Hello, 'local guy' here (I hope Han means me - imagine my embarrassment if he is not....
).
Well, it's all true. I bought a 25 pack of 32x SmarBuy media. Teac writes them at 24x max (32x if Speed Mode is enabled in Tuning Tool).
At first I burned about five of them in Nero (at 16x). The results were horrible. They WERE readable, but that's about it. Teac read them funny - it read about a half of a cd ok, then slowed down to eight, then back again, down again and so on (Nero CD Speed).
It was even worse on Toshiba SD-M1612. Some cds were read at only 8x.
They were also full of errors (Nero CD Speed - cd quality check).
I burnt one at only 8x (in Nero), but there were still errors - although less than at 16x.
(Nero settings were: Mode 1, Disc at Once)
Han suggested, that I should try WinOnCD 5 PE. So I burnt two SmartBuys (of the same pack) with the same data as previous ones (divx movie) at 16x - and there were no errors (cd quality check)! Toshiba read one a little slower, while Teac read both of them perfectly.
I should note, that I had ''Cache all data'' checked, although I don't see how that could be important.
But as I said on our local forum: it could be just coincidence.