In House Review - Plextor PlexWriter PX-W4824TA 48/24/48 CD-

[soujir0u]

Yeah, for you guys in the US and Europe, for me, apparently all our drives will be made in Japan

Yeah that is not good, no 16X ReWrite

I'll still probably get it though, our review @ CDRInfo.com should be up soon (courier mess-up= delay ) Also CDFreaks.com should have theres up soon aswell for some more tests. It will be interesting to see how the PX-W4824TA does perform in the CDRInfo.com's numerous error correction tests And with Data/audio protections, and the read speeds of protected stuff...


Clint

I'm living in Australia too, but I haven't found any place that sells this drive. Plextor drives seem to be very rare here! Do you know any good online sources? How much does it cost in AUD? Thanks!

[The_King]

I'm living in Australia too, but I haven't found any place that sells this drive. Plextor drives seem to be very rare here! Do you know any good online sources? How much does it cost in AUD? Thanks!

Sure, www.gamedude.com.au has 'em for $389 AUD which is very expensive even for a Plex. But it is the cheapest around ATM. There seems to be alot of markup on the Plextor's here in Oz, even the F1's are heaps cheaper...

[The_King]

Also www.tekmachine.com has 'em too, and the black bezel for $20, if you want black.

Email them for pricing.

[Ian]

I'll still probably get it though, our review @ CDRInfo.com should be up soon (courier mess-up= delay ) Also CDFreaks.com should have theres up soon aswell for some more tests. It will be interesting to see how the PX-W4824TA does perform in the CDRInfo.com's numerous error correction tests And with Data/audio protections, and the read speeds of protected stuff...

What? Makis Kokkinos has got an Aussie working over there now? I'll have to be more careful about what I say in our forum. I keep getting quoted over at CDRInfo.

[Robotnik]

Is everybody on here from Australia? God help us!

[The_King]

What? Makis Kokkinos has got an Aussie working over there now? I'll have to be more careful about what I say in our forum. I keep getting quoted over at CDRInfo.

I'm a mod in several forums too there, you should drop by occasionally

[The_King]

Is everybody on here from Australia? God help us!

What?? A New Zealander??????

I didn't even know they had computers there, let alone high performance opto drives

[J/K]

[Robotnik]

Is everybody on here from Australia? God help us!

What?? A New Zealander??????

I didn't even know they had computers there, let alone high performance opto drives

[J/K]

That's odd, over here we have a saying that if you go to Australia, you have to set your clock back 20 years! What was the common method of datastorage 20yrs ago - Mag Tape, 8 inch floppy stuff like that.

[The_King]

You guys are used to "setting the clock back", you live in 1952 constantly

All joking aside, Ian, what have you found with further investigation of the W4824A's loading mechanism???

[eliminator]

hehe - an AussiE vs. KiwI ... peachy

[Ian]

Here's a (crappy) picture of the drive's belt



Nice little rubber band.

[The_King]

*sigh*.....

The cheap way out....

Is it relitively smooth, Ian??

Did you even notice that the tray loading was different?? I was woundering why the tray loading MTBF had fallen from 100,000 to 50,000 times from the previous Plextors...

BTW, nice pic, it reveals all!

Tell us of your opinion of the "solid" feel of the drive, is it as quality as the 4012A for example? Is the tray loader just as good you think??

Thanks!

[Ian]

I don't own any Plextor drives so unless there's something obviously different with the tray mechanism, I probably wouldn't notice. However, I will say that its not the smoothest tray I've used, but its not bad by any means. I just sent their 40x USB drive back a little while ago, otherwise I'd make some comparisons.

Solid feel of the drive? Do any of these ATAPI drives really feel solid?

[eliminator]

doh ! - my Asus 52x cdrom looks (and pbly is) better than that. Very solid feel to its belt/tray mechanism.

hehe, like I mentioned in another thread - they should just make nice SloT burners, like the Pioneer 106s dvd rom

[eliminator]

Solid feel of the drive? Do any of these ATAPI drives really feel solid?


Teac does...LG almost does...Asus 52xcdrom does...

[The_King]

Slots don't work well (at all) with mini-CD-R media..... (business card CD-Rs etc...)

Oh well, I'm sure it will go orright, "it's a Plextor"

Solid, my Plex 24X is - is it (the Plex 48X) as solid (or not) as that when you had it for review??

[eliminator]

mini-cdr media..?? - pfft* that's girlie stuff !

[Robotnik]

:P hehe - an AussiE vs. KiwI ... peachy

You North Americans should have Canada vs USA or maybe Northern State vs Southern State flamewars. It would make things more interesting!

[eliminator]

Canada ?...hmmm, I thought it was one of the States..? oh well..

[soujir0u]

What if I order from a US based website? Do I have to pay customs tax here? Will the drive get damaged? The drives seem pretty cheap in PriceWatch, but I wonder how much they'll charge for shipping to here...

[eliminator]

dunno about your customs fees, but shipping would pbly set you back almost as much as the drive itself...unless you wanna wait for 6 months for a cargo ship

[Virtua Trancer]

flamewars....

[mitchel]

Darn Guess I will keep my old x16 plex after reading about it. besides its got a fan in the back . Guess I might go back and look at the F1 again

[eliminator]

aaaah, the fan...gotta luv the lil' sucker ! guess the 24x was the last one that came with it...

[alchip80]

Ian

Here is the requested results on CD Speed Adv.DAE testing.

I came up with the same as you,
ave speed 30.08
every else ok
what was different was the offset.
-4432 bytes (-1108 samples)
elapsed time 6:50:45
Drive can read max 26952 sectors(05:59.29)

So I thought I would fire off an email to Plextor to see what their response would be.

1st response.

----- Original Message -----
From: Plextor Support
To: alchip80
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 4:46 PM
Subject: RE: Ref PX_W4824A


How's the drive doing in real time ripping and copying discs?

Do you have DMA enabled for the PlexWriter in Device Manager?

-----Original Message-----
From: alchip80
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 8:01 PM
To: Plextor Support
Subject: Re: Ref PX_W4824A


thanks for the quick response,

In real time there is no real issues I get the following.
The CD used is a 72:03.00 min

using Plextools the times are ( 02:29 )

when I use Nero CD DAE the times are ( 04.52) ) 0 errors rip at 40.3x
average speed 29.9x
twice read and verify checked.

and Yes, DMA is enabled at ultra DMA 33.


2nd response.

-----Original Message-----
From: Plextor Support
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 12:53 PM
To: alchip80
Subject: RE: Ref PX_W4824A


Various programs will give differing DAE performance.
Your own results show that the Plextools program performed
DAE faster than the Nero program, so it's possible that
the Nero program isn't as efficient at DAE as the Plextor program.



Plextor Support Team -- {I took support name off to protect the guilty)
-----Original Message-----


This sounds like a brush off, However, When you think about it,
I do not have any problems with reading leadout using any
other DAE program. The longest leadout time has been
so far 30 sec. the ave 10-15 sec.


I'm not sure but, maybe there is a problem/bug with
Nero CD Speed Adv. DAE testing of this and some other drives?

Any ideas'.

I fired off another response to Plextor, we'll see!

Maybe Ian if you are interested. with your Plextor contacts
maybe you will get further on this. Maybe all it takes is a firmware update.