1. Installation
PleXWriter
PX-124TS SCSI CDR-W - Page 1
Introduction:
A
brand-name familiar to most CDR enthusiasts and professionals alike. A name
with has a long record in the CD(-R) business. Their first reader was released
back in 1990 (when the company's name was still "Texel Corporation"),
and their first burner appeared in 1994. A not-so-much successful first attempt,
largely due to the inherited limitations and "flaws" of the underlying
Philips "engine". Since those first days, Plextor has always been
at the front-line of the CD-arena, enriching it with new technologies and offering
the most reliable solutions.
Back in mid-nineties, anyone interested in obtaining a reliable
copy of an Audio disk was forced to use a Plextor drive as the source for recording.
The first Plextor to completely justify these expectations was the 8x CD reader.
This drive established Plextor as the "Ferrari" of CD drive manufacturers.
Until recently, Plextor drives were available only at SCSI configurations. (I
know several persons who went the SCSI way, just to be able to declare themselves
owners of these "beauties" made out of metal, plastic and glass...)
CDR technology was always at the hands of a small group of Japanese
(and one European) manufacturers of the core components. Plextor was never one
of them. However, this small company was able to rise and gain a prominent position
among the final product assemblers and makers. Owing its fame on the unique
quality of the underlying components, their first rate rotors and the superb
firmware they have been equipping their drives with.
Plextor
uses major components from various manufacturers. For the recorder production,
they purchase the OPU (Optical Pick-Up) and Decoder LSI from Sanyo. CPU, memory,
DSP, spindle motor, etc. come from other manufacturers. Plextor develops it's
own schematics, PCB, mechanism and firmware. In comparison to other drive manufacturers,
they spend more engineering time and effort to integrate and support all the
features of the components (high-speed reading, DAE speed and precision) in
the firmware. This makes the difference in a Plextor drive. Even they use (some)
components ,which also used by their competitors, performance and features are
in most cases higher.
Last year, CDR technology went mainstream. Consequently, prices were driven
down, drives and software recording applications became more reliable and a
stiff competition among the primary drive-makers emerged. Plextor is now confronted
with a rising competition from the many other, mainly Taiwanese, manufacturers.
The main question now is: Will they still keep the edge over all others?
Recording Speeds and Times
|
74 mins / 650 mb
|
1x
|
74 mins
|
74 mins / 650 mb
|
2x
|
37 mins
|
74 mins / 650 mb
|
4x
|
18.5 mins
|
74 mins / 650 mb
|
6x
|
12.34 mins
|
74 mins / 650 mb
|
8x
|
9.25 mins
|
74 mins / 650 mb
|
12x
|
6.17 mins
|
Package:
The retail version that came at our offices included the drive, a manual
(in 12 languages!), a CDR software package (CeQuadrat 3.7 Standard Edition and
PlexTools v1.04), 2 blank CDs (one recordable and one erasable), an audio cable
and an IDC cable (SCSI ribbon). The Drive is also equipped with a small but
efficient (as you will find out later) fan, too bad it's not the "ball-bearing"
kind, thus a little noisy.
Using the popular "CDR Identifier" program we were
able to determine Ricoh as the CDR media maker. The erasable disk maker has
remained unknown, both to us and the program itself:
Plextor CDR-W Media:
ATIP: 97m 27s 00f
Disc Manufacturer: Disc ID not allowed
Assumed Dye type: Disc ID not allowed (Type 0)
Media type: CD-ReWritable
Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. 4X
Nominal Capacity: 651.86MB (74m 12s 00f / LBA: 333750)
|
Plextor CDR Media:
ATIP: 97m 27s 66f
Disc Manufacturer: Ricoh Company Ltd.
Assumed Dye type: Phthalocyanine (Type 6)
Media type: CD-Recordable
Recording Speeds: min/max. unknown
Nominal Capacity: 651.86MB (74m 12s 00f / LBA: 333750)
|
Installation:
Installing the PlexWriter PX-124TS was an easy process. Since we already
had a Yamaha 8424s and a Sanyo CRD-BP2 installed on out test-system, we simply
added the "new sheriff in town". We left the default SCSI ID to 3
and the termination on. After booting, the CDR-W identified itself as Plextor
CD-R PX-124TS into both the BIOS & Windows 98 SE.
We also installed PlexTools version 1.04 , since they offer some helpful
information to the user and allow certain setting tweaks. With it you can change
the drive's properties (spin-down time, speed selection, lock/unlock of the
tray, etc.). Other useful features offered by PlexTools are the ability for
data CD Copy and Digital Audio Extraction. You don't need any external program
for quick and easy copying of CDs of any type. Finally, using this program,
you can erase CD-RWs.Even though most users will probably be acquainted with
the Plextor Manager 2000 (which is bundled with Plextor drives in US). We personally
think that PlexTools is more powerful and more easy to use.
Afterwards, we unchecked the auto-insert notification, used Tweak
UI 95 for disabling data disk auto-play and rebooted. PlexWriter PX-124TS was
a January 2000 model with version 1.00 firmware. Our lookout at the Plextor
Europe website revealed a new firmware revision (1.02),
which we immediately downloaded, and updated the drive. This version enabled
the UltraSCSI mode (20MB/s) for the communication of the drive over the bus
with the host adapter. All is now set, let the benchmark war begin! Might want
to grab the latest 1.06
firmware revision since it adds MMC DAO RAW!
Test Machine :
ABIT BH6
Celeron 300A over clocked to 464 MHz
164 MB SDRAM PC 100
WD 18GB UDMA 66
Quantum Fireball EX 6.4 GB UDMA
AdvanSys ASB3940UA - PCI (ULTRA) SCSI Host Adapter
Asus 3400 TNT
CL AWE32
MS Windows 98 SE
KenWood 72x v2.12
Plextor UltraPlex 32xmax
Plextor UltraPlex 40max, Firmware v1.03
Plextor PleXWriter PX-124TS, Firmware v1.02
Teac 540E Firmware v1.0A
Sanyo CRD-Bp2 Firmware vBc12
2. Data Tests
PleXWriter
PX-124TS SCSI CDR-W - Page 2
Data Tests
Test Method:
We used CD WinBench 99 v1.1, CD Speed 99 v0.6 and SCSI Mechanic v2.1h (evaluation
version) to run the data tests. All tests (except the WinBench one) were done
using identical recordable media (Mitsui).
For comparison purposes we present in the following figures of test results
for this drive against results obtained from widely available drives of similar
performance of our CDR arsenal.
CD WinBench 99 v1.1 results:
CD Speed results:
- Speed : Bigger is
better
- Seek Times : less is better
- CPU Usage : less is better
|
Speed (x)
|
Seek Time (ms)
|
CPU Usage (%)
|
Start
|
Average
|
End
|
Random
|
1/3
|
Full
|
1x
|
2x
|
4x
|
8x
|
Sync Data Transfer On
|
13.86
|
24.35
|
32.21
|
149
|
176
|
282
|
2
|
4
|
7
|
15
|
Verdict of Data Tests:
The PleXWriter PX-124TS performs quite good as a reader. The average transfer
rate is 3.5Mb/s and the maximum is 6.2MB/s. It's seek time (149ms) stays within
its specifications and is considered quite good for a CDR-W drive but might
prove inadequate if you throw in CDs with many tiny files. It's reading speed
when dealing with CD-RW disks ranges from 9x to 21x with an average of 15x!
Isn't this amazing? Even the Plextor 40x CD-ROM can read the same disk only
at 8x (most drives in the market reach utmost 4x!) The improvement of Plextor
in this field is outstanding!
Concerning the CPU usage, it's quite good for a SCSI device. Like every other
Plextor CD-ROMs and CD-RW drives, the Retry Count is a little high (10), and
this may cause problems when dealing with scratchy CDs. Finally, the Plextor
PX-124TS can read in RAW mode, which means that it can be used along with CloneCD
as a reader.
3. DAE Tests
PleXWriter
PX-124TS SCSI CDR-W - Page 3
DAE Tests
CD Speed results:
(Speed : Bigger is
better, Seek Times : less is better, CPU Usage : less is better)
|
Dae Quality/ Accurate Stream
|
Speed (x)
|
Seek Time (ms)
|
CPU Usage (%)
|
|
Start
|
Average
|
End
|
Random
|
1/3
|
Full
|
1x
|
2x
|
4x
|
8x
|
Sync On
|
10 - Yes
|
9.32
|
15.64
|
20.40
|
159
|
181
|
291
|
4
|
7
|
11
|
21
|
|
Various Rippers Results
Test Method: We used the CDFS.VXD driver and EAC v0.9 pre
beta 3 to test the audio capabilities. EAC reported that the drive was capable
of producing accurate stream and it also reported "caching off".
Tests were made for comparing "Burst" vs "Secure Stream
with caching" mode.
Tested CD: The Chemical Brothers "Dig Your Own Hole"
- Track : 1, 5, 11
Comparing Method :
- Ripped Tracks 1, 5, 10 of the CD with Drag & Drop (using CDFS) and
with EAC (Secure & Burst mode).
- Edited all wavs with Hedit v2.0.04 and located the 2 following bytes (chosen
randomly)
- Removed all previous bytes and saved.
- Then in a Dos window compared them using: FC /b x.wav y.wav
Programs Settings:
CDFS Driver v4.00.130:
Drag & Drop
EAC v0.9b:Burst
& Secure Mode / Rip Speed Default / Allow speed reduction / Error correction
medium
Program
|
Average Speed / CPU Usage
|
Listening Quality
|
1 Track
|
5 Track
|
11 Track
|
CDFS Driver v4.00.130
|
26sec = 11.03 / 7%
|
23sec = 15.80x / 11%
|
24sec = 13.32x / 8%
|
No clicks. No sec lost. Seemed ok!
|
EAC v0.9b (burst)
|
7.8x / 20%
|
12.8x / 26%
|
18.8x / 38%
|
No clicks. No sec lost. Seemed ok!
|
EAC v0.9b (secure)
|
3.0x / 6.6%
|
4.7x / 7.0%
|
6.0x / 11.0%
|
No clicks. No sec lost. Seemed ok!
|
Comparing Results
|
|
CDFS Driver v4.00.130
|
EAC v0.9 (burst)
|
1 Track
|
5 Track
|
10 Track
|
1 Track
|
5 Track
|
10 Track
|
EAC v0.9b (secure)
|
same
|
same
|
same
|
same
|
same
|
same
|
Verdict of DAE Results:
The PlexWriter PX-124TS DAE performance is very good. Most people know Plextor
drives from their near perfect DAE speed and quality. In this drive also Plextor
has that magic touch and managed to make the drive capable of ripping WAVs with
speeds up to 18-20x without any problems. Of course, the drive performance is
not equal to a Plextor CD-ROM. But this really isn't a problem since most people
will find the Plextor PX-124TS DAE performance at least accurate.
4. CDR Tests
PleXWriter
PX-124TS SCSI CDR-W - Page
4
CDR Tests
We mostly tested Plextor PX-124TS on it's capabilities to write
CDs in different write speeds (4x, 8x, 12x) ,media and modes.
CDR-W Capabilities:
As we can see Plextor PX-124TS supports all current CDR/W modes.
However it doesn't have a feature that most people would love to see (MMC
DAO RAW). We hear several rumours that this will be added with next firmware
revision. Indeed we hope so. Let's head over to the CDR tests now:
Update:
With firmware version v1.04
Plextor added MMC DAO RAW to their drive. This mean that drive with latest
CloneCD becomes the faster CD Duplicator on earth!!!
CDR-W Tests:
Software used :
Nero v4.0.8.3 / NTI CD MAKER Pro v3.6.890 / Padus DJ v2.00.412
Brand Of CDs :
Prodisc / Prostech / Ritek / Princo 8x, 12x / Basf / Maxell / Mitsui Gold
& SG / TDK / Verbatim / Yamaha 4x RW / LeadData 4x RW / BTC 2x RW
CDR Tests :
On the Fly CD Copy (both Data and Audio) (with Plextor PX-40TS/KenWood
72x)
Data CDs (Multisession - TAO, DAO, SAO)
AudioCDs (from mp3 and wav files) + CD-Text CDs
VideoCD
OverBurn (74, 80min)
Verdict of CDR Results:
After living with this burner for almost 2 months, we can now say that
this marriage worked out really well. After all, so willing and feature-rich
brides are hard to find today
Burning at 12x speeds theoretically requires 12x certified
media, but in practice 8x media will do just as fine. But problems will arise
using 4x ? 6x media, actually we couldn't make a single working copy using
such discs, we either got a "semi-bad-burn" or a totally non-working
disc. On the contrary we had no problem whatsoever using even the cheapest
no-name 8x media.
Overburning on 74 & 80 min. discs is now a fact, really
welcomed one, and a clear plus compared to previous Plextor writers.
As a final note we'll once again say that PlexWriter PX 124-TS this is a really
good recorder and have no CDR problems at all! However it has the known problem
which all Plextor CDR-W drives have... It cannot read the overburned part
of an overburn CD!!! :(
5. CDR Tests
PleXWriter PX-124TS
SCSI CDR-W - Page 4
CDR Tests
We mostly tested Plextor PX-124TS on it's capabilities to write CDs in different
write speeds (4x, 8x, 12x) ,media and modes.
CDR-W Capabilities
As we can see Plextor PX-124TS supports all current CDR/W modes. However
it doesn't have a feature that most people would love to see (MMC DAO RAW).
We hear several rumours that this will be added with next firmware revision.
Indeed we hope so. Let's head over to the CDR tests now:
Update:
With firmware version v1.04
Plextor added MMC DAO RAW to their drive. This mean that drive with latest CloneCD
becomes the faster CD Duplicator on earth!!!
CDR-W Tests:
Software used :
Nero v4.0.8.3 / NTI CD MAKER Pro v3.6.890 / Padus DJ v2.00.412
Brand Of CDs :
Prodisc / Prostech / Ritek / Princo 8x, 12x / Basf / Maxell / Mitsui Gold
& SG / TDK / Verbatim / Yamaha 4x RW / LeadData 4x RW / BTC 2x RW
CDR Tests :
On the Fly CD Copy (both Data and Audio) (with Plextor PX-40TS/KenWood 72x)
Data CDs (Multisession - TAO, DAO, SAO)
AudioCDs (from mp3 and wav files) + CD-Text CDs
VideoCD
OverBurn (74, 80min)
Verdict of CDR Results:
After living with this burner for almost 2 months, we can now say that this
marriage worked out really well. After all, so willing and feature-rich brides
are hard to find today
Burning at 12x speeds theoretically requires 12x certified media, but in
practice 8x media will do just as fine. But problems will arise using 4x ? 6x
media, actually we couldn't make a single working copy using such discs, we
either got a "semi-bad-burn" or a totally non-working disc. On the
contrary we had no problem whatsoever using even the cheapest no-name 8x media.
Overburning on 74 & 80 min. discs is now a fact, really welcomed one,
and a clear plus compared to previous Plextor writers. As a final note
we'll once again say that PlexWriter PX 124-TS this is a really good recorder
and have no CDR problems at all! However it has the known problem which all
Plextor CDR-W drives have... It cannot read the overburned part of an overburn
CD!!! :(