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The specifications of the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 48x and CD-RW at 32x. Let us 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 701Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. 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. (40x):

The drive used 3 minutes and 3 seconds to write the disc at 48x. Let us see how this compares to other drives:

• 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 be testing discs from 7 different CD-R manufactures/brands. 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 K-Probe 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-52327S drive with firmware QS0E 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:

Sony media - C1 is good, no C2 errors. Media only supported at 32x.

RiDATA media - The write quality here is very good until the end of this disc, this is however media batch related and not indicative of the write quality.

FujiFilm media - manufactured by Taiyo Yuden Company Limited. We would have expected a little better write quality on this media but it is far from bad. Media only supported at 32x.

FujiFilm media - manufactured by Prodisc Technology Inc. The C1 counts are very low. Excellent burn!

Memorex media - manufactured by CMC Magnetics Corporation. The rising C1 errors at the edge of the disc is starting to seem indicative of Ritek media on this drive, however this one also produced 2 C2 errors.

OfficeMax media - manufactured by Moser Baer India Limited. Another very nice burn! Good media for this drive.

Esa - cheap store brand manufactured by CMC Magnetics Corporation. This is not a good burn on this inexpensive media. Repeated burns produced the same results. This media has performed well with other drives.

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 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 are new and have not been written to before.

CD-ReWritable media:

Oh, the horror! This is a disgusting result on this Memorex/InfoDisc 24x Ultra Speed CD-RW media.

Same type of problems for this High Speed CD-RW from Maxell. Extremely high C1 error count with the dreaded appearance of C2 errors. Not good!

Verbatim Ultra High Speed 32x CD-RW media - This is disastrous!

Summary:
Overall the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X's CD-R writing quality should be considered as very good. There are some exceptions but this may be due to media batch quality. The writing quality on the tested CD-RW media is just not good at all. Improvements need immediate attention.

So let us head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance…