detail information

On the second page of this TEAC CD-W552E review we already showed you a screenshot of Nero CD Speed in which the TEAC drive achieved a maximum write speed of no less than 54.25x. On this page we'll see what this write speed means in terms of write time when recording 700MB of data.

Writing Data:

For our data writing tests we simply set up a new compilation of 700MB using the Nero Burning Rom software. We used the DAO (Disc At Once) writing method. The disc was finalized and set-up as a non-multisession disc. In the screenshot below you can see the burn process and verification completed successfully:

Notice that in the screenshot above the elapsed time includes both the recording process and the data verification process. The total write time for 700MB was 2 minutes and 34 seconds, about the same time the Lite-On LTR-52246S recorder needed to write the same amount of data. In the picture on the left you can see that the TEAC recorder had no problems going faster than 52x recording (53.8x!) so it was a bit strange that the write time was actually longer than the Lite-On's write time (±2m:32s).

The only other media that could be written at 52x were Hitachi Maxell discs, certified for 40x recording. The write time for these disc was 2m:32s. Unfortunately we didn't have any certified 52x media so we couldn't do any more tests. We did do another test at 48x recording and, as you can see in the screenshot below, this was very close to the 52x write time (2m:36s):

Write Quality:

Recording at 52x and even faster speeds requires quality media to produce a reliable result. To test the TEAC's write quality we wrote several discs at maximum speed. For each disc we then used Lite-On's C1/C2 error scan program called WSES (Write Strategy Evaluation System) to measure the amount of errors.

In the graphs below you can see an overview of errors occurring during the read process. Please note that every burned disc will always have C1 errors. These are errors that are corrected by the drive and they will not effect the disc in a bad way as long as their amount is limited. C2 errors are however very bad for a disc and are harder to read and correct. When there are too many C2 errors present on the disc it means you have bad burned disc and it can't be read in the test drive you're using as a reader. Although a low amount of C2 errors can still be recovered by the drive, a zero amount of C2 errors is always preferred!

CMC Magnetics - 52x certified - 52x write

The CMC Magnetics disc was written at full speed and as you can see from the graph above, the number of C1 errors gradually increases throughout the disc. Their amount pretty high but luckily there are no C2 errors on the disc. Overall a pretty good result considering that the CMC Magnetics discs are not always known to be of very high quality.

Mitsui/MAM-E - 48x certified - 48x write

The TEAC showed a very poor performance when writing our Mitsui/MAM-E discs. There are way too many C1 errors and there are also a lot of C2 errors on the disc. The created disc could still be read after it had been burned though. Let's check some other 48x quality Taiyo Yuden media:

Taiyo Yuden - 48x certified - 48x write

The Taiyo Yuden discs are known to be of very high quality and this definitely shows in the produced graph above. This time the TEAC CD-W552E drive produced an excellent result.

Hitachi Maxell - 40x certified - 52x write

As a final test we wrote some Maxell media which was certified for 40x recording. To our surprise the TEAC recorder had no problems writing them at 52x and created a perfect disc as you can see in the graph above. Another excellent result.