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Lite-On 40/12/48X CD-RW
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Posted by Robin
Posted on 23/06/02 16:00
Number of views 10844
Menu
 Conclusion
 Introduction
 Package content
 The specifications
 Data reading tests
 Music reading tests
 Reading scratched discs
 Writing tests
 Write Quality
 Backing up protected data discs
 CD-ReWriting Performance
 Special CD-R disc tests
 General & Conclusion
Text Size  Text Size
Introduction
 

Review: Lite-On LTR-40125S
Speed: 40/12/48X CD-RW
Reviewer: OC-Freak
Provided by: Lite-On
Firmware: ZS0A and ZS0J

Lite-On IT, one of the worlds largest manufacturers of optical drives was kind enough to send us the Lite-On LTR-40125S 40/12/48X CD-RW drive for review.

About Lite-On IT:

In 1995 Lite-On gathered some elite scientists and engineers from ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) to start an optical storage research and manufacturing business in Taiwan. Currently they have over 130 engineers with Master & Ph. D. degrees in their Research & Development team, that are dedicated to the development of their patented anti-vibration mechanical design, advanced circuit design, firmware programming & performance tuning. The Research & Development team achievement is a key factor that has ensured their success in product development.

In 1997, Lite-On established a large manufacturing facility in China enabling them to provide optimum OEM/ODM support to all 1st-Tier PC makers, which further demonstrated their success in the worldwide Optical drive market. Today, they are among top-3 optical drive manufacturer worldwide, mostly due to attractive pricing and quality filled products, along with large OEM contracts. They have also received top brand name recognition in many regions. These achievements, plus superb management visions and planning, enabled them to continue their growth and profit even at times when the optical drive market experienced "price-wars" and many optical drive manufacturers were forced out.

In 1999, they created LITE-ON Information Technology Corporation, another proud member of the Lite-On Group, to concentrate on developing and manufacturing optical drives to stay strong in the storage business. They are going to carry on the tradition of developing optical drives to expand their research and manufacturing capacity to new generations of products such as DVD drives, High speed CD-RW drives and COMBO drives to stay strong in both the retail and OEM/ODM market.

At 9th July 2001 Lite-On IT signed a co-operation contract with JVC, a famous Japanese electrical company, to be in alliance with each other. Two new companies were established. One is the optical drives manufacturing sales company, named as JVC LITE-ON IT Manufacturing & Sales, Limited (JLMS), the other is pick-up head developing & manufacturing company.

JVC is a pioneer in development of key components of optical drives and consumer electronics as well. Lite-On IT is excellent in volume manufacturing and developing, also skilled in IT industry. That kind of strategic alliance would benefit both companies.

What will we do?

In this review we will use both firmware version ZS0A and version ZS0J which adds Mount rainer support and P-CAV (Partial - Constant Angular Velocity) write technology. We will focus on the difference between these two versions, what the benefits with each version are and what the drawbacks are. We will also see how good the drive is compared to other drives, including the TEAC CD-W540E that we reviewed here. We will try the drive in several programs with different tasks to really show how well the drive performs. The drive has a rated write speed of 40X, a rewrite speed of 12X and a read speed of 48X. And to make this even better we have added some test results from an LTR-48125W which is just a LTR-40125S which we overclocked by flashing it with a binary firmware from a real LTR-48125W. This drive is rated at 48X Writing 12X rewriting and 48X reading, we will test the drive with firmware version VS02.

Our review computer:

Hardware:

  • Mainboard: Microstar K7T Turbo-R Limited Edition VIA KT133A
  • CPU: AMD Athlon 1,4GHz
  • Memory: 512Mb PC133
  • Harddisk: 2 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80Gb 7200rpm ATA100 harddisks at a Promise fasttrack 100 IDE controller
  • USB Controller: NEC USB 2.0 Controller
System set-up:


DMA (Direct Memory Access) and Autorun was enabled for all devices, and all devices have the newest firmware currently available. The drive was connected as Primary master and identified itself as LITE-ON LTR-40125S. The reason why there is so many secondary IDE channels is that we had a second IDE controller in our test computer that also used the standard Windows XP driver.

Software:
  • Operating Sytem: Windows XP Professional English with all updates from windowsupdate installed.
  • VIA 4in1 driver: Version 4.39 beta
  • ASPI Layer: Adaptec ASPI layer version 4.71
Used Software:

For the tests we will be using the following software:

  • Ahead Nero Burning ROM version 5.5.8.2
  • Ahead InCD version 3.31
  • Ahead Nero InfoTool version 1.01
  • Ahead Nero CD-Speed version 0.85e beta
  • Elaborate bytes CloneCD version 4.0.1.3
  • Exact Audio Copy version 0.9 beta 4
  • G&M CDR Identifier v1.63
  • An Chen Computers CD-Mate version 2.2.5.30
  • Feurio 1.65
Let us take a look at what the package we got contained…
Conclusion
Package content
Want to submit your own review? Click here
Posted by MP|3 on Thursday 27 June 2002 03:10
Complete review uploaded! Have fun with this great review :p
Posted by OC-Freak on Thursday 27 June 2002 21:52
PLEASE comment this review. Over 5000 views and no comments?

Both positive and negative comments wanted. Quetions welcomed as well.
Posted by on Friday 28 June 2002 06:34
Great review, already own the drive, wanted to see where you had it rated. Speed is great, even though I think its not as loud as listed, but other than that and its boring looks, this drive rocks! Good tests, indepth and professional, keep up the good work!
Mike
Posted by ExSport on Saturday 29 June 2002 01:59
Very good review. But I don't understand why Lite-on has only 9.5 and Teac 10. In 90% of tests Liteon was the best and TEAC was second. LITEON has best price,speed,game backup,and so on).I think it's minimally the same as TEAC, maybe better. I have LITE-ON, I know what I say.
Posted by on Saturday 29 June 2002 21:42
If you want more comments how about fixing the pull down menu code so it works in netscape6/mozilla/opera so people can create a login, or better still allow anonymous posting.

Great review, very thorough.

I must stress that the drive is ugly looking and the loader try is very loud and cheap feeling. I prefer the LG 40X over the Lite-On 40x because of this although technically they both perform well.
Posted by Fish3669 on Saturday 29 June 2002 22:09
I thought the review covered the drive very well, as do the other reviews here. I already have this drive and I like it :7
Posted by cj2304 on Sunday 07 July 2002 12:09
Good, indepth & informative review. Well done! I have this drive myself and can't fault it.
Posted by on Friday 12 July 2002 19:59
Fantastic review. I will have to read your reviews about other drives as well. I like the speed and performance of this drive, but there was one aspect which seemed unclear. These discs that are written with SmartBurn, shouldn't they be completely free of all bad sectors or damaged sectors? I can understand that some CD-R's are crap, but I would think that the Smart-Burn would be able to lower the speed to the point where one could expect 100% perfect burns. I have an old Plextor 8X, and am looking to upgrade, these fast burners are great, but what I still want is 100% perfect recording, even if the drive drops to 24X writing, I would expect that if the media is good enough (certified 24X), it would always write perfectly.

I want to check the rest of your reviews to see which drive writes perfectly every single time, whenever it's "active-media detection" technology is engaged.
Posted by on Friday 19 July 2002 21:25
Great review. I went right out and bought one. What is the difference between thew S and W models? Do you lose anything?
Posted by on Monday 29 July 2002 04:15
Australian PC User has reviewed the 40125W the "best buy". They found it both cheap and reliable. I checked with the elby CloneCD 4 web site (http://elby.ch/english/products/clone_cd/writers/l.html#liteon) and it says it supports DAO96.

So there you go. Looks like this will be the first CD-burner for this newbie. :4
Posted by on Sunday 04 August 2002 13:26
Great review. I was trying to decide whether to get the Asus 4816A or the Lite-On 40125S after my Acer 4x4x32 finally died :4. Thanks for making my mind up :) I'm going to buy the Lite-On this week.
Posted by MythosGR on Tuesday 03 September 2002 13:55
Great review as always. But I had the teac in my mind till now and Im more confused cause of the score you gave both!
Posted by on Friday 06 September 2002 04:49
first thang first...CD Freaks!? mega indepth and wicked review you've got here! LTR-40125S IS THE KING!!! it's a supurb burning machine! i bought the drive five days before reading the review, mainly cuz a friend told me that it can be overclocked. on the first day i got it, i burned more than 20 perfect cds consecutively. i very much enjoy it's lightning speed. i believe that your review should give it 9.9 (cuz nothing is perfect in the world) for the time being as there will be more great drives in the near future, and teac should only get 9 outta 10. i'm not being bias or anything..as i have never used teac before, but the review clearly speaks for itself, that the performance of liteon surpassed teac. the best part is flashable firmware enabling anyone to overclock it and still running rock solid. sometimes, overclocking isn't all that bad cuz it can show what a hardward is capable of. for me the strongest factor which makes liteon superior to other brands is "value of money". it's not the cheapest rw in town, but it surely has one of the lowest caparable price on today's market. especially when overclocked it will make 40125S the cheapest 48X drive available..so worthy you can even buy a spare in case you wreck the first one. the noise the tray makes and the plainess and dullness of the front to me are bearable. i simply just luv everything about my 40125S. LITEON RULES MAN!!!
Posted by on Wednesday 30 October 2002 09:34
gr8 review. made me buy the Liteon.
Please explain on the possiblity to use a x48 firmware on this machine.
although not legal/voids warranty / with risks, is it simple to do? possible?
Any elaboration is welcomed. Thanks.
Posted by theunbeatable on Friday 06 December 2002 23:31
For better support on copy-protected cd's you could use the newest firmware ZS0P. So makes that a 10 out of 10 ;)
Posted by megod on Tuesday 10 December 2002 06:32
Just did a Quick test burning a Simulated 699mb file 588 solid Win RAR File & a 111mb Video file on a 16x Certified Go Tech "Cheap shit media",
LTR-48125w Safeburn off 48x "2.43min"
LTR-48125w Safeburn on 40x "3.09min"
Yamaha CRW3200e Write speed Off 24x "3.52min"
Yamaha CRW3200e Write speed On 24x "3.53min"
I must say I am Impressed with the LiteOn.
Cheers
megod:9

Posted by on Friday 21 February 2003 23:25
I've got this LTR-48125S. Whenever overburning is involved, any speed higher than 16x will be successful, but Scandisc shows Unreadable sectors! How could the reviewer managed to get a fully readable burn on a 99min CDR with 48X?!?! This drive must be something!

Besides, my drive shows success on overburning test using this CD Speed, even @ 99min using an 80min CD-R
Brand: Arita
Manuf: RiTEK
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