use CloneCD with this kind of writer.

Now, if people are having success burning with CloneCd then it leads me to some conclusions...

- That SAO RAW allows CloneCd burning to work in some shape or fashion and degree.
- That new firmware updates have allowed Yamaha products to work with CloneCd
- Elaborate Bytes is mistaken

Points one and possibly two seem the most plausible. Sure, Yamahas may be able to use CloneCd to some degree but I don't think you're going to get the ability to burn like you could with a fully supported burner like a Plex/TDK etc ...

CDRWIN may be able to burn some copy protected discs out there and if that's the case then great for those Yamaha owners. However, CDRWIN does not compare to CloneCd in it's encompassing ability to clone one to one the vast majority of copy protected cd's.

Note: the new SafeDisc2 protection seems to have caused CloneCd to hiccup a bit. Olli is working on a new version of CloneCd to defeat this new technology.

 

[Busterr]

Does the new Yamaha 16x resolve this deficiency with the previous Yamaha burners?

Mike

 

[WWDude]

Why would you care so much about copy protected CDs? Most people I know who use burners use it to burn either media, audio, or programs\games they downloaded from the net, that have already been ripped from the CD. And when you do stumble upon a CD that you want to burn that is copy protected, there's usually a fix out there somewhere.

CloneCD is great, but it doesn't justify getting a burner that costs a lot more IMHO.

 

[Pluto]

I have the newest Yamaha drive, the 8x8x24x SCSI, how can I determine if this drive supports DAO RAW with CloneCD? I have always used CDRWin/Nero in the past but have heard a lot of excitement over CloneCD lately and I hope I can use it with my drive, even if I do have to wait for a firmware upgarde.

Even still, with the difference in price between Yamaha and Plextor, even without CloneCD support the Yamaha made more sense to me since I wanted SCSI. So far I'd say i'm moderatly happy with the Yamaha, I exchanged it once because the first drive had problems recognizing some brands of blank CDs, the new one doesnt seem to have this problem *shrug* but it does burn fast and haven't made a coaster yet even when using my system pretty intensively. (P3-450, SCSI drives, Windows 2000)

 

[Sir Fredrick]

I had a Yamaha 4416S, upgraded to a Plextor 820, both yamaha and plextor make good quality drives. Plextor may be slightly better, but not THAT much better. I suggest you look at price. And yes if you are going to &quot;Back up&quot; copyrighted games, you may want to stick with Plextor.

 

[WWDude]

Ahh, fVck. I wanted to go Yammaha, but decided I need CloneCD. But I'm too cheap to go for Plextor (300+ USD? Phhh). So I'm gonna go HP 93XX, which is based on the Sony 145\140. The thing is, it can only write well with the CloneCD standart, but you MUST have a different reader. I was planning on using the burner for both writing and reading CDs with CloneCD. And I was gonna go for a Pioneer 115, but it doesn't support CloneCD, so I'll have to go Toshiba.

So basically, life sucks and than you die.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Why not get a Plextor 820? they're coming down in price, and you can probably still snag the bundle with the 820 and the UltraPlex 40Max, it's a great deal...

 

[billandopus]

WWDude, no offense but you're kinda missing the point of the discussion.

You can use Yamaha or Plextor or whatever cd burner you wish. Sure.

However, in life there are some products that seem to offer more and therefore you should consider these things when determining what is worth more to you.

So, what you can do with a Yamaha you can do with a Plextor. Burn cds whatever.

Given that Plextor is highly regarded as Yamaha AND you can get a great deal at buy.com for the 8432a or the 121032a AND you get better performance/compatibility with CloneCd then - to me - it only makes sense that Plextor comes out on top.

So, you see, you don't question WHY you get an extra large fries by mistake with your order through the drive-thru window - you just take that bag and put that tranny in drive and move. Right?

 

[andrey]

By the way, since we're on this subject, Yamaha already makes
Yamaha 16CDR-10CDRW-40Read
Both SCSI and IDE versions are available for around $260. Both versions have HUGE 8Mb buffer as well.