Reason for Sale of Lite-On 52246S at Newegg?

by **TheMatt** on Fri Apr 04, 2003 4:13 pm

Folks, I am thinking of getting a new CD-RW drive for my home box (currently running a smooth 4x4x16) and as I had success with Lite-On's 52x24x52 at work, I thought I'd get it for home.

But, looking at Newegg, I see it's on sale for $48! Is there a reason for this? Is Lite-On coming out with a new drive real soon, or is it just a sale? If it is a new drive, is it a big enough difference to make me wait (i.e., a 56x32x56, say)?

Thanks for any opinion.

by **cfitz** on Fri Apr 04, 2003 4:27 pm

The 52x32x52 LTR-52327S is supposed to be arriving soon:

http://www.liteonit.com/english/english ... asp?show=3

Is it worth the wait? Hard to say. The most obvious improvement would be the increase in rewriting from 24x to 32x. The current incarnation of their top drive, the LTR-52246S, uses CAV for rewriting, yielding a rather sorry average of at most around 18x, and often even less. Your typical 16x CLV rewriter is faster in many cases. Boosting to 32x should improve this, but where are we going to get 32x CD-RW media? I've still seen no hint of it. And there still isn't much selection of 24x CD-RW media. So it might not be that useful. Also, you have to ask yourself how much rewriting you will actually do. Some people do a lot, some not at all.

Anything beyond that is still in the realm of speculation. But the current drive is quite good in all other respects, so I wouldn't count on any breakthrough in the new drive.

cfitz

by **eliminator** on Fri Apr 04, 2003 6:53 pm

No worries - the drive Verbatim box) is constantly on sale for $19/$29 @ Fry's (incl mir)! :wink:

by **CDRecorder** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 4:51 am

cfitz wrote:Is it worth the wait? Hard to say.

I'm waiting for the 52x32x52x before I buy a new drive! At the moment, my fastest drive is a 32x12x40, but it is a big improvement over the 12x10x32 I had in my main computer before.

by **rdgrimes** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 12:01 pm

Your typical 16x CLV rewriter is faster

I would add to this: in my experience, the CAV strategy produces measurable lower error rates compared to CLV on the 24x media. I can't say if this because the 52246S is "optimized" for CAV performance, or if the strategy itself is better.

by **cfitz** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 12:07 pm

rdgrimes wrote:I would add to this: in my experience, the CAV strategy produces measurable lower error rates compared to CLV on the 24x media. I can't say if this because the 52246S is "optimized" for CAV performance, or if the strategy itself is better.

24x CAV is better than the 16x CLV mode on the same drive? If that is the case then they must have made a mistake implementing the 16x CLV strategy. By all rights 16x CLV ought to be as good or better than 24x CAV for burn quality.

cfitz

by **rdgrimes** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 12:15 pm

I have no explanation for it, but it's consistant. Here's my posted test:
http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showthread.ph ... adid=60316
Perhaps they optimied for CAV in anticipation of the 32x speed?
Note that further down in the thread, the Infodisc 24x media does the same thing.

(I have not repeated the test with newer firmware)

by **cfitz** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 12:18 pm

I believe you, rdgrimes. I know you are thorough.

I just don't understand why.

cfitz

by **CDRecorder** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 1:10 pm

I think that the 24x CAV would make better quality burns because most drives appear to be optimized for higher speeds. I have tested my PCRW1208, my LTR-12101B, and, I think, my LTR-32123S, and they all make less C1 errors when burning at their maximum speed (using good discs) than they do at lower speeds (using the same discs).

by **Ian** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 1:14 pm

Supposedly CAV is better for packet writing because the drive spins at a constant speed. If you're trying to modify data at different parts of the disc, the drive has to continually change speeds to do so, making it take longer.

by **MediumRare** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 1:18 pm

rdgrimes wrote:
Your typical 16x CLV rewriter is faster

I would add to this: in my experience, the CAV strategy produces measurable lower error rates compared to CLV on the 24x media. I can't say if this because the 52246S is "optimized" for CAV performance, or if the strategy itself is better.

rdgrimes wrote:I have no explanation for it, but it's consistant. Here's my posted test:
http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showthread.ph ... adid=60316
Perhaps they optimied for CAV in anticipation of the 32x speed?
Note that further down in the thread, the Infodisc 24x media does the same thing.

(I have not repeated the test with newer firmware)

Hi rdgrimes,
I appreciate your input to this forum and have an occasional look at CDFreaks as well.

I've done some test with the Verbatim Ultraspeeds (both 650 and 700MiB- they react essentially the same) and I cannot confirm your statement about CAV/CLV. Please have alook at this post: http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=59251#59251. My conclusion there is that 20x CLV would probably be best for this media on the LiteOn LTR48246S.

Firmware does make a difference too. I tried some NanYa 12x RWs (sold by Intenso) and the upgrade to SS0B made a big difference (see http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=54308#54308). Your experience with NanYa was not good, but these disks are excellent at 12x with the newer firmware.

G

by **rdgrimes** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 4:26 pm

I got curious, and ran some new tests with the 6S0D firmware. The difference is obvious. Here's the test:
http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showthread.ph ... post409889

It appears on the surface that error rates are improved at both speeds, but the Kprobe utility is returning lower rates in general. What's most interesting is that the curves are now the same, where they were very different before. Same drive, different firmware.

I see I've graduated to "thug". Or is this a demotion?

by **cfitz** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 4:34 pm

rdgrimes wrote:It appears on the surface that error rates are improved at both speeds, but the Kprobe utility is returning lower rates in general. What's most interesting is that the curves are now the same, where they were very different before. Same drive, different firmware.

Your new findings tend to support my earlier speculation that they made a mistake in implementing the 16x CLV strategy (in the older firmware). The test results you are showing now make more sense to me.

rdgrimes wrote:I see I've graduated to "thug". Or is this a demotion?

Personally, I considered it to be a promotion when I made thug. It was a nice change from real life, where no one would confuse me with a real thug. :wink:

cfitz

by **rdgrimes** on Sat Apr 05, 2003 4:43 pm

With 6S0D, I see lower error-rates in general, mostly lower error rates than manufactured discs. This is an awesome drive, Plextor got nothing on this! I'm never sure if the improvements from one F/W to the next are due to better reading or better writing, (probably both). It wasn't very long ago that we were pretty happy with max C1 rates that were around 100-200, now I see max rates under 20, and often under 10.

Reason for Sale of Lite-On 52246S at Newegg?

Reason for Sale of Lite-On 52246S at Newegg?

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