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The specifications of the LG GSA-4166B state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 48x and CD-RW at 32x. Let's find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 776Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. The writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once) and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with 'finalize disc' enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (48x):

The drive took 2 minutes and 34 seconds to write the disc at 48x. Let's see how this compares to some other drives:

• Pioneer DVR-110D used 3 minutes and 34 seconds at 40x
• NU DHW-164 used 3 minutes and 12 seconds at 40x
• Philips DVDR16LS used 3 minutes and 26 seconds at 40x
• Samsung TS-E552U used 2 minutes and 52 seconds at 40x
• LG GSA-4163B used 3 minutes and 15 seconds at 40x
• Philips DVDR1640P used 3 minutes and 17 seconds at 40x
• NU DDW-082 used 3 minutes and 2 seconds at 40x
• Samsung TS-H552B used exactly 3 minutes at 40x         
• Plextor PX-708A used 2 minutes and 58 seconds at 40x

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from seven different CD-R manufacturers. To measure the write speed, we used the 'Create Data Disc' function in Nero CD-DVD Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used KProbe 2 which is a tool developed by a Lite-On employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On LTR-52246S drive with firmware 6S0F and scanned the discs at MAX speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors. C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive's error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive's error correction capabilities, they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 averages for good quality discs. After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Below are the obtained results:

The GSA-4166B handles this RiTEK CD-R with an excellent result.

Taiyo Yuden media, this has been written better by other drives but is still a very good burn.

This is a nice result even if the drive indicates support for this media at 48x but decides to write at only 40x.

A very nice result with this Prodisc media. A good choice of media for this drive.

An excellent result with this inexpensive store brand CMC media. You can't go wrong with these!

Again, another excellent result. This would be a good media choice for this drive.

Wow! This drive loves these Verbatim/Mitsubishi media. We can certainly give these the highest recommendation.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

Due to requests from our readers, we will add a few write quality tests with re-writable media. Settings and testing procedures are the same as we used earlier in this review, so you may want to go back and read them if you are unsure. All discs used for these tests have been written to before, but none have been written to more than 5 times and were 'full formatted' before writing.

CD-ReWritable media:

This 4x-12x rated media was supported by the drive at only 10x. A very nice burn nonetheless.

The C1 errors are very high in the first zone and plentiful throughout. I have included a transfer test to show the read back is perfect nonetheless. The next firmware could use a bit of tweaking for this 32x CD-RW media.

Summary:
The CD-R writing quality ranges from very good to excellent. The CD-RW writing quality is not great on the selected media but the read back produced a smooth curve.

So let's head on to the next page and read about DVD-Writing performance…