RW reading tests

- CD Speed 99 v0.83 Test: (Click here to see the CD Speed 99 graph)

For the RW tests, we used TDK's HS-RW media. The Ricoh MP9200A gave the second best average reading test result (30.51x) among the 4 tested drives, since its speed was reduced to 32.22x at the end of the 74min:

CloneCD Reading Tests

- Procedure:
We used CloneCD (v3.0.2.3) and 5 original CDs - Euro 2000 (SafeDisc 1), No One Lives For Ever (SafeDisc 2), Rally Masters (LaserLock 1), Desperados (LaserLock 2) and V-Rally 2 Expert (SecuROM 2) - in order to test the reading time of Ricoh MP9200. We also tested the reading performance with backups of the original CDs, since the reading speed varies between original and backup media. For comparison reasons we added the results of the already tested Ricoh MP72000A, Sanyo CRD-BP1500P and Yamaha 2200E. The following picture shows the Ricoh's MP9200 reading/writing capabilities:

- SafeDisc 1/2 Results

The Ricoh MP9200A showed a very bad performance with SafeDisc 1 protected CDs. The drive skips bad sectors very slowly, compared to the MP7200 series... The Yamaha 2200E is the king of this test in both original and backup CDs.

With SafeDisc 2 protected CDs, Ricoh MP9200 continues its bad performance as mentioned earlier.

LaserLock 1/2 Results

The Ricoh MP9200 continues its bad performance during the LaserLock protected CDs test. As you can see, the drive has the slowest reading performance, with both original and backup CDs.

It is to no surprise that the drive continues to have bad performance with LaserLock 2 CDs. During this test it actually managed to outperform the Sanyo BP1500P with both original and backup CDs. Again the Ricoh MP7200 has a much better reading performance.

SecuROM Results

The Ricoh MP9200 does support reading SubChannel data from data/audio tracks, at least with the original CD. We did face some problems with the backup CD, which worked on the MP7200, 2200E and BP1500P without any problems. The drive seemed to always stop reading at 60% of the disc and then hung. We did notice the same effect in the Ricoh MP9120A with firmware v1.30, so we assume that it must a bug, located on either the latest CloneCD or the drives.