NEC 3500A vs NEC 3520A

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 2:46 am

I've seen the 3500A recommended as a quiet DVD writer... however, i was wondering if anyone's had any experience with the 3520A?
It's a newer model and I'm not sure what NEC's plans are (phase out the 3500 in favour of the 3520, or run with both) but its a lot faster at rewriting and also supports the +RW standard which the 3500 doesn't.

3500A:
CD / DVD Rewrite Speed 24x (CD) / 4x (DVD1RW)

3520A:
CD / DVD Rewrite Speed 24x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW)

NEC say it's a continuation of the 3500 line, but I've seen other sites saying the model number is the only similarity and that the hardware differs to a greater or lesser extent.

Hmmm.

scara · Post by **scara** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 4:36 am

meglamaniac wrote:.....but its a lot faster at rewriting and also supports the +RW standard which the 3500 doesn't.

3500A:
CD / DVD Rewrite Speed 24x (CD) / 4x (DVD1RW)

The 3500 does support +RW. That 1 should be ± i.e +/-.

I've read many user reviews that say the 3520 is very quiet but seen nothing comparing the two directly. I'll be buying a couple of the 3520 soon and will provide feedback. Hopefully others will answer your questions first.

Pgh · Post by **Pgh** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 6:53 am

meglamaniac wrote:I've seen the 3500A recommended as a quiet DVD writer...

I just bought on of these and it is very far from being quiet.

It is much louder than the single-layer Sony DRU-510 that I was using before. If it hadn't been so cheap, and the fact I don't use it all that much, I would send it back.

I think there is a thread about quiet DVD writers here on SPCR, I wish I would have consulted it before I bought the NEC.

fabre · Post by **fabre** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 7:02 am

Like Pgh I also have a Nec 3500A and it is very noisy indeed.

Hopefully I kept my LG combo drive which is much more quieter and use the Nec only If I need to burn a DVD.

Shaft0rz · Post by **Shaft0rz** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:13 am

I have a 3520. My experience is that it's very quiet at burning DVD's, and only at burning DVD's, strangely enough. Burning CD's is pretty darn loud though.

jasond · Post by **jasond** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:13 am

I recently bought 3520 and have been very pleased with it. I haven't heard a 3500. I can't comment on the higher burn speeds, but burning a DVD+RW at 4X and a CDRW at 10X is extremely quiet. I thought it wasn't doing anything at first, till I saw the progress bar. Previous drive was a Yamaha CDRW

Mostly positive comments on the 3500 in previous threads:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=16534

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10187

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:48 pm

How is it at 1x for movie playback?
My current drive, a LiteOn (*spit* *hawk*) clicks and whirs even then, which is somewhat offputting...

Pgh · Post by **Pgh** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 6:21 pm

meglamaniac wrote:How is it at 1x for movie playback?
My current drive, a LiteOn (*spit* *hawk*) clicks and whirs even then, which is somewhat offputting...

My 3500 in much louder than the Sony DRU-510 for both DVD burning and 1x playback. It's also much louder than an older Pioneer DVD ROM I haved used for playback in the past.

It sounds like the 3520 is big improvement over the 3500 with respect to noise. Again, I would strongly advise against the 3500.

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:35 am

Looks like it's the 3520 then.

Thanks for the feedback!

nici · Post by **nici** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:46 am

I would think its impossible to have a cd or dvd spinning at 52x and be quiet..

If the cd/dvd isnt perfectly balanced it will always make noise. I will be buying the 3520 or the LG 4163B, in a recent test in MikroBitti(finnish computer mag) the LG was a bit quieter than the nec and the LG got the most points total. LG was the quietest drive in the test overall, quieter than samsung, teac, lite-on, MSI, Plexotr, NEC, philips, asus, gigabyte, hp or pioneer.

jasond · Post by **jasond** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:37 am

meglamaniac wrote:How is it at 1x for movie playback?
My current drive, a LiteOn (*spit* *hawk*) clicks and whirs even then, which is somewhat offputting...

I popped in my Wasabi DVD into my 3520 and it is very quiet. The same cannot be said for the one CD I tried. However, I know some CDs play louder than others, for some reason. HTH.

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 8:10 am

nici wrote: will be buying the 3520 or the LG 4163B, in a recent test in MikroBitti(finnish computer mag) the LG was a bit quieter than the nec and the LG got the most points total. LG was the quietest drive in the test overall, quieter than samsung, teac, lite-on, MSI, Plexotr, NEC, philips, asus, gigabyte, hp or pioneer.

That's really nice to hear as I have an LG 4163B on the way to me as I write. It also writes to DVD-RAM which I plan to use for drag-n-drop backups.

bookman · Post by **bookman** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 11:05 am

Does the LG drives come in black? Also, how quiet are the Plexor SATA burners? The Plextor 12X DVD+/-RW Drive, Black, Model PX-712SA look very interesting!
Thanks

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 11:07 am

bookman wrote:Does the LG drives come in black?

Yep, I've ordered a black OEM from www.scan.co.uk.

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:07 am

Ohh, interesting... I may yet change my mind then

scotty6435 · Post by **scotty6435** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:04 am

I've had a 3520 for a month or 2 now and it's certainly NOT quiet. Last night though I limited the speed to 8x CD and 5x DVD which has made it almost silent! There's not even the incredibly annoying spin-up noise and it's a foot from my head with the case off

miks2u · Post by **miks2u** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:20 pm

Personally I'm not impressed with the 3520. I used two of them for machines I built for my mom & my sister. Subjectively Both seemed signficantly noisier than either my Pioneer DVR-108 or my Samsung TS-H552. Also the 3520 would not boot my Partition Magic 8.0 CD which boots fine with either the Samsung or the Pioneer. A firmware upgrade might fix that, but since I'm done building those other systems it's not really an issue for me any more.

It seems to me that the Samsung is typically quieter overall than the Pioneer, but not by a lot. I'll report back on that once I have them both up and running again - the Pioneer is getting waterfalled to my Linux box, which is currently waiting for the new 3000B case and D865PERLK board that I ordered last week.

It's funny how SPCR raised my standards. I've ended up completely rebuilding two out of the three systems at my desk based mostly on things that I have learned on this site. The third will get rebuilt when the Antec P180 comes out.

halfpower · Post by **halfpower** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:32 pm

Does anyone know where I can find information about the power draw of these drives? I've looked all over the NEC sites and can't find anything.

halfpower

scara · Post by **scara** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:46 pm

halfpower wrote:Does anyone know where I can find information about the power draw of these drives? I've looked all over the NEC sites and can't find anything.

Power consumption for NEC 2510,3500 and 3520 is 24.5 VA (5v 1.3A, 12v 1.5A).
Taken from 3520 User Manual.

bookman · Post by **bookman** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:20 pm

Are the BenQ drives silent? According to DigiTimes, they will be launching Lightscribe DVD burners at the end of February. If they are reasonably silent, they could be an interesting option!

NEC 3500A vs NEC 3520A

NEC 3500A vs NEC 3520A

Re: NEC 3500A vs NEC 3520A

Re: NEC 3500A vs NEC 3520A