detail information

As mentioned before the Plextor PX-W4824A can write discs at an amazingly high speed of 48X max using the Full-CAV method. What does this mean in real terms? Can the Plextor drive keep up with the fastest CAV writer available today, the Lite-On LTR-48125S? To test the write speeds of this latest Plextor drive we set-up a basic write process using the latest Nero Burning Rom version 5.5.9.9. We used the DAO (Disc At Once) method for writing the disc. The disc was finalized and set-up as a non-multisession disc. In the screenshot below you can see the burn process completed successfully

The disc was written without problems in only 2 minutes and 49 seconds. On the next page of our Plextor PX-W4824A review we'll do some quality tests with media burned using the Plextor drive.

Comparing:

Next we did some more tests comparing the Plextor drive to some of our previous reviews. As a comparison we've added write times of both Z-CLV and P-CAV writers:

When you look at the table you can see that with lower write speeds the Plextor PX-W4824A has the longest write times. This is probably due to the Plextor determining the best write strategy. When the write speed is increased the differences become less and the Plextor is faster than some of the other drives we've reviewed. The Lite-On LTR-48125S is still by far the fastest writer we've seen and the Plextor PX-W4824A can hardly keep up.

DAO-RAW Writing:

If you own or perhaps checked out our Plextor forum you will probably have noticed that the Plextor PX-W4012A drive was limited to 24X recording when writing audio and when writing in DAO-RAW mode (using CloneCD for instance). We of course checked if the PX-W4824A was also limited to 24X recording in DAO-RAW but luckily it isn't as you can see from the CloneCD screenshot below:

Now let's check if audio can now also be written at full speed...

Writing Audio:

The next thing we're going to check is the Plextor PX-W4824A's audio writing abilities. As already mentioned on page 3 (features) of our review, this Plextor drive supports the 'VariRec' recording technique. VariRec allows you to change the laser power when writing audio at 4x (in TAO or DAO mode) and with it you should be able to improve the quality of the recorded disc and make it more compatible with picky CD-players like a car stereo.

To test the Plextor's VariRec feature we ripped the tracks (in WAV format) of an audio disc with Exact Audio Copy (Secure Mode) and then started a new audio session in Nero Burning Rom version 5.5.9.9. When writing audio you can see an option to enable the VariRec settings:

When pressing the VariRec button you get the following screen where you can set the VariRec options:

As you can see from the screenshot, the recording speed is limited to 4X when writing in the VariRec mode. We did our first test with the default setting (0) which is recommended. We then wrote another audio disc using some 'ordinary' Maxell 40X CD-Recordables at maximum speed. Below you can see the screenshots of the Plextor PX-W4824A writing in the VariRec mode and the normal mode:

VariRec recording

Normal audio recording

We then listened to both copies and tried them both in a car stereo (Sony CDX-L400X). Both discs played fine and we couldn't hear any difference in quality. The same results as we got with Yamaha's 'Audio Master Quality Recording' mode and previous tests done with VariRec. As you can also see from the second screenshot the Plextor PX-W4824A drive can write audio at full speed.

Conclusion:

So what can we conclude from all of the achieved results? Well the Plextor PX-W4824A drive is not the fastest writer around but also not the slowest. It's a few seconds faster than the Plextor PX-W4012TU drive for example but it cannot keep up with the Lite-On LTR-48125S... But then again, there are not many writers that can.

Compared to Plextor's previous writer model, the PX-W4012A, there have been some improvements. The PX-W4824A is no longer limited to 24X recording when writing in DAO-RAW mode and when writing audio. Speaking of audio this latest Plextor drive offers the same 'VariRec' technology as found on previous Plextor recorders. We, just like with Yamaha's 'Audio Master Quality Recording' mode and as we experienced with previous VariRec tests, couldn't tell the difference between a normal audio write and a write with VariRec enabled. All disc sounded just fine and played fine in our stereo and car stereo.

Now that we've finished our normal read and write tests, it's time to check the Plextor PX-W4824A's write quality...