Quietest optical drive?

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 9:35 am

ocuk will ship to germany for 12.90 or 21.30 (pounds)
thats just the plexi drive
royalmail international signed for(12.90)
and lynx europac/euroexpress (21.30)
and i dont know how they differ
u will also haveto pay VAT it seems (17.5%) of order and probably postage charge :/

DarkLord · Post by **DarkLord** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 9:46 am

Thanks for all the answers!
But to clarify my request a bit:

I know for sure where to get either, Plextor 48x, Yamaha F1, Samsung SD616 or Toshiba SD1712 (yeah, thats their 16x/48x Model - only 192kb cache though) right here in germany where I live, so thats no problem.
More important to me is to have some feedback on these device, so that I know *which* of them to get.
I'd be interested in ayn comments about their noise, overall performance and value (plextor and yamaha are pretty expensive devices).

Or would there be any other device that would be better? I'm thinking of an LG CD-Writer or Combo drive - if so which model? Or would the new (?) Samsung SM-348 CD-Writer/DVD Combo be interesting? It's available in black to me as well and costs about the same as a Plextor 48x....

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 10:11 am

the yama to me has the best value, sololy for its tattoo feature
i woulda bought it if it wasnt for the price

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 10:25 am

id imagine a combo drive would be louder
:/

mudboy · Post by **mudboy** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 7:09 pm

pingu666 wrote:id imagine a combo drive would be louder
:/

Ummm...why? Because it does more? Is a CD-RW louder than a CD-ROM drive? Not necessarily, it depends upon the manufacturer and the quality of construction.

Pete

tridion · Post by **tridion** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 3:19 am

Yeah, I had an LG combo drive and it was very quiet for all operations.

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 6:09 am

i was think that theres more in the drive (more read heads or whatever) hence could be louder
could go either way tho

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 6:58 am

I have a Sony DDU1621. This one is quieter than a Toshiba . Look at http://www.digit-life.com/articles/dvd1001/index.html.
The disadvantage ist, that there a problems with CD-RW discs. It needs a lot of time to recognise them. Sometimes it fails with scratched CD-RW. But for this type of CD, I'vd my burner.

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 5:43 pm

Got my Plextor 48x installed this morning and promptly fired up the software to burn a CD. Burning the CD at 40x (that's what the CD was 'rated' at, i'll try 48x see if it works) wasn't too bad. Sounded like a loud fan, but definitely NOT like a small turbine engine firing up as many CD drives do.

Burned a DivX movie and played it back for testing. I seem to remember something about some software to keep the drive speed down, that'd probably help. Was still relatively (compared to my old POS drive) quiet on playback, but was accessing occasionally. I'd figger that for standard DivX playback ya wouldn't need anything over 2x speed, which should really quiet it down.

Also realize that some CDs are noiser than others. The current spindle of Maxell CDRs that I have are noticeably quieter than other discs, especially when I've brought some to work.

Zyzzyx
- tossin out his 2 cents for folks to trip on

Marvin · Post by **Marvin** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 12:02 am

ez2remember wrote:I agree with your point, my LG DVD-ROM plays DVD quiet too. But stick in a CD and the thing spins upto 40x which makes quite a bit of noise. I personally don't find optical drives a noise obstacle since I rarely use it, I use CD emulator software where possible.

I've been surfing couple of sites to find out about emulators. What emulator software do U use and are there any free ones available?

BTW: it's a nice thing that I found out that Nero burning software has that nice feature to slow my burner down

jinu117 · Post by **jinu117** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 12:31 am

tridion wrote:I had an LG combo drive which was very quiet.

My other combo was a Pioneer and sounded like a jet engine. However, I currently have a Pioneer A104 DVD writer and this is fairly quiet.

In silent PC, it isn't... -_-; that 40mm fan is a real pain unfortunately.

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 11:27 am

they got rid of that didnt they?
i thoughtso anyway, in a later version..

po · Post by po » Tue Jan 28, 2003 5:37 pm

Actually though, what about the Lite-On model LTD-166? They say that they have a "smart-x" technology; does anybody know what that's supposed to mean? (I'm trying to choose a DVD drive to buy too)

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:23 pm

As usual, c't magazin comes to the rescue (8/2004):
Ranked based on quietness at dvd movie (1x or slowest default) speed:

Code: Select all

Maker / model          noise 1x      noise max
1. AOpen DVD1648/AAP    0.4             8.4
2. Toshiba SD-M1802     1.0             7.0
3. LiteON XJ-HD166S     1.7            10.2
4. LG GDR-8162B         3.1             6.3
5. BenQ DVP1650S        3.3             8.6
6. Mitsumi DM-2000TE    3.8             8.9
7. Philips PCDB5016G    3.8             8.9
8. Plextor PX-116A      4.4             7.8
9. Pioneer DVD-120SZ    7.4             8.2

Noise given in sone scale. A twice as big sone reading means twice as loud (subjectively) sound.

NB! The results will of course change for several drives if one uses a software control (like CD Bremse, Nero Drive Speed or manufacturer's own utilities to throttle down the dvd playback speed down to 1x for those drive that originally play back faster). Please note that not all drives can be throttled down speedwise with software utilities.

The AOpen drive was also the best for dvd error correction on both single layer and double layer dvd discs (99.9% / 90.3% respectively) and it's max ripping speed was also highest (original firmware, no speedhacks).

I think this backs up very well chiahaochang's personal experiences.