Anyone has the Teac CD-W548E yet?

[Bloodlust]

Please comment.

[DragON]

I had same problem too.
I was had a TEAC CD-W540E but they stop work at 6 month.
So I recieve offer of my vendor to change broken with new one - and that is "the newest and most good model of TEAC".
So, I believe you understand how I wos surprised when get the CD-W548E and find that she had just 2MB buffer.
But this is not all - I start using it.
At this moment I was copyed from 5 CD-to-CD and record uithout errorsJUST 2 CD's !
But I had 8 damaged CD-R (diferent kind)!!!
Even at x16 I recieved message when closing session "Could not perform fixation" and the CD is already unusable.
I'm very dissapointed by this new model.
If anyone can to help me please!!!
Or just send me a TEAC e-mail.
I have more than 10 years in computer branch and can to make very interesting advertisement in many Bulgarian and Russian Hardware sites.

[Bloody Aztec]

Damn I want this drive somewhere in Canada. As soon as I find it somewhere I buy it! A Teac with MediaTek, the best of both worlds!

[DragON]

Please be patient what you want - 'cos can to get it
So this night I was make very serious tests and use two CDRW - both Teac. They are models CD-W548E nad CD-W516EB.
Interesting - the most better exactly is 548 but 516 is most stable and work with any kind of software.
The percent of errors is greater at model 548 but at higer speed.
I cant understend why but with NERO 5.5.10.0 TEAC CD-W548E make many problems - mostly not closing session and flush buffer before end of recording.
At the same PC without change of software or hardware CD-W516EB work absolutely stabile.[/b]

[svetlyo]

I have a question to DragON. First I'd like to say that I sent you e-mail yesterday. Please check your mail. As you see i'm also from Bulgaria and want to buy CDRW. After having read many CDRW reviews I decided to buy Teac considering that leading CDRW hardware sites wrote wonderfull things about it. But tnen I found DragOn's troubles with both W540E and W548E. Now I wonder shall I buy Teac or any other brand. DragOn, please share your experience with Teac CD-W548E and W540E with us and please include information about the media and software you use.
Thank you in advance.

[Han]

My experience with TEAC drives is very positive. I haven't tried the latest (48x, 52x) yet, but with all the previous ones I had zero problems.

What I see lately is that (un)experienced users think of such devices they're as easy to use as a floppy drive. That's plain wrong. There are many software packages that offer wizards of many kinds, BUT a good recording is still made only when you Finalize the disc and burn it in Disc-At-Once mode on a quality branded media.

It's also important how you connect the drive; cabling, motherboard quality, latest bios, good power supply, appropriate operating system, etc. It's not that complicated, but it's not that simple either!

[Harrier]

52X?

It's not out yet, is it?

[Han]

It's not in stores yet, but will be soon next year.

[svetlyo]

Thank you for the interest, Han.
I want you to tell me what is your experience with Teac:
Which Teac model did (do) you use?
With what speed did (do) you record?
Have you burnt CDs with speed higher than their certified? Which makes and what was the speed? Were they read by lower speed CD-ROMs? (I mean for example CD written on 40x read by 32x CD-ROM)
Which operating system did (do) you use and do you know anything about Teac's work on Win XP Professional?
What software did (do) you use?
What make is the best CDR/RW media working with your Teac?
And finally what's your point on Verbatim (for me that's the best madia)?

Thank you!

[Han]

I've been working with the following writers: CD-R56S, CD-R58S, CD-W54E, CD-W524E and CD-W540E. Readers that went thru my fingers were: CD-516S, CD-524E, CD-532EA, CD-532EB and CD-540E.

I still use my first, 3.5 years old TEAC CD-R58S.

I've used almost every available speed. Usually I don't cross the certified speed limit. With my writer I don't even come close anymore, since its top speed is only 8x.

I've burnt 16x Mitsui CDs at 32x on CD-W540E without any problems. CDs were readble on slower CD-ROMs.

Operating Systems: Windows 98, 98SE, 2000 and XP. No problems whatsoever.

Software: WinOnCD, CDRWIN, Feurio, Blindwrite, CloneCD, DiscJuggler, Nero, FireBurner...

TEAC works best with Mitsui media.

Unfortunately Verbatim isn't available in our local stores, therefore I can't say anything about it.

[Sleeprae]

I've burned about 170 Verbatim DataLifePlus SuperAZO discs on my Teac W540E without a single problem. The discs were 32x rated, and I burn them at 32. The few 40x Verbatims I have also worked fine. I haven't gotten any of the new DL+ 48x CDs to try, but I can only imagine that they work fine as well.

[svetlyo]

Thank you very much for the interest and replies, guys.
I'm very pleased with your answers.
But I still have very few more questions to make my point on Teac clearer.
Please tell me what's the importance of a larger buffer (8MB in W540E and only 2MB in W548E). According to the importance of the buffer size which of the above models is better?
On which IDE channel and what kind of drive (primary/secondary master/slave) should the CDRW be?
Can you define me the difference between the W540E and W548E chipsets? W540E has SANYO chipset and W548E is with MediaTek.
Please read them and help me with your answers
Thank you!

[Ian]

Can you define me the difference between the W540E and W548E chipsets? W540E has SANYO chipset and W548E is with MediaTek.

I think you answered your own question right there.

[svetlyo]

You haven't understood me, Ian.
I ment "what is the difference between the two chipsets' qualities, which one is better and why"

P.S. Please, Han, answer my last questions from 23th!

[Han]

Please tell me what's the importance of a larger buffer (8MB in W540E and only 2MB in W548E). According to the importance of the buffer size which of the above models is better?

Before data is actually burnt, it's transfered to the writers buffer. The larger the buffer more data is waiting to be written from it. If there's a break in communication between the reader and writer, it takes more time to empty a large buffer, therefore there's either no need for buffer underrun prevention mechanism to turn on, or it kicks in less frequently.

On which IDE channel and what kind of drive (primary/secondary master/slave) should the CDRW be?

This greatly depends on the motherboard and compatibility between other devices. Usually CDRW is placed on Secondary Master.

Can you define me the difference between the W540E and W548E chipsets? W540E has SANYO chipset and W548E is with MediaTek.

I'm not familiar with MediaTek chipsets. Nowadays buffer underrun prevention technology is so perfected that it actually doesn't matter who's the manufacturer. If that counts, Plextor still prefers the real Sanyo's BURN-Proof.

[svetlyo]

Thank you very much for the answers, Han.
Earlier today I downloaded and printed the CDR-Info (cdr-info.com) Teac CD-W540E and CD-W548E reviews and nom I'm reading them. Well they actuallyare 33+27=60 pages for both reviews. Now I'm sure that they shall definitely help me choose which Teac CDRW model to buy. CD-W548E is in my city at the price of $85 to $91.
All that I need now is to read the reviws, drink a glass of COLD water and say "It shall be Teac CD-W54?E!" and that's all.
I'd like to thank everybody for the replies, answers and advices.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

P.S. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I'll inform you about my decision and how the CDRW is going.

[farookh]

These 2 drives r the same i have photos of both drives open and they are identical.

[Han]

Apparently thay are NOT exactly the same. Main differences between TEAC CD-W548E and ASUS CRW4816A are in tray, firmware and Teac's Fine Focus Control technology.

[DragON]

I test my new CD-W548E - at last it works.
I already think that maybe can to take down my hevyweight personal charges for this model.
But I can not undestand why when just making a simple change (I dont change any soft) of 548E with 516E the last (516E) work prety.
With same configuration and software the 548E makes errors "Coild not perform fixation" (not Buffer Underrun)... Why???
So when I change mu software with older (Nero 5.5.10.0 -> 5.5.9.9)
problem dissapear. Why???
If the problem is in NERO then my apologies to TEAC - but I still think that problem is in firmware.
P.S.: Svetlio- Sorry but I dont recieve your mail. Maybe I was erase with spam. Sorry. Contact with me trought ICQ 1337001 or at 088631936

[svetlyo]

DragON, I wrote my letter using my home e-mail. So I still have it Outlook Express. I think it's very hard to SMS it, while I'm not used to ICQ. Well, it will be better for you to send me your e-mail address in a letter to my e-mail: svetlyo@herzeleid.net
Thus it will be easier! Also I'd like to add that I'm living in Varna and if you are in the same city you can leave me a phone number whre to find you.
Earlier I asked on which IDE channel and what kind of drive (primary/secondary master/slave) should the Teac CDRW be.

This greatly depends on the motherboard and compatibility between other devices. Usually CDRW is placed on Secondary Master.

Han, my mother board says that its IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller chipset is Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller. According to this chipset where can I install Teac CD-W54?E and what changes to make in my hardware connection? I have Quantum HDD, Mobile Rack for HDD, Creative CD-ROM, and will have Teac CDRW. Which channels for which device to use? Can you help me?

[Han]

Primary Master: first bootable HDD (Quantum)
Primary Slave: second HDD (rack) or CD-ROM (Creative)
Secondary Master: CDRW (Teac) or CD-ROM (Creative) or HDD rack
Secondary Slave: CDRW (Teac) or CD-ROM (Creative) or HDD rack

See for yourself which combination works best. Personally, I'd put CD-ROM on Primary Slave, HDD rack in Secondary Master and CDRW on Secondary Slave.

[svetlyo]

Thank you for the suggested configuration, Han.
I didn't mention that my HDD Rack is always empty and I use only when have to go somewhwre with my small in GB "mobile" HDD. I keep the "mobile" HDD in a case in a safe plece far from any heat, electricity, magnetic power and so on... So the HDD rack the device I use least. Almost every day I put CD in the CD-ROM. So the greatest data transferr is between PC's HDD and CD-ROM because I don't intend to use the CDRW for reading disks - this dirthy job is for my over 4-years-old Creative. I want to locate PC's HDD and CD-ROM on different IDE chanells for fastert tansfer speed. My CD-ROM is considered as a 32x but it ripps AudoCD to VBR-old mp3 (using CDex) with less than 1x . Well actually today I found that DMA can be enabled from the IDE Channell's properties in WindowsXP Device Manager, not from CD-ROM properties. But my Creative also ripped mp3s in Audio Catalyst with speed less than 8x under Windows 98/98SE/ME. I wrote this all to tell you that I definitelly will make an image of an audio (or whatever) CD on HDD before I copy it. By the way I have no problems with reading data CDs with Creative (less than 3 to 5 mins to copy 74/80/90+ CDs on HDD this with CD-ROM and HDD on one and the same IDE cable). This means that I don't intend to use CDROM-CDRW transfer. CDRW will be the device that is going to perform DAE because the newest CDRW are so perfect readers (not like my old Creative). I haven't encoutered serious problems with my CD-ROM but it's said that "Teac reads everything", so I prefer to give CDRW better IDE place than to CD-ROM.
Thus I suggest my configuration will be:
IDE1:
Primary Master: local Quantum HDD
Primary Slave: mobile HDD rack
IDE2:
Secondary Master: Teac CDRW
Secondary Slave: Creative CD-ROM
Tell me, Han, what do you think of that configuration.
Thank you

[Han]

According to your hardware and needs, that would be the best configuration.

[svetlyo]

Well, guys, I started my membership telling you that I will buy a Teac CDRW. Now my dreams are gone. My parents, who were supposed to give me 1/2 of the money, told me that tommorow are buying six heaters for our new, quite large for Bulgaria home. The new apliances account for about Euro 1,000. Well it a great amount of money so my Teac will remain for the summer. Also this summer I graduate High School and am going to apply for university. I deffinitely have very much to study and my PC is on the background . I think that leaving CDRW for the summer is the best idea. There are a few points of this:
1. The Media Tec chipset debut - Teac as a CDRW prodicer ha sno experience with Media Tec chipsets and many bugs in the CDRW may occur. For sure later Media Tec chipset based versins of Teac CDRW will be faster, safer, more reliable and with improved Media Tec chipset.
2. The CDR-Info (cdr-info.com) Teac CD-W548E review that I read says that CD-W548E is faster but less reliable than CD-W540E. In brief CD-W548E is not as good as 48x/16x/48x drives from Plextor, Asus, Sony, Lite On.
3. Having a CDRW I shall want to spend my time in front of the computer insted over the books
I hope that future Teac CDRW models wil be at the top,in front of its competitors. And I pray for Teac CD-W552E to continue the Teac CD-W540E legend (CD-W540E got so many awards and everywrere I could find only superlatives about it).
I wish DragON much of luck with his Teac
Han, about the IDE connection - I'll use my supposed one for my future PC configuration
I'd like to thank everybody for the replies, answers and advices. They helped me a lot. And surely the future ones will be more and more interesting...
That's all from me for now. Thank you and goodbye everyone.
HAPPY NEW YEAR in dvance!
P.S.: That doestn't mean that I quit forum forever. I'll drop here from time to time, just to see how is it going... Bye

[Scour]

Hello!

A little question: Is the tray fast, when you open/close it?