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Posted by Robin
Posted on 23/06/02 16:00
Number of views 10986
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
Music reading tests
 

Music reading tests

The programs we use for testing is Nero CD-Speed and Exact audio Copy.

Nero CD-Speed:

The test disc we used was an original audio disc with a length of 77 minutes and 56 seconds. Here is the graph that CD-speed gave us:



The green line indicates the read speed.
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) that the disc have.


We noticed that the start speed was always 20X. This is due to the SMART-X technology which makes the drive operate at slow speeds when playing discs and high speed when the computer demands data at a higher speed. Therefore it uses some seconds to spin up to full speed. But the drive hit 49X at the end of the disc and that is a very good result. The DAE quality was perfect and the seek times was also quite good. The result was the same with both firmware ZS0A and ZS0J. But let us compare this result with other drives:



The drive did well as a reader for reading music discs. To bad that we did not have any test results from faster drives available to compare it with.

We did also test with a copy of the same audio disc but the result was identical, so there is no need to include screenshots since they shows the same speed and seek times as when using the original disc.

Nero CD-Speed advanced DAE test:

For this test we used a CD-R disc created with the Lite-On LXR-24101A CD-Writer, the disc we used was Kodak Gold 74 min 8X certified, the disc was created at 8X. We picked the Kodak gold disc since it's known for it's outstanding quality, the Kodak gold discs is not produced anymore but thankfully we was able to get a few more from a very kind person. You know who you are, and if you are reading this we can't say more than thank you very much, we really appreciate your help and support. Here is the manufacturer information from the disc:

  • ATIP: 97m 27s 45f
  • Disc Manufacturer: Kodak Japan Ltd.
  • Reflective layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine)
  • Media type: CD-Recordable
  • Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
  • Nominal Capacity: 650.83MB (74m 05s 01f / LBA: 333226)
Here is the shot from Nero CD-Speed:



Nothing to complain about Both firmware ZS0A and ZS0J performed the same again. But let us compare the result with other drives:



All drives got a quality score of 100.0

As we could se it was the fastest of the drives tested, but it was the only drive that was rated to 48X DAE reading. The TEAC which is only rated for 40X reading came pretty close, we suspect this to be due to the slow start speed because of SMART-X. If the drive had started at full speed we may have seen speeds closer to 36-37X.

Exact Audio Copy tests:

Let us first take a look at what the drive supports:

The supported 'Caching' feature isn't really a 'good' thing while the supported 'C2 Error Info' feature is a 'good' thing. Below some more information on these terms:


  • 'Caching':
    If your drive caches the audio that was just read, it would be a problem to read this data again in order to compare both extractions to find out if they match.
  • 'Accurate Stream':
    This means the drive won't jitter, thus no jitter correction has to be done anymore.
  • 'C2 Error Info':
    Some newer drives are able to return C2 error information beside the actual audio data. In that case EAC doesn't need to read all data twice anymore, which will result in a big speedup.
Digital Audio Extraction:

For the Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) tests we started Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and simply extracted the files in uncompressed WAV format to our harddisk. The disc had 25 tracks and a total playing time of 77 minutes and 56 seconds. We used both the 'Burst' mode and the 'Secure' mode:

  • 'Burst Mode':
    Burst mode is the fastest mode available. The audio sectors are just read without any error-detection and error-correction.
  • 'Secure Mode':
    The extracted audio is checked for correctness and if errors occur, EAC will try to recover them.


Burst mode



Secure mode


Seems good but let us now compare the result with other drives:




Well, it's the only drive rated for 48X DAE reading so it's no surprise that it outperforms the other drives.

Music reading tests summary:

The drive is extremely fast at reading audio discs. And what's better is that the drive extracts audio with extremely good quality at this high speed as well. Simply outperformed the other drives, but they are only rated for 40X DAE. A very tiny negative point is that it needs a few seconds to spin up when starting to read and this gives a bit lower startspeed than some other drives, but when it have spun up it's really fast. Still there was no performance or quality difference between firmware ZS0A and ZS0J. And also when overclocked to a LTR-48125W it performed the same so we did not include any pictures of the performance of this drive.

Let us continue from these good results onto reading of scratched discs at the next page…
Data reading tests
Reading scratched discs
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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