Our friends from CDRLabs had the joy to review the latest drive from Mitsumi, the Mitsumi CR-485CTE. The drive introduces Mitsumi's AEGIS WRITE, which seems to be a combination of buffer underrun protection and Optimum Power control.
The drive is also has a 20x rewrite speed, has a 2 Mb buffer and supports the Mount Rainier standard.
Part of conclusion: |
I went into this review expecting a lot from this drive because the performance and features found in Mitsumi's previous drives really impressed me. The CR-485CTE's features exceeded my expectations, but its performance came up a little short.
In our tests the CR-485CTE had some of the best seek times we've seen, but its transfer speeds were hit and miss. While the CR-485CTE had no problems reading pressed CD's at 48x, its CD-R and CD-RW read speeds were limited to 40x. Mitsumi claims that the slower read speed can deliver a better quality read, but it makes me wonder just how much better it really is. Other drives I have tested have had no problems reading CD-R discs at these speeds. The CR-485CTE's DAE speeds were not quite as fast as some of the other drives we've tested. The drive came close to reaching 48x with pressed audio CD's but was able to rip audio CD-R discs at only 40x.
So are the CR-485CTE's 20x rewriting speeds as impressive as they sound? Yes and no. When rewriting at 20x, the CR-485CTE was a good minute and a half faster than drives rewriting at 12x. However, Mitsumi's Super Speed Write technology requires you to use blank CD-RW media. If you use CD-RW media that has already been written to and erased, or if you want to packet write, the fastest rewriting speed available is 12x.
Read the entire review, the rest of the conclusion and the highs and lows here. Also check out our Mitsumi Forum.
Source: CDRlabs.com
