For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media.  As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• DVD-ROM : 8X
• CD-R/ROM : 24X

Pressed discs:

For this test we used an original pressed CD-ROM disc containing about 73 minutes in length.

The Sony DRX-S50U reached 24.20x.

CD-Recordable Discs:

The Sony DRX-S50U reached a read speed of 25.76X.

CD Re-writable discs:

With this media the Sony DRX-S50U reached a speed of 25.53X.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Sony DRX-S50U, again we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is about 66 minutes in length.

Here the Sony DRX-S50U reached 24.33X speed.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

For this test we used the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in Nero CD-DVD Speed. The CD-R media we used is a 40x certified Memorex Music CD-R made by Ritek. (Thanks to Memorex USA for sending us this media.)

The extracting should support on-the-fly copying upto 10X speed, however it can not read data from the Lead-in and Lead-out.  We also noted that the quality was less than 100% with a Quality Score of 75%.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 8X.

DVD – DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and Double Layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD-Video Single Layer

DVD-Video Double Layer

The Sony DRX-S50U read both our Single and Double Layer discs at 4X which is just about average for slim-line drives.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The Sony DRX-S50U read both media at 8X.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

Here again, the Sony DRX-S50U reads the dash media at 8X.

DVD – DVD±R DL:

DVD+R DL

DVD-R DL

The Sony DRX-S50U read our Double Layer test media at 6X speed.

DVD-RAM:

The Sony DRX-S50U read our DVD-RAM disc at 5x using a Z-CLV reading method.

Summary:

The Sony DRX-S50U performs extremely well for a slim-line drive and proved to be a reliable reader.

Now let’s head over to the next page where we will test CD-R/RW writing performance……

Features

CD-R/RW Writing performance