Top-Notch CD Writing: Yamaha CDW2200E – THG.RU

Top-Notch CD Writing: Yamaha CDW2200E

Three months ago, we published a CD recorder review that compared three different CD recorders to each other: Mitsumi’s low-cost 8x drive, a mid-range 12x model from AOpen and high-end 16x drive from Yamaha. Now that buffer underrun protection and large buffer memory have made CD-recording a safe affair, manufacturers continue to refine their drives to attain even higher speeds.

Currently, the fastest CD-R available on the market is the 24x Sanyo/Brainwave BP1500 drive. The reason we tested the Yamaha 20x model instead is that it was the first to make it to our lab. Many people wonder what these high write speeds could be good for, since a 16x drive requires only ~5 min 30 sec to write a complete CD (680 MB) – that is definitely fast enough, so hardly anybody should ever lose their patience.

Many of you might wonder whether or not these high write speeds are truly useful. A 16x drive, for example, also only requires ~5 min 30 sec to write a complete 680 MB CD. Well, Yamaha’s latest drive is designed to write a full CD-R in less than five minutes, and we all like to speed things up. It also has buffer underrun protection, called SafeBurn, which consists of a write speed control system and 8 MB buffer. All of these features combined to make the Yamaha model approach the ideal for fast and fail-safe CD-Rs.

The Drive

Bundled with Yamaha’s CD-R is the latest version of Ahead’s Nero (v. 5.5), which consists of Nero Burning ROM (CD recording), Nero MIX (music management), Nero Toolkit (drive utilities) and InCD (package writing). Also provided are installation screws, an IDE cable and an audio cable. Yamaha also threw in an extra manual that explains Nero in even further detail, showing thoughtful consideration of the user, as well as an appreciation of the value of the software: that is atypical of most other hardware companies. Nero, by the way, seems to have become the CD recording software of choice, taking the place of Easy CD Creator and WinOnCD, which often were the standard software that came bundled with CD recorders. I consider Nero to be one of the most versatile recording suites, and this appears to be the general concensus today.

The back side is quite similar to other IDE CD-ROM drives and CD recorders. There are two audio outputs on the left, one digital (SPDIF) and one analog. The white thing is the jumper which sets the drive to master or slave mode. In the middle is the IDE connector, and on the right side is the power connector.

12x, 16x, 20x or faster?

Many people associate these numbers with speed, which is correct, but they are not aware of what these numbers actually stand for. They are derived from the standard rotation speed of a music CD (1x), which has a data transfer rate of 150 KB/s. Based on this, you get the following figures and rates:

• 12x drive, 1,800 KB/s transfer rate
• 16x drive, 2,400 KB/s transfer rate
• 20x drive, 3,000 KB/s transfer rate

From here, you can arrive at the following recording times (for a complete CD):

• a 12x drive, 6:30 minutes
• a 16x drive, 4:50 minutes
• a 20x drive, 3:50 minutes

As you can see, the differences in recording times for the various models is much less than their multiplying factors for speed might suggest (i.e., a 20x drive is not 8 times faster than a 12x drive). Instead, these multiplying factors refer to the data transfer rates. There are other factors that affect the speed of a CD-R, which also bear consideration. First of all, every CD has a lead-in and a lead-out area that must also be written. In addition, the data has to be prepared by the recording software before the actual write process can begin. This process, in turn, depends on the performance of your system, which affect the write times accordingly.

Test Setup

Test and Benchmark Results – Audio Grabbing Performance

MP3 may be the buzzword in music-sharing these days, but the good old music CD will remain the most important medium for a while. This is why audio extraction is still important for many users, either for audio editing, personal CD recording or just to transform it into the MP3 format. In this process, the raw audio data is read and then converted into wave files on your hard drive. The Yamaha drives are clearly ahead the competition.

CD Write Performance

Mitsumi’s 8x writer, which we reviewed previously, takes about 10 minutes to create a full oversized CD. The new Yamaha CRW2200E manages to top this, completing its work in less than five minutes. For the first time, it takes less time to write a CD than it takes to make a hard-boiled egg!

Spin Up/Down Time

The new Yamaha drive is not only a fast CD-R, but also the fastest at spinning an ISO disc up and down, as these test results show. This is an important aspect for those who frequently change media, where the complaint is less about performance than it is about the long idle time that one must endure before the drive is ready.

Tray Open/Close Time

There were no surprising or new results from Yamaha in this test – it took about two seconds to open or close the tray.

Data Transfer Performance

It’s become apparent in last few months that there is hardly any difference in data transfer performance among the different drives. All of the newest drives are able to read at 32x or 40x, which is usually fast enough.

Access Time

Most of the drives have similar average access times, but here, Yamaha’s 16x CD recorder CRW2100E clearly lags behind with regard to maximum access time. Yamaha seems to have fixed this problem with the 20x recorder, which had much better results.

Conclusion

The test results prove that Yamaha’s 20x CD-R generally offers better performance than the rest, but then again, is the increase in performance substantial enough to justify buying it? As with many hardware products, it’s a toss-up, so once again, consider your needs and your budget. The Yamaha CRW2200E costs $180. For $150 or less, you can get an OEM version of the Yamaha 16x CD-R, and 12x devices are sometimes available for less than $100.

If you plan to use a CD-R only occasionally, 7 minutes recording time for the 12x drive is quite an acceptable speed, so it’s not really necessary to spend the money on the 20x drive. Power users, on the other hand, will get tremendous value by investing in the Yamaha 20x CD-RW, which can record CDs in less than five minutes. Theoretically, you could use it to record 10 CDs per hour. If you are one of these users, then you will notice a considerable time-saving when recording with the Yamaha CRW2200E.