Pioneer dvd-106s vs. Toshiba sd-m1612

[sodascope]

Ok, one of these drives will be making me happy in a couple weeks and I have some final questions for you guys:
1. Does the slot-loading bay accept mini-cds?
2. The pioneer has no emergency eject hole. Is this normal for slot-loading drives or am I supposed to assume that the drive will always eject the cd?
3. I am a sucker for speed but also for quietness. Does the UDMA/66 & higher level of noise of the Pioneer outweigh the UDMA/33 & silence of the Toshiba?
4. I've read that the Toshiba has some digital audio extraction issues. Is this true and does it occur frequently?

Thanks for the help

[cfitz]

3. 16x DVD transfer rate = 21.6 MBytes/sec, so other than extra headroom, UDMA-66 doesn't buy you anything. I say go for quiet over speed.

I'll have to leave the other questions for people with actual experience using the Pioneer or Toshiba drives.

cfitz

[BuddhaTB]

I have the Pioneer 105S and here's my experiences:

1. I don't think the Pioneer slot loading drives were made to accept the mini-cd's. However, I have heard of people saying that mini-cd's do work in the drives, you just have to place them into the slot in a special way. I have never tried it for the fear of getting one of those mini-cd's stuck or jammed in my slot loading drive.

2. This is normal for slot loading drives not to have an emergency eject hole. I have owned my slot loading Pioneer drive for over 3 years now with no problems of having cd's/dvd's not eject. Just look at car cd players who use the slot loading design and they too don't have an emergency eject hole. The emergency eject hole is only used to open the tray when it is equiped on tray loading drives.

[Han]

I'd suggest the newest Toshiba SD-M1712, because it handles unbalanced and heavy discs better - with less noise.

Regarding digital audio extraction: the only issue is that sometimes, when you compare two consequtive extractions of the same track, there are differences in a few bits. If you then listen very carefully to those tracks, you won't hear any difference. Furthermore, CDDA accuracy depends also on the extracting program...

[Derek]

I have the 106S. It's a good drive. The loudness is a little hyped IMO. It's not all that bad.

As BuddhaTB said, the slot drives have no eject hole. Mine has worked like a top for a year now. I have no expirences with mini cds. I would guess they don't work, but I'm honestly not sure.

Derek