Sony CRX175A CD-RW

Review Pages

1. Introduction
2. Data Tests
3. RW reading tests
4. DAE Tests
5. CDR Tests
6. Writing Quality Tests
7. RW Writing Tests
8. Conclusion

Sony CRX175A IDE CD-RW- Page 8

Conclusion

Positive (+)	Negative (-)
- Excellent writing quality with all inserted media! - Supports "Power-Burn" anti-coaster technology - Good DAE ripping performance - Good DAE ripping quality - Supports HS-RW standard (10x re-write) - Supports DAO-RAW - Supports reading/writing of SubChannel data - Very good packet writing performance - Very good reading pressed/CDr/hs-rw performance - High PSX ripping speed	- Higher writing times than competition - Higher seek times than competition - No CD-Text support reading/writing - Very bad CloneCD reading performance - Doesn't support Overburning - Doesn't support reading higher than 86mins - Creates partial working SD2 backups - One year of warranty (?) - Firmware is not upgradable (?)

SONY CRX175A came late to market considering the competition already established by the other 24x CD-RW manufacturers. However, Sony developers seem to have done a good job here. The drive produces very high quality CDs in various CD brands, even in those that are not supposed to have the "best writing quality". The reading performance of the drive is very good and so is the produced DAE quality. Candidate users will have no problem when they will try to rip any PSX CD or try to use the supported packet writing option.

Sony CRX175A supports the "PowerBurn" anti-coaster technology to protect you from buffer underrun problems and to optimize the writing quality. However, this option will cost some extra seconds while performing writing to a CD-R due to the calibration occurred in the beginning of the writing process.

The main weakness of the drive is the absence of the overburning option, that will prompt you if you try to write more data than the CD capacity can offer. Also, the drive cannot backup protected titles and will not recognize any 90min-99min CDs you may insert in the tray. Lastly, the lack of SD2 support is something that the competition does offer while Sony doesn't.

The expected price of the drive is around $170 higher enough from what the competition offers, compared to the LiteOn/AOpen and the TEAC drives. The PleXWriter PX-W2410A costs around the same, while the Yamaha CRW3200E costs about some extra $20-$30.