detail information

Positive:

• Good software package
• Two year warranty
• Extremely high write speeds of almost 54x
• 'Write Proof' technology to prevent buffer underruns
• Digital Audio Extraction can be done at full speed
• Excellent performance with copy-protected data
• Low CPU (processor) usage
• Supports overburning up to 99 minutes
• Supports Mount Rainier format
• Supports DAO-RAW writing
• Supports reading and writing of 8cm discs
• Supports reading and writing of CD-Text information
• Supports reading and writing of full SubChannel Data
• Could back-up all SafeDisc 2 versions without weak sectors amplification

Negative:

• Only 2MB data buffer
• Package did not include any 24x US-RW media and no 52x CD-R media
• Reading of CD-ReWriteable media is limited to about 32x
• Write quality with certain media needs to be improved
• Performance with copy-protected audio discs needs to be improved

Conclusion:

The TEAC CD-W552E drive showed a good performance overall. When reading various media the drive performed very similar to the popular Lite-On LTR-52246S recorder, but with a lower CPU usage. Digital audio extraction was no problem for the drive and could be done at maximum speed. It was too bad that CD-RW media could only be read at a maximum of about 32x.

The TEAC package needs some work in our opinion. Although TEAC has included good software with their drive they definitely need to add Ultra-Speed ReWriteable media and CD-Recordable media that actually works at the drive's maximum speed (52x).

When it came to the drive's write performance we have nothing to complain since the TEAC has the highest write speeds we've ever seen on a drive (54x [8.1MB/s!] was no exception). It was too bad we didn't have any 52x certified media to do more tests at the drive's maximum speed. What did bother us was the drive's write quality. Although the drive performed very well with quality media such as Taiyo Yuden, it didn't do so well with other, lower quality, media.

The TEAC CD-W552E's re-write performance was good. It could easily keep up with other drives supporting ultra-speed re-writing. During our packet writing and Mount Rainier tests the TEAC drive again showed a good performance.

The last tests we did with the TEAC drive we're our advanced tests. The drive showed excellent performance when reading and writing data copy-protections so we were a little disappointed with the drive's audio copy-protection performance. Perhaps TEAC will be able to improve this via a future firmware upgrade. Last but not least, reading and writing of exotic media was no problem at all for the TEAC CD-W552E drive

The price of the TEAC CD-W552E drive is about $ 82.00 (checked March 28^th 2003 on DealTime ). Overall we think that the TEAC CD-W552E is certainly not a bad buy for this price.