Reading Performance:

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD's, including audio discs.

Pressed CD-ROM:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 75 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V reached 51.52x speed and with larger discs it would easily go beyond 52x. Let us now compare the result in the table below with some other CD-RW drives:

As we can see above, the Lite-On SOHR-5239V was one of the fastest drives, only the seek times where relative high.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The media used was a Verbatim printable 52x CD-R.

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V performed extremely well on CD-Rs.

CD-Recordable Full Disc:

This time we created a full 80 minute disc using Nero CD-Speed's 'create data disc" function and read back the resulting disc. The media for this test was again a 52x rated, Verbatim CD-R printable.

From the results above we can see that the Lite-On SOHR-5239V is a very fast reader. With an average reading speed of 40.15x, the drive was able to read the whole disc in excellent 2 minutes and 3 seconds.

CD-Rewritable Discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (32X) CD-RW disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V performed average with reading CD-RW discs, the seek times are once more not good.

Audio - Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Lite-On SOHR-5239V, again we used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used was 74 minutes 45 seconds in length.

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V performed very well on our Audio-CD read test. If the disc would have been longer, the drive would have reached 52x with ease.

For our final read test we used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According to EAC the Lite-On SOHR-5239S supports Caching. This feature can cause some problems when extracting Audio from an Audio CD.

Below are the results produced by EAC:

Burst Mode

Secure Mode

The drive performed extremely well in Burst Mode but it was slow in secure mode.

Advanced Audio - DAE Quality Test:

To conclude our reading tests, we will take one last audio test, and this time we will use the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test" feature in CD-Speed. For this test we used a JVC CD-R DA media.

The digital audio extracting quality is excellent and the drive is reported to support all advanced features.

Overall Thoughts:

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V is an excellent reader; it passed all the reading tests with excellent results and proved to be a fast and reliable reader. Just the seek times could be better.

Now it's time to head on to a more interesting part: Writing CD-R and CD-RW discs…

Features

CD-R Writing Performance