Review: Plextor PX-W4824A
Reviewer: G@M3FR3@K
Provided by: Plextor Europe
Firmware: version 1.00
Production date: August 2002
TLA#: 0000
A few weeks ago Plextor announced its latest
recorder, the Plextor PX-W4824A. This drive is one of the fastest recorders available today and is the first Plextor drive
to support the new ultra speed CD-ReWriting standard with which it's possible to re-write at an amazing speed of
24X.
Of course this new Plextor drive has much more to offer than just increased re-write speeds. Some new and improved
features include the fastest access time ever (< 65ms), Mount Rainier support and 48X CAV recording of data and
audio. Some major changes compared to their previous model, the Plextor
PX-W4012A since this drive had rather high
access times, no Mount Rainier support, used the Z-CLV write method and was limited to writing audio at 'just' 24X.
In this review we will take a thorough look at this latest Plextor drive and see if it can live up to the
'Plextor standards'. During this review we will also explain some of the decisions Plextor took with this new drive such
as why the drive is by default limited to 40X reading instead of 48X it can reach. Read on to find out what we have to
say about this new and improved (?) Plextor drive!
Test Machine:
For the tests we'll be using the following configuration:
Hardware:
- Motherboard: ASUS K7V
- Processor: AMD Athlon 700Mhz
- RAM: 256MB (PC133)
- GFX: ASUS V8200 (GeForce 3 Ti200)
- Hard Disks: DiamondMax 40GB & 30GB (7200rpm)
- IDE Controller: PCI UDMA100 Controller
- USB Controller: NEC USB 2.0 Controller
System set-up:
As you can see the Plextor PX-W4824A was hooked up to the (onboard) secondary IDE-controller and identifies itself as
"PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A". DMA was automatically enabled and autorun has been disabled. The listed Plextor PX-W4012A and
Toshiba SD-M1502 drives are hooked up to the PCI UDMA100 controller. All drives, including the PX-W4824A drive, support
UDMA33.
Used Software:
The Windows XP Professional operating system is installed on our test machine. We'll be using the following software
to perform the various tests:
- Ahead InCD v3.37.0
- Ahead Nero Burning Rom v5.5.9.9
- Ahead Nero CD Speed v0.85 beta
- Ahead Nero InfoTool v1.02
- Elaborate Bytes CloneCD v4.0.1.10
- Exact Audio Copy v0.9 beta 4
- Plextor PlexTools v1.15A
On the next page we'll take a look at the retail package of the Plextor PX-W4824A...
First things first as we check out the contents of the Plextor PX-W4824A package. In the box
Plextor Europe send to us we find the following things:
- The Plextor PX-W4824A drive itself
- Quick installation guide
- Warranty RMA procedure manual
- Warranty registration card
- IDE 40-pins flatcable
- Audio cables
- Mounting screws
- Emergency eject pin
- Nero Burning Rom 5.5 disc containing;
- Ahead's Nero Burning Rom
- Ahead's NeroMediaPlayer
- Ahead's InCD
- Ahead's Nero BurnRights
- PlexTools v1.15 disc including PleXCombo 16-language manual
- Five (!) blank 40X 700MB Plextor CD-R's
(manufactured by Taiyo Yuden*) - One blank 24X 650MB Plextor CD-RW
(manufactured by unknown company*)
As always with Plextor, a very nice and complete package as we see it. The package includes everything you need to have
for a quick start and also includes a generous amount of five (48X) CD-Recordable discs. As with other European Plextor
drives, this model also includes Nero Burning Rom 5.5 which, as you will know by now, is our personal favourite when it
comes to creating your own audio and data compilations. Of course the package comes with mounting screws, connection cables,
an emergency eject pin and an extra jumper cap.
The manual of the Plextor drive can be found on the PlexTools disc and is very complete and in many different languages.
Plextor has included a printed quick installation guide and a printed manual on how you should proceed when you have
problems with your drive. For Europe, The Middle-East and Africa Plextor Europe offers a two year warranty on the
drive as they do for all their new writer models.
Installation:
Installation was quick and easy as with most IDE drives. We set the drive's jumper to master and hooked it up to the
onboard secondary IDE controller. We then booted the computer and the drive was recognized and ready to be used. UDMA was
automatically enabled in Windows XP and set to UDMA Mode 2 (UDMA33).
The Drive:
less rough than the previous Plextor models. People owning a Plextor drive will know what we mean.. As you can also see
from the picture, the PX-W4824A drive comes in both a grey and a black model. We received the 'classic' grey model.
On the front of the drive we find the PleXWriter logo, the supported speeds (48/24/48), the 'BPRec' (BURN-Proof
Recording) logo and the 'Ultra Speed CD ReWriteable' logo. Besides that we have the usual headphone jack, a
volume control, a disc/busy LED and of course an eject-button.
One the back of the drive we find the usual IDE and power connectors, the MASTER/SLAVE jumpers and the SPDIF
(analog/digital) output connectors. On the back of the drive we can also find an UDMA jumper setting with which you can set
the drive to PIO mode 4 instead of UDMA33 it normally uses. We of course left this jumper alone since UDMA33 is by far
the best interface.
The Software:
As briefly mentioned when we listed the package contents, this European Plextor drive includes Nero Burning Rom v5.5 which doesn't really need an introduction. Nero Burning Rom, by many people, is
considered to be one of the best software packages around when it comes to your burning needs.
Of course Ahead's InCD is also located on the Nero 5.5 CD-ROM. InCD is Ahead's packet writing software to use with your
CD-ReWriteable discs. With this software you can format a CD-RW disc and use it as a large floppy disc. InCD now also
supports the 'Mount Rainier' (CD-MRW) format which we'll get back to later on in this review when we test the Plextor
PX-W4824A's CD-MRW performance (yes this new Plextor drive supports Mount Rainier!).
Other small tools located on the Nero 5.5 CD-ROM are NeroMediaPlayer and, more interesting, Nero BurnRights. Nero
BurnRights was designed for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. After Nero BurnRights has been installed, the system administrator
can assign a specific group the rights to record CD's/DVD's on the system. If an administrator wants to allow or disallow
CD/DVD recording rights for certain users, it is enough to make the user a member of this group or to remove the user from
the group. If everybody should have the right to record CD's/DVD's, the recording rights can be assigned to everybody.
Plextor PlexTools is another well
known program and is delivered with European Plextor CD-writers. The program has come a long way since its first
introduction and now offers some advanced features such as 'DAE Error Recovery' and advanced settings to control your
Plextor drive with, which we'll get back to later on in our review:
DMA and SpeedRead. But you can also use PlexTools to Hide CD-R Media and to let your Plextor drive only read a single session
of a disc. Disabling the PoweRec feature has an interesting extra feature. When you disable the PoweRec function of the
Plextor PX-W4824A drive you can force it to write media at the selected speed (e.g. 48X) instead of the speed the recorder
would normally use when its quality checks (PoweRec) are enabled. When you disable PoweRec you can see at which speed your
media would normally be written and you can thus check which media will be written at 48X! A unique feature for the
PX-W4824A drive which, by the way, also works in Nero Burning Rom:
disable the PoweRec feature of your Plextor drive you will of course create a risk that the disc will be written at a too
high speed and it may contain (uncorrectable) errors. For more information on Plextor's PlexTools please read our small
review on it.
On the next page we'll take a look at the features the Plextor PX-W4824A...
Next we're going to check out the drive specifications as mentioned on the Plextor Europe
website and as detected
with additional software like Nero InfoTool:
Drive Specifications:
| Write Speeds: | 48X: 7200KB/s Full-CAV 40X: 6000KB/s P-CAV 32X: 4800KB/s P-CAV 24X: 3600KB/s P-CAV 20X: 3000KB/s CLV 16X: 2400KB/s CLV 8X: 1200KB/s CLV 4X: 600KB/s CLV |
| Re-Write Speeds: | 24X: 3600KB/s P-CAV 10X: 1500KB/s CLV 4X: 600KB/s CLV |
| Read Speeds: | 20X-48X: 3120-7200KB/s CAV 18X-40X: 2710-6000KB/s CAV 14X-32X: 2170-4800KB/s CAV 10X-24X: 1600-3600KB/s CAV 8X: 1200KB/s CLV 4X: 600KB/s CLV |
| Buffer Size: | 4MB |
| Interface: | Enhanced IDE (E-IDE)/ATAPI |
| Access Time: | <65ms |
| Supported Formats: | CD-DA, CD-ROM mode 1, CD-ROM XA, Mix Mode CD, Photo-CD, Video CD, CD-I, CD-Extra, CD+G, CD TEXT, CD-MRW |
| Recording Modes: (detected with Nero InfoTool) |
Packet, TAO, DAO, SAO, RAW SAO, RAW DAO, RAW SAO 16, RAW SAO 96, RAW DAO 16, RAW DAO 96 |
| VariRec Recording: | 4X: 600KB/s (TAO or DAO) |
| System Requirements: | Windows 95/98/98SE/Me/2000/XP/MacOS, minimum 64MB RAM |
| Disc Loading: | Tray, auto load/auto eject |
| Dimensions WxHxD: | 146 x 41.3 x 190 mm |
| Weight: | 1.0 kg |
| Extra's: | VariRec, PoweRec, two year full-warranty * (parts, labor, and replacement) with on-site Collect and Return Service **. |
** Only for EU-Countries + Norway and Switzerland.
Overall very nice features. The drive supports all recording formats and even offers some extra technologies such as
VariRec and PoweRec (Plextor Optimised Writing Error Reduction Control) which
we'll get back to later. Let's give you a screenshot of Nero InfoTool first and the detected features of this latest Plextor
drive:
'Mount Rainier' format and this is thus the first Plextor drive to support it! As you can also see from the screenshot the
read speed of the PX-W4824A drive is detected as 40X maximum. So why has the read speed been limited to 40X while the write
speed hasn't been limited? This was done because of the following reason:
"...Even though it would seem logical to expect the same maximum speed for reading and writing, and if not equal to
expect a higher read speed, this is not always the case for Plextor recorders. The reason for this comes from the different
characteristics of the media that is typically used in both cases.
Writing is usually performed on brand-new, blank media, with virtually no surface print or labels attached, still free
from scratches, probably inserted in a CD drive for the very first time and mastered with very high precision.
In the case of reading, the inserted disc is often a completely different type: there is a good chance that it is a
stamped disc, maybe mastered with lower quality, less precision, poorer tolerances and greater eccentricity. It may have
heavy or unequal surface printing or attached labels. Maybe it has been used in many drives before what may have introduced
fingerprints, scratches or small damage to the inner hub.
Spinning such discs at high speed may introduce vibration, irritating noise, or even read errors that will cause the
drive to spin down. Even worse, the micro-cracks caused by certain drives' clamping mechanisms could grow in an
avalanche-like way under influence of temperature, pressure and high rotation speed, causing the disc to scatter or
"explode" in many pieces. Additionally, thorough tests have shown that a large increase of rotational speed will
reduce the lifetime of the spindle motor by 25% while at the same time the internal drive temperature will rise, which will
affect the stable operation of all components. The effects of a continuous spin at high speed for reading are much worse
than the limited time (<3 minutes) it takes to write a disc at this speed..."
Writing
Of course the Plextor PX-W4824A can be 'unlocked' to enable 48X reading. This can be done via the PlexTools software
or manually by opening the drive's tray, making sure it's empty and then by pressing and holding the eject-button for three
seconds. The so-called SpeedRead option will then be enabled. You can disable it again (and thus limiting the read
speed again) by pushing the eject-button or by cutting the drive's power.
When you use the Plextor PX-W4824A drive with the SpeedRead option enabled and a disc should in fact explode inside your
recorder, Plextor has fitted the PX-W4824A drive with an extra strong front bezel. This will ensure that no parts of the
exploded disc can come out through the front of the drive.
Now let's take a closer look at some of the supported features and technologies:
Buffer (Underrun Protection):
The Plextor PX-W4824A, like all Plextor writers, uses BURN-Proof (Buffer UnderRuN
Proof) to prevent buffer underruns. When the buffer of the drive falls beneath 10% of its maximum capacity,
the recorder will stop recording as of a specific location on the CD. The recorder then continues attempting to
receive data from the PC to refill the buffer. In the meantime, the BURN-Proof circuit determines where the last
successful sector was written. Using the location of the last successful sector, the BURN-Proof circuit will position
the Optical Pickup. As soon as the buffer has been refilled, the CD Recorder will start recording again. Like mentioned
before in the drive specifications, the Plextor PX-W4824A has a 4 MB buffer on board as you can also see in the
screenshot below of the drive's detected features with Nero Burning Rom:
We would of course not recommend doing this since when the drive's quality checks are disabled you can risk creating a
coaster.
Mount Rainier:
The Plextor PX-W4824A drive is the first Plextor drive to support the Mount Rainier format and we'll of course test the
drive's Mt. Rainier abilities later on in this review. Here's a small introduction of the CD-MRW format. Click on
the Mt. Rainier logo to read our article on the Mt. Rainier format:
"...Mount Rainier enables native OS support of data storage on CD-RW. This makes the technology far easier to use
and allows the replacement of the floppy. This is done by having defect management in the drive, by making the
drive 2k addressable, by using background formatting, and by standardizing both command set and physical layout.
The new standard is promoted by Compaq, Microsoft, Philips, and Sony and is supported by over 40 industry leaders:
OS vendors, PC-OEM's, ISV's, chip makers, and media makers.
The purpose of the proposal made by the Mount Rainier group is to make CD-RW easier to use for data storage and
interchange. The changes proposed will enable the operating system support of dragging and dropping data to CD-RW
discs. Formatting delays will also be eliminated and the use will be comparable to using a hard disk or a floppy..."
PoweRec Technology:
The Plextor PX-W4824A has the same features as found on all new Plextor drives. These features include quality controls
like PoweRec to ensure a quality back-up. PoweRec (Plextor Optimised Writing Error
Reduction Control) monitors the quality of the disc while burning and will adjust the speed if necessary.
You can read a full explanation of the PoweRec technique in this PDF-document. The main features include:
- The first function will identify and test the target disc and select an optimised write strategy for the media.
Running OPC will overcome the variation in dye characteristics over the disc. - During writing, real-time write quality monitoring ensures the best write quality for the selected speed. If write
errors are likely to occur, the recording speed will be decreased automatically by the drive. - For CAV-mode recordings like the PX-W4824A uses, Plextor developed a unique and fine-tuned mechanism that offers a
combination of speed and quality. The write strategy will change every 1X speed step while the laser power is
adjusted every 1 minute position change. Besides this, PoweRec will also use a double safety system to watch over
the CAV writing process:- Continuous monitoring of the write result will cause the drive to switch to CLV mode if the error signals exceed a
certain threshold. - Simultaneously a thermistor-based circuit will adjust the Laser Power should the drive's internal temperature rise too
much.
- Continuous monitoring of the write result will cause the drive to switch to CLV mode if the error signals exceed a
As you can see Plextor has put a lot of effort into ensuring a quality write process. While they're now using the
CAV write method they're actually still
using Z-CLV in a way since the disc is divided
into a lot of 1X zones. After each zone the write speed is increased with 1X and the Plextor PX-W4824A will hit 48X at the
80 minute mark.
VariRec Technology:
Just like Yamaha with its 'Audio Master Quality Recording', Plextor has introduced its own technology when writing
audio discs. This technology, called VariRec (Variable Recording), allows changing the laser power when
writing audio at 4x (in TAO or DAO mode). With the VariRec option the user can make a slight modification to the
default setting:
VariRec has the same goal as Yamaha's 'Audio Master Quality Recording'; to reduce jitter. Like said the user can make
a slight modification (-2 ~ +2) to the laser power to achieve the best result for their audio back-ups.
With VariRec enabled you should be able to improve the quality of the recorded disc and make it more compatible with
picky CD-players like a car stereo. The default '0' setting is based on results from a database which in turn are the
result of thorough tests in the Plextor labs.
(reflected by various objects such as the mirror-like metal layer of the disc, but also from the shiny metal screw heads,
the slider bars and so on) and an optimised PCB (Power Circuitry Board). The optimised PCB was
designed to reduce power-supply induced noise. Special designed circuitry will guarantee host independent and noise-free
power supply.
Write Method:
Next we will take a look at which writing methods the Plextor PX-W4824A uses to write CD-R's. We used
Nero CD Speed to do a test write. Because the Plextor drive,
besides the Yamaha CRW-F1 drive, is one of the
first drives supporting 'Ultra-Speed CD-RW' writing we also did a test write using the CD-ReWriteable media. Below you can
see the produced graphs of both tests:
CD-Recordable:
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) of the CD-R(W).
In the produced graphs you can see that the Plextor PX-W4824A uses the full CAV method when writing a CD-Recordable disc and
P(artial)-CAV when writing the ultra-speed CD-ReWriteable disc.
CD-R |
In the left screenshot you see that the Plextor PX-W4824A reaches 48X without much problems. It reaches a top write |
CD-RW |
When writing CD-RW media you can see from the right screenshot that ultra-speed in this case indeed means ultra fast
writing. The Plextor PX-W4824A's CD-RW performance is even faster than the Yamaha CRW-F1 which also supports the ultra-speed
CD-RW standard. The average CD-RW write speed of the PX-W4824A was 23.91X.
Next up in our Plextor PX-W4824A review, the data read tests.
In this part of our Plextor PX-W4824A review we'll start testing the reading of normal/unprotected data discs. Let's
see how fast the Plextor drive can read data and if it can really reach the claimed 48X. For the tests we used
Nero CD Speed and repeated the tests several times to make sure
the results were accurate. The SpeedRead option (to enable the Plextor drive to reach 48X) was manually enabled before
each test.
The data read tests are divided into five sections:
Let's start with a screenshot of the detected Plextor PX-W4824A read speeds with PlexTools. In the screenshots below
you can also see some more information on the drive itself like firmware, interface and access time:
access times we've ever seen of less than 65ms (compare that for instance to the 120ms for the Plextor PX-W4012A drive).
40X speed. For this review we enabled the SpeedRead option with which it's possible to 'unlock' the drive to reach 48X
with Mode 1 data discs.
For the transfer rate tests we used a pressed CD-ROM containing PlexTools v1.05 which was exactly 74 minutes (333.000
sectors) long. Below the produced graph with Nero CD Speed:
 |
In the left screenshot you see that the Plextor PX-W4824A has a hard time reaching 48X and reaches a top read speed of only 45.48X. The average read speed was 34.47X.The seek times were however superb and the fastest we've ever seen on a drive as you can see in the screenshot on the right. |
 |
In the table below we compare the achieved times with other drives we've previously reviewed. The Plextor PX-W4824A
gets the last place when it comes to read speeds but it gets the first place when it comes to seek times:
| Original Discs |
Average Reading Speed |
Start Reading Speed |
End Reading Speed |
Seek Times Random |
Seek Times 1/3 |
Seek Times Full |
| 40X Max Readers | ||||||
| Lite-On LTR-32123S |
31.75X | 19.02X | 41.65X | 94ms | 103ms | 168ms |
| PleXCombo PX-320A |
31.21X | 18.38X | 41.21X | 108ms | 120ms | 216ms |
| Plextor PX-W4012U USB 2.0 |
31.62X | 18.70X | 41.71X | 118ms | 139ms | 208ms |
| Yamaha CRW3200E |
29.46X | 17.37X | 38.89X | 94ms | 107ms | 199ms |
| 44X Max Readers | ||||||
| Yamaha CRW-F1 |
31.22X | 18.46X | 41.18X | 120ms | 139ms | 263ms |
| 48X Max Readers | ||||||
| Lite-On LTR-40125S |
37.44X | 22.21X | 49.57X | 96ms | 96ms | 266ms |
| Plextor PX-W4824A |
34.47X | 20.31X | 45.48X | 63ms | 71ms | 111ms |
| TEAC CD-W540E |
36.85X | 22.08X | 48.43X | 88ms | 102ms | 229ms |
| VisionTek Xtasy 48X |
36.54X | 21.19X | 48.15X | 99ms | 100ms | 168ms |
| The grey area's indicate the highest speed / best time | ||||||
For the transfer rate tests with CD-Recordable Media we again used the PlexTools v1.05 disc only this time we read from
a back-up disc. The disc used was a 'That's Write' CD-R certified up to 16X writing and manufactured by Gigastorage. Here's
the ATIP information from CDR Identifier:
- ATIP: 97m 28s 12f
- Disc Manufacturer: Gigastorage Corp.
- Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
- Media type: CD-Recordable
- Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)
The back-up disc was of course also 74 minutes (333.000 sectors) long. Below the produced graph with Nero CD Speed:
The speeds and seek times the Plextor PX-W4824A drive reached with the CD-Recordable media:
 |
In the left screenshot you see that the Plextor PX-W4824A again fails to reach 48X but it comes pretty close with a top read speed of 46.87X and an average speed of 35.68X.The seek times with CD-Recordable media were again simply amazing! |
 |
In the table below we compare the achieved times with other drives we've previously reviewed. The Plextor PX-W4824A
again gets the last place when it comes to read speeds but when it comes to seek times the other drives can't even come
close:
| CD-R Discs |
Average Reading Speed |
Start Reading Speed |
End Reading Speed |
Seek Times Random |
Seek Times 1/3 |
Seek Times Full |
| 40x Max Readers | ||||||
| Lite-On LTR-32123S |
32.21X | 19.05X | 42.07X | 92ms | 105ms | 243ms |
| PleXCombo PX-320A |
31.43X | 18.83X | 41.36X | 110ms | 125ms | 218ms |
| Plextor PX-W4012U USB 2.0 |
31.81X | 19.07X | 41.81X | 116ms | 137ms | 204ms |
| Yamaha CRW3200E |
30.50X | 18.28X | 40.09X | 92ms | 106ms | 196ms |
| 44X Max Readers | ||||||
| Yamaha CRW-F1 |
32.39X | 19.41X | 42.57X | 116ms | 135ms | 254ms |
| 48x Max Readers | ||||||
| Lite-On LTR-40125S |
37.44X | 22.21X | 49.57X | 96ms | 96ms | 266ms |
| Plextor PX-W4824A |
35.68X | 21.38X | 46.87X | 59ms | 71ms | 105ms |
| TEAC CD-W540E |
36.85X | 22.08X | 48.43X | 88ms | 102ms | 229ms |
| VisionTek Xtasy 48X |
36.54X | 21.19X | 48.15X | 99ms | 100ms | 168ms |
| The grey area's indicate the highest speed / best time | ||||||
To test the transfer rate with CD-RW discs we again used the "PlexTools v1.05" disc only this time we read from a
CD-ReWriteable disc. We created a back-up of the disc using a PleXCombo PX-320A. The disc used was a 'Plextor CD-RW' disc. Here's the ATIP information from CDR
Identifier:
- ATIP: 97m 27s 00f
- Disc Manufacturer: Disc ID not allowed
- Reflective layer: Phase change
- Media type: CD-ReWriteable
- Recording Speeds: min. 4X - max. 8X
- Nominal Capacity: 651.86MB (74m 12s 00f / LBA: 333750)
The CD-RW disc was of course also 74 minutes (333.000 sectors) long. Below the produced graph with Nero CD Speed:
 |
In the screenshots you can see that the Plextor PX-W4824A drive is limited to 40X reading even when the SpeedRead option is enabled. The top read speed was 41.53X.The seek times with CD-ReWriteable media are again the best we've seen. |
 |
In the table below we compare the achieved results to some of the reviews we've done previously. The Plextor PX-W4824A
drive is not the only 48X reader which is limited to 40X reading when it comes to CD-ReWriteable media but it still gets
the last place. Again, when it comes to seek times, there's no beating the Plextor drive:
| CD-RW Discs |
Average Reading Speed |
Start Reading Speed |
End Reading Speed |
Seek Times Random |
Seek Times 1/3 |
Seek Times Full |
| 40x Max Readers | ||||||
| Lite-On LTR-32123S |
25.99X | 15.31X | 34.38X | 91ms | 101ms | 361ms |
| PleXCombo PX-320A |
25.20X | 14.87X | 33.27X | 105ms | 124ms | 215ms |
| Plextor PX-W4012U USB 2.0 |
31.61X | 18.61X | 41.74X | 117ms | 141ms | 210ms |
| Yamaha CRW3200E |
31.14X | 18.37X | 41.11X | 157ms | 108ms | 206ms |
| 44X Max Readers | ||||||
| Yamaha CRW-F1 |
33.06X | 19.46X | 43.66X | 119ms | 139ms | 263ms |
| 48x Max Readers | ||||||
| Lite-On LTR-40125S |
32.32X | 19.05X | 42.54X | 94ms | 96ms | 405ms |
| Plextor PX-W4824A |
31.45X | 18.52X | 41.53X | 62ms | 72ms | 113ms |
| TEAC CD-W540E |
37.53X | 22.12X | 49.54X | 99ms | 96ms | 303ms |
| VisionTek Xtasy 48X |
32.23X | 18.96X | 42.57X | 91ms | 101ms | 170ms |
| The grey area's indicate the highest speed / best time | ||||||
Overall we had quite a disappointing result since we couldn't reach the claimed 48X with any of the read tests. When
reading original/pressed and CD-Recordable media the top read speed was about 46X and thus not enough to compete with the
other 48X readers we've reviewed. We contacted Plextor Europe and asked why the drive couldn't reach the claimed 48X and
we got a pretty simple explanation confirming what we already suspected. The Plextor PX-W4824A drive reaches 48X at the
80-minute mark and not at the 72 minute mark we use for our tests. We of course tested this with an 80-minute CD-R disc and
this time the Plextor PX-W4824A drive could reach 48X without problems:
 |
In the screenshots you can see that the Plextor PX-W4824A drive now does reach 48X and gets a top read speed of 48.30X and an average speed of 36.50X. Note that this speeds were reached at the 78-minute mark of the CD-R disc.The seek times are (of course) again very good. |
So the Plextor PX-W4824A drive can reach 48X but only when you use a 78 (or more) minute disc. We saw the same thing when
we reviewed the Yamaha CRW-F1 drive.
Note that other read speeds (40X and below) are reached at the 68-minute mark as normal.
When it comes to reading CD-ReWriteable media the Plextor PX-W4824A drive is limited to 40X reading. Finally, the seek
times of the Plextor PX-W4824A drive were simply the best we've ever seen on a drive. Previous Plextor drives had some
problems with high seek times but this has been improved drastically with this new model.
So far for the data reading part. Now let's check the audio reading (DAE) speeds on the next page...
On the previous page where we showed you the PlexTools screenshot with the listed supported read speeds we could see
that audio was listed as 40X instead of 48X. Let's check if this latest Plextor drive is indeed limited when it comes
to DAE (Digital Audio Extraction). For the audio read tests we used our usual 'tools',
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and Nero CD Speed.
Features:
First we checked the features the Plextor PX-W4824A supports using EAC:
As you can see from the screenshot on the left the Plextor PX-W4824A drive supports all features. Below some more
information on these terms:
- 'Caching':
If your drive caches the audio that was just read, it would be a problem to read this data again in order to compare both
extractions to find out if they match. - 'Accurate Stream':
This means the drive won't jitter, thus no jitter correction has to be done anymore. - 'C2 Error Info':
Some newer drives are able to return C2 error information beside the actual audio data. In that case EAC doesn't need
to read all data twice anymore, which will result in a big speedup.
Digital Audio Extraction - Exact Audio Copy:
For the Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) tests we started Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and simply extracted the separate audio
tracks in uncompressed WAV format to our hard disk. Our test disc (DJ Promo - Last Men Standing) had 16 tracks and a total
playing time of 77 minutes and 3 seconds. We used both the 'Burst' mode and the 'Secure' mode:
- 'Burst Mode':
Burst mode is the fastest mode available. The audio sectors are just read without any error-detection and
error-correction. - 'Secure Mode':
The extracted audio is checked for correctness and if errors occur, EAC will try to recover them.
Below the screenshots of the speeds the Plextor PX-W4824A drive reached in both extraction modes:
Plextor PX-W4824A DAE speed - Burst Mode
Plextor PX-W4824A DAE speed - Secure Mode
A bit disappointing since Plextor has always been considered to produce the fastest DAE drives so we would have liked to
see this new drive doing DAE at 48X or even a little faster (such as the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive). In the table below
we compare our achieved results to some of the other drives we've previously reviewed:
| EAC DAE Speeds |
Burst Mode Average |
Burst Mode Maximum |
Secure Mode Average |
Secure Mode Maximum |
| 40X Max Readers | ||||
| Lite-On LTR-32123S |
29.8X | 42.0X | 9.5X | 11.9X |
| Mitsumi CR-480ATE |
29.1X | 40.1X | 10.3X | 13.5X |
| PleXCombo PX-320A |
29.7X | 41.8X | 9.2X | 12.1X |
| Plextor PX-W4012A |
30.6X | 42.3X | 9.5X | 12.4X |
| Yamaha CRW3200E |
29.1X | 40.4X | 7.1X | 7.8X |
| 44X Max Readers | ||||
| Yamaha CRW-F1 |
30.9X | 43.0X | 7.1X | 9.7X |
| 48X Max Readers | ||||
| Lite-On LTR-40125S |
35.3X | 48.0X | 11.0X | 14.2X |
| Plextor PX-W4824A |
30.3X | 41.8X | 9.7X | 12.6X |
| TEAC CD-W540E |
29.3X | 40.8X | 10.1X | 13.0X |
| VisionTek Xtasy 48X |
35.0X | 48.6X | 7.1X | 7.8X |
| The grey area's indicate the highest speed / best time | ||||
Digital Audio Extraction - Nero CD Speed:
Now let's check our results we got with Exact Audio Copy using Nero CD Speed. You can see a screenshot of the tests
below:
almost 42X. The seek times were again excellent and the Plextor drive (of course) has an accurate stream and gets a quality
score of 10 which is the highest score. Finally the CPU usage was low which is also good:
| Original Audio Disc |
Average Reading Speed |
Start Reading Speed |
End Reading Speed |
Seek Times Random |
Seek Times 1/3 |
Seek Times Full |
Quality/ Accurate Stream |
| 40X Max Readers | |||||||
| Lite-On LXR-24101A USB 2.0 |
31.15X | 18.42X | 41.07X | 91ms | 114ms | 178ms | 10/yes |
| Lite-On LTR-32123S |
31.91X | 18.87X | 42.09X | 90ms | 107ms | 179ms | 10/yes |
| PleXCombo PX-320A |
31.68X | 18.82X | 41.74X | 102ms | 121ms | 217ms | 10/yes |
| Pletor PX-W4012TU USB 2.0 |
32.06X | 19.06X | 42.22X | 115ms | 140ms | 211ms | 10/yes |
| 44X Max Readers | |||||||
| Yamaha CRW-F1 |
32.74X | 19.50X | 42.96X | 118ms | 141ms | 263ms | 10/yes |
| 48X Max Readers | |||||||
| Lite-On LTR-40125S |
37.35X | 19.98X | 49.07X | 88ms | 102ms | 177ms | 10/yes |
| Plextor PX-W4824A |
31.85X | 18.94X | 41.94X | 61ms | 74ms | 111ms | 10/yes |
| TEAC CD-W540E |
30.98X | 18.33X | 40.82X | 84ms | 95ms | 136ms | 10/yes |
| VisionTek Xtasy 48X |
37.23X | 19.96X | 49.11X | 84ms | 96ms | 167ms | 10/yes |
| The grey area's indicate the highest speed / best time | |||||||
Advanced DAE Quality Test:
To conclude our DAE test we did the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test' with
Nero CD Speed. This test is a very hard and intense test for any reader.
We created a new test disc using a Plextor
PX-W4012TU recorder. We used some high quality 'Hi-Space' media which are also available from our
online shop (for our Dutch and Belgian visitors only).
These Hi-Space discs have a 24 carats gold reflective cover and can be written up to 24x. Here are the results from the
Advanced DAE Quality Test:
drive can't keep up with other 48X readers. The Plextor drive has no problems reading the CD-Text and SubChannel Data
from the disc and can also read data from the lead-in and especially from the lead-out of the disc.
Please note that in the screenshot above the actual test was still running and 'Read Leadout' hasn't been checked
yet. This was because our test computer crashed after more than six hours of reading... You'll have to take our word on it:
the Plextor PX-W4824A can read a lot of data from the lead-out but it takes a lot of time.
CD-Text using NeroMediaPlayer and the PX-W4824A could indeed read it without problems as you can see in the screenshot
below (Artist and Song Title are displayed):
(heavily) scratched disc and a low quality disc.
It happens to all of us sooner or later: a disc is scratched and cannot be read properly anymore... In this test we
took a CD-Recordable and (heavily) scratched it with some fine sandpaper. We then did a surface scan with
Nero CD Speed and you can see the results below. First off let's
start with the ATIP information from the used CD-Recordable:
- ATIP: 97m 15s 11f
- Disc Manufacturer: Ritek Co.
- Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
- Media type: CD-Recordable
- Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)
Now for the achieved results. We read the disc with the Plextor PX-W4824A drive and then read the same disc with several
other recorders for comparison. You can see the result of the Plextor drive in the screenshot below. Please note that
damaged sectors can still be read. The important percentage is the one of the unreadable sectors. Of course the less, the
better:
keep in mind that the important percentage is the one of the unreadable sectors. Of course the less, the better:
| Scratched Disc |
Good | Damaged | Unreadable | ||||
| PleXCombo PX-208TU |
55.80% | 28.53% | 15.67% | ||||
| VisionTek Xtasy 48X |
36.89% | 44.41% | 18.70% | ||||
| PleXCombo PX-320A |
64.58% | - | 35.42% | ||||
| TEAC CD-W540E |
32.08% | 27.38% | 40.54% | ||||
| Plextor PX-W4824A |
41.90% | 9.30% | 48.80% | ||||
| Yamaha CRW3200E |
48.59% | - | 51.41% | ||||
| Plextor PX-W4012TU |
35.95% | 8.78% | 55.28% | ||||
| Yamaha CRW-F1 |
37.72% | - | 62.28% | ||||
| The grey area's indicate the least amount of unreadable sectors
- : drive cannot report damaged sectors |
|||||||
Low Quality Disc:
To add a little more to our scratched data reading tests we've added another test for you. We wrote a low quality 74
minute CD-Recordable using the VisionTek Xtasy
48X drive and Nero Burning Rom. We disabled its SMART-BURN feature so errors would probably be created. The
ATIP information from the used CD-Recordable:
- ATIP: 97m 31s 01f
- Disc Manufacturer: unknown
- Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
- Media type: CD-Recordable
- Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
- Nominal Capacity: 656.69MB (74m 45s 00f)
We then scanned the disc with Nero CD Speed using various
drives we've previously reviewed. You can see a screenshot of the Plextor PX-W4824A drive reading the low quality disc
below:
Again, keep in mind that the important percentage is the one of the unreadable sectors. Of course the less, the
better:
| Scratched Disc |
Good | Damaged | Unreadable | ||||
| Plextor PX-W4012TU |
99.44% | 0.56% | 0.0% | ||||
| PleXCombo PX-208TU |
89.60% | 10.40% | 0.0% | ||||
| VisionTek Xtasy 48X |
59.44% | 40.56% | 0.0% | ||||
| PleXCombo PX-320A |
89.49% | - | 10.51% | ||||
| Plextor PX-W4824A |
71.41% | 7.68% | 20.90% | ||||
| TEAC CD-W540E |
66.21% | 11.75% | 22.03% | ||||
| Mitsumi CR-480ATE |
60.34% | - | 39.66% | ||||
| Yamaha CRW-F1 |
48.81% | - | 51.19% | ||||
| The grey area's indicate the least amount of unreadable sectors
- : drive cannot report damaged sectors |
|||||||
Conclusion:
When reading the heavily scratched disc and the low quality disc the Plextor drive gets an average place. It's certainly
not the best drive we've seen when it comes to reading scratched and low quality discs but it's also not the worst drive
we've seen. Perhaps this performance can be improved via a firmware upgrade.
That concludes the reading part of our review. Now it's time to see how the Plextor PX-W4824A performs when
writing discs...
As mentioned before the Plextor PX-W4824A can write discs at an amazingly high speed of 48X max using the Full-CAV
method. What does this mean in real terms? Can the Plextor drive keep up with the fastest CAV writer available today,
the Lite-On LTR-48125S? To test the write speeds of this latest Plextor drive we set-up a basic write process using the
latest Nero Burning Rom version 5.5.9.9. We used the DAO (Disc
At Once) method for writing the disc. The disc was finalized and set-up as a non-multisession disc. In the
screenshot below you can see the burn process completed successfully
PX-W4824A review we'll do some quality tests with media burned using the Plextor drive.
Comparing:
Next we did some more tests comparing the Plextor drive to some of our previous reviews. As a comparison we've
added write times of both Z-CLV and P-CAV writers:
This is probably due to the Plextor determining the best write strategy. When the write speed is increased the differences
become less and the Plextor is faster than some of the other drives we've reviewed. The Lite-On LTR-48125S is still by far
the fastest writer we've seen and the Plextor PX-W4824A can hardly keep up.
DAO-RAW Writing:
If you own or perhaps checked out our Plextor forum you will probably have noticed that the Plextor PX-W4012A drive was limited to 24X
recording when writing audio and when writing in DAO-RAW mode (using CloneCD for instance). We of course checked if the
PX-W4824A was also limited to 24X recording in DAO-RAW but luckily it isn't as you can see from the CloneCD screenshot
below:
Writing Audio:
The next thing we're going to check is the Plextor PX-W4824A's audio writing abilities. As already mentioned on page
3 (features) of our review, this Plextor drive supports the 'VariRec' recording technique. VariRec allows you to change
the laser power when writing audio at 4x (in TAO or DAO mode) and with it you should be able to improve the quality of
the recorded disc and make it more compatible with picky CD-players like a car stereo.
To test the Plextor's VariRec feature we ripped the tracks (in WAV format) of an audio disc with Exact Audio Copy
(Secure Mode) and then started a new audio session in Nero Burning Rom version 5.5.9.9. When writing audio you can see
an option to enable the VariRec settings:
first test with the default setting (0) which is recommended. We then wrote another audio disc using some 'ordinary' Maxell
40X CD-Recordables at maximum speed. Below you can see the screenshots of the Plextor PX-W4824A writing in the VariRec mode
and the normal mode:
VariRec recording
Normal audio recording
we couldn't hear any difference in quality. The same results as we got with Yamaha's 'Audio Master Quality Recording'
mode and previous tests done with VariRec. As you can also see from the second screenshot the Plextor PX-W4824A drive can
write audio at full speed.
Conclusion:
So what can we conclude from all of the achieved results? Well the Plextor PX-W4824A drive is not the fastest writer
around but also not the slowest. It's a few seconds faster than the Plextor PX-W4012TU drive for example but it cannot
keep up with the Lite-On LTR-48125S... But then again, there are not many writers that can.
Compared to Plextor's previous writer model, the PX-W4012A, there have been some improvements. The PX-W4824A is no
longer limited to 24X recording when writing in DAO-RAW mode and when writing audio. Speaking of audio this latest Plextor
drive offers the same 'VariRec' technology as found on previous Plextor recorders. We, just like with Yamaha's 'Audio Master
Quality Recording' mode and as we experienced with previous VariRec tests, couldn't tell the difference between a normal
audio write and a write with VariRec enabled. All disc sounded just fine and played fine in our stereo and car stereo.
Now that we've finished our normal read and write tests, it's time to check the Plextor PX-W4824A's write quality...
A new test we're now going to do is with Lite-On's C1/C2 error scan program called WSES. This program can accurately scan
a disc for errors and it's a better method of checking the write quality then when using Nero CD Speed for instance. For
the quality tests we wrote several different CD-Recordable media and then measured the C1/C2 errors from the disc. The
created disc was scanned using a Lite-On LTR-48125W drive (WSES only works with Lite-On drives) at 40X reading.
The display scale were using for our error measurement is 60 for C1 and 20 for C2. Please keep this in mind when you,
for instance, compare our tests to other reviews. The scales may be different and you can thus not compare the results just
by looking at the created graphs!
Introduction:
C1 and C2 errors are not really on a disc. They occur during reading. The more difficult it is for a drive to read a
disc, the more errors will occur while reading that disc. A good disc should report low error rates even at high scanning
speeds. But don't forget that a bad disc can also have low error rates after burning. A good disc will still report low
error rates if you put the disc into direct sunlight, while a bad disc will damage and/or may degrade after some months.
The results below are thus not an indication whether or not the used disc is of a good quality. It's merely an indication
if the burn process was done properly.
In the figures below you will see a graphical overview of errors occurring during the read process. Please note that
every created/burned disc will always have C1 errors. These are errors that are corrected by the drive and they will not
effect the disc in a bad way as long as their amount is limited. C2 errors are however very bad for a disc and are harder
to read and correct. When there are too many C2 errors present on the disc it means you have bad burned disc and it can't
be read in the test drive your using as a reader (a coaster). Although a low amount of C2 errors can still be recovered by
the drive, a zero amount of C2 errors is always preferred!
The Tests:
700MB Plextor CD-R80:
- Contents: Data
- Certified Speed: 48X
- Write Speed: 48X (2m;49s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Cyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 24s 01f
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 72f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: Taiyo Yuden
These discs were delivered with the Plextor drive and were (of course) certified for 48X recording. The number of C1
errors is very low and there are no C2 errors on the disc. A perfect burn done at the maximum speed:
- Contents: Data
- Certified Speed: 48X
- Write Speed: 24X (4m:01s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Cyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 24s 01f
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 72f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: Taiyo Yuden
Another disc that was delivered with the Plextor drive but this time written at a lower speed of 24X. The number of C1
errors is again very low but increases a little at the end of the disc. The amount is however still very low and since the
disc has no C2 errors this is a perfect burn result:
- Contents: Data
- Certified Speed: 40X
- Write Speed: 40X (3m:08s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Phthalocyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 25s 29f
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: Maxell
This Maxell CD-R disc was written at 40X, the certified speed of the media. The number of C1 errors is a little higher
than with the Plextor/Taiyo Yuden media but still very low. Again, there are no C2 errors and this is thus another quality
burn:
- Contents: Data
- Certified Speed: 32X
- Write Speed: 40X (3m:02s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Phthalocyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 17s 06f
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: India, MoserBaer
The MMORE media that was written at 40X and certified for 32X writing had a lot of errors as you can see from the graph
below. We had to adjust the display scale for the C1 errors to 600 instead of 60 and the Plextor PX-W4824A thus
doesn't like the MoserBaer media. Luckily there were no C2 errors on the disc so the entire disc could still be read just
fine after it was burned:
- Contents: Data
- Certified Speed: 24X
- Write Speed: X (3m:01s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Phthalocyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 25s 07f
- Nominal Capacity: 702.69MB (79m 59s 00f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: MPO France
The Hi-Space Metal media produced a rather weird looking graph as you can see below. Although there were not as many
C1 errors as on the MMORE media we still had to adjust the graph to 200 in order to display the results in it. As we
already saw with other media there are again no C2 errors on the disc:
- Contents: Data
- Certified Speed: 16X
- Write Speed: 24X (4m:02s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Cyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 15s 11f
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: Ritek
For our next test we wrote some Discplanet Media that was only certified to 16X writing. The Plextor PX-W4824A drive
wrote the disc at 24X but the number of C1 errors is way too high as you can see from the graph below. The display scale
has now been adjusted to 1500! Despite the high amount of C1 errors the disc can still be read since there are
no C2 errors on the disc:
- Contents: Data, DAO-RAW
- Certified Speed: 32X
- Write Speed: 24X (3m:34s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Cyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 24s 01f
- Nominal Capacity: 656.40MB (74m 43s 01f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: Taiyo Yuden
We tried some more/older Taiyo Yuden media written with CloneCD in DAO-RAW mode (it's a back-up of the 'Neverwinter
Nights' game). The media was certified for 32X recording but written at 24X. The number of C1 errors on the disc is low
and there are no C2 errors on the disc. A perfect back-up:
700MB Maxell:
- Contents: Audio, 72 minutes
- Certified Speed: 40X
- Write Speed: 40X (2m:54s)
- Disc Type, Material: CD-R, Phthalocyanine
- ATIP Lead-in: 97m 25s 29f
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f)
- Disc Manufacturer maybe: Maxell
As a final quality test we tested some Maxell media that was written at 40X but this time with audio on it. Plextor's
previous write model, the PX-W4012A, was limited to 24X recording when writing audio but this Plextor PX-W4824A drive isn't.
As you can see from the graph below the disc has a low amount of C1 errors and no C2 errors. Writing audio at 40X is no
problem for the Plextor drive:
We had some various results when we did our quality tests. When we used quality media such as Taiyo Yuden and Maxell
(recommended by Plextor) the results were excellent. However when we used other (lower quality?) media the number of C1
errors increased enormously. Luckily all discs could be read fine after they were written and the Plextor PX-W4824A
drive didn't create a single C2 error. It's a good idea to check out the
supported recording media once in a while to check which media Plextor recommends using.
Another thing that we must mention here is that Plextor is known for their extensive media tests and will release
new firmware versions frequently with better and more media support. Since this Plextor PX-W4824A has the first firmware
version the media database can and will be improved a lot in the coming months. In Plextor's PDF-document,
The Process of Writing,
you can find more information.
Now that we've finished our read, write and quality tests, it's time to test the drive for its ability to read
and write data and audio copy-protections.
In this part of our Plextor PX-W4824A review we'll start testing the reading and writing of copy-protected data discs.
Copy-protections are used on almost every game nowadays so it's important a writer can handle the various protections
out there. For the tests we used the latest CloneCD version 4.0.1.10 from Elaborate
Bytes. As you might know if you've read our CloneCD v4.0 preview,
CloneCD now uses Profiles for each type of disc. In this review we created a separate Profile for each protection with
the common settings used in the old CloneCD versions. E.g. for SafeDisc we only selected the 'Fast Error Skip' setting.
As an extra 'service' or help you can download the Profiles we have used in this review. Click on the Profile
images to download the used Profile. Store these files in your CloneCDProfiles folder on your hard disk. Alternatively
you can view and download all used Profiles from our CloneCD forum, by clicking here.
Now let's start by giving you a screenshot of the supported drive capabilities of the Plextor PX-W4824A drive with CloneCD
v4.0.1.10:
copy-protection used on our game discs we scanned every disc with the latest ClonyXXL version 2.0.0.6. ClonyXXL can be
obtained from kickme.to/englishclony. In the table below
we've summed up all of our results and after the table we will clarify our results and compare the read times with other
recorders we've previously reviewed:
For the LaserLock test we use a game called 'Desperados' protected with LaserLock 2. As a comparison we read from both
the original disc and from a back-up (CD-Recordable) disc. We did this because there can be quite a difference in read
time as you can also see from the results we got with the Plextor PX-W4824A drive. While the original disc is read in
45 minutes and 59 seconds, the back-up was read in 9 minutes and 8 seconds. Not a bad result
for LaserLock as you can see from the table below:
To test the SafeDisc protection we used a game called 'Beavis and Butthead: BungHole in One'. The SafeDisc protection
is quite old but it uses a lot of errors on the first 5% of the disc which can make reading the disc take a really long
time. The Plextor drives are however very fast when it comes to reading the error sectors and this PX-W4824A drive is no
exception. The disc is read at full speed in 2 minutes and 28 seconds. Exactly one second faster than our
previous 'SafeDisc Reader Champions':
For our next tests we used a game called 'The Sims: House Party' protected with SafeDisc version 2.10.030. As expected
the disc was again read at full speed in 2 minutes and 14 seconds. To test the Plextor PX-W4824A's ability to
write this protection we wrote the image with 'Amplify
Weak Sectors' (AWS) disabled. The created back-up disc was then tested in the following drives:
- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: success
- Plextor PX-W4012A: success
- Lite-On LTR-48125W: success
- Plextor PX-W4824A: success
As expected the SafeDisc 2 protection was no problem at all for the Plextor PX-W4824A drive. When it comes to reading
the SafeDisc 2 protection the Plextor PX-W4824A is just as fast as the Plextor PX-W4012TU drive as you can also from the
table below where we compare the read times to some of the other drives we've reviewed:
Besides our SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests we need to take a look at the latest SafeDisc 2 version 'called' SafeDisc
v2.51. This is a new version of the regular SafeDisc 2 and has caused quite a few problems for a lot of writers (which
didn't have problems with the normal SafeDisc 2). For this test we used a game called 'Serious Sam 2: The Second
Encounter' protected with SafeDisc v2.51.021:
We read the image with the Plextor PX-W4824A drive using the same 'SafeDisc (2) [no AWS]' Profile as for our normal
SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests. The 'Hide CDR Media'
option was enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW drives. The results when playing from the following
drives:
- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: failed
- Plextor PX-W4012A: success
- Lite-On LTR-48125W: success
- Plextor PX-W4824A: success
As you can see from the list above the created back-up didn't play from all drives. As expected the back-up failed in the
picky Toshiba DVD-ROM. Next we re-wrote the same image file but now with the 'AWS' option enabled using the 'SafeDisc
2(.51) [AWS]' Profile. The 'Hide CDR Media' option was again enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW
drives. The results when playing from the following drives:
- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: failed
- Plextor PX-W4012A: success
- Lite-On LTR-48125W: success
- Plextor PX-W4824A: success
With 'AWS' enabled the Plextor PX-W4824A drive still failed to create a fully working back-up! We tried reading and
writing the image at lower speed and on CD-R and CD-RW media. We also repeated the tests with a different SafeDisc
v2.51.021 protected title, Grand Theft Auto 3, but we got the same results; none of the created back-ups would start from
the Toshiba drive. As a final test we tried to copy GTA3 using BetaBlocker 2.51 but this also failed.
Update: With firmware 1.03 the 'AWS' problem has been fixed. More information on this thread on our Plextor forum!
Let's give you a final comparison of the read times we achieved with the Plextor drive and compare it to other drives
we've reviewed. The Plextor PX-W4824A is again just as fast as the Plextor PX-W4012TU drive:
The next protected data tests we did was with a game called 'Neverwinter Nights' protected with a newer version of
SecuRom. Note that we didn't apply the official game patch for this title since with this patch no back-up works. We
tried to read the third disc of the game (play disc) and the Plextor PX-W4824A could read the disc at full speed. We then
tested the created back-up disc in several drives and the game started every time. When playing from a CD-RW drive you
have to enable CloneCD's 'Hide CDR Media' option. When we compare the read times to some of the other drives we've reviewed
you can see that the Plextor PX-W4824A is a lot faster than the other Plextor drives and it's thus not limited to
about 8X when reading the SubChannel Data:
And finally, as expected because of the results we got when reading the SecuRom protection, when reading a PlayStation disc
the Plextor PX-W4824A is also not limited to 8X reading. In the table below we compare the achieved read times to other
recorders we've reviewed for the final time:
The Plextor PX-W4824A showed an excellent performance when reading the various copy-protections. It's lightning fast
when it comes to reading the SafeDisc protections and, unlike Plextor's previous models, the PX-W4824A drive is not
limited to 8X reading anymore when it comes to extracting the SubChannel Data (SecuRom, PlayStation).
Writing the various copy-protection went as we expected but we were disappointed the drive couldn't create a fully
working back-up from the SafeDisc v2.51.021 (Serious Sam 2, Grand Theft Auto 3) protection. Every created back-up failed
to start from the picky Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM drive. We hope this behaviour can be fixed either via a firmware upgrade
or via a CloneCD update since normally a Plextor drive should have no problems copying SafeDisc v2.51.021 when 'AWS' is
enabled. The other protection we tested were no problem for the Plextor drive.
Next up in our Plextor PX-W4824A review, the reading of protected audio discs...
Now that we've taken a look at how well the Plextor drive can handle data protection it's time to see how well
it does with protected audio discs. Audio discs are protected more and more and so it's important a drive can read
these protections. For the tests we used Exact Audio Copy
(EAC) and CloneCD. In CloneCD we used the default 'Multimedia Audio
CD' Profile. For more information on how to handle copy-protected audio discs read
this thread on our Audio
forum.
Key2Audio version 2:
The first protection we're going to take a look at is Key2Audio developed by Sony DADC. The disc we're using
is 'Shakira: Laundry Service' protected with version 2 of the Key2Audio protection. On the front of the CD-cover we
can read the text 'will not play on PC/MAC'. For more information on Key2Audio please visit
www.key2audio.com.
Shakira: Laundry Service - Key2Audio 2
can see the Plextor PX-W4824A drive can recognize the disc's contents and we see that it has 13 audio tracks and one extra
(protected) data track:
to our hard disk without any problems. Next we tried to copy the disc with CloneCD and the 'Multimedia Audio' Profile:
of course also wrote the created image to an ultra-speed CD-ReWriteable disc (at 24X!) to see if the tracks were indeed
properly extracted. The disc sounded fine on our stereo.
Key2Audio version 3:
For the Key2Audio version 3 tests we used an audio disc with the title 'Celine Dion: A new day has come'. On the
front of the CD-cover we again find the text 'will not play on PC/MAC'.
Celine Dion: A new day has come - Key2Audio 3
again has no problems recognizing the disc's contents and we can see that the 'Celine Dion' disc has the same structure
as the 'Shakira' disc. There are 17 audio tracks and one (protected) data track:
speed to our hard disk without any problems. The same result as we got with the 'Shakira' disc. Next we tried to copy
the disc with CloneCD and the 'Multimedia Audio' Profile:
9 seconds. We again wrote the image file to check if the disc had been properly extracted. Again the disc played
fine on our stereo.
CCD-Lock:
Unfortunately we didn't have any Cactus Data Shield (CDS) protected discs available at the time of this review. But
we can give you the results when trying to copy a protection based on the CDS protection. For these tests we used a
program called CCD-Lock v1.72 RC1a. With this tool
you can modify the CloneCD image control file and add illegal TOC (Table Of Contents) entries to
protect your discs. In this example we protected an audio disc:
after a while. We tried to read the disc with CloneCD and EAC but unfortunately the Plextor drive fails to recognize the
disc and the contents can thus not be read.
Conclusion:
The results with the Key2Audio audio protection were as expected. The Plextor PX-W4824A drive has no problems whatsoever
with the Key2Audio discs and could extract them at full speed using either CloneCD or EAC. Just as we saw with previous
reviews the Plextor failed to read the CCD-Lock protected disc.
Next up in our Plextor PX-W4824A review, writing CD-ReWriteable media and the Mount Rainier tests...
In this part of the review we'll take a look at the Plextor PX-W4824A's CD-ReWriting abilities and its Mount Rainier
(CD-MRW) support. For both tests we used Ahead's InCD version 3.37.0.
For the erase tests we used Elaborate Bytes' CloneCD version 4.0.1.10.
Packet Writing:
We formatted the Plextor 650MB ultra-speed CD-RW disc which was certified for 24X re-writing. We fired up
InCD, inserted the empty CD-ReWriteable disc in the recorder and measured the time it took from inserting the disc till
it was ejected again. The InCD option to 'Format disc to CD-MRW' (Mt. Rainier) was been disabled. We will do the
CD-MRW tests later on this page of our review.
400MB (419.742.820 bytes)). In the table below we've summed it all up for you:
the disc. The ultra-speed CD-RW disc was erased at 24X as you can also see from the screenshot below:
Plextor PX-W4824A erasing CD-RW disc
screenshot below you can see that the Plextor PX-W4824A needs 2 minutes and 46 seconds to write the test data.
This is about two minutes faster than a 12X CD-ReWriter:
The PX-W4824A drive is Plextor's first drive supporting the Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) format. Let's see how well it performs
when using InCD version 3.37.0. If you want to read more on the CD-MRW format please read our
Mount Rainier article.
copying the data to the (un)formatted disc. Reading was also no problem and very fast. Overall an excellent result for the
Plextor drive.
Conclusion:
The Plextor PX-W4824A performs very well with CD-ReWriteable media. Although the Yamaha CRW-F1 drive was slightly faster
when it comes to packet writing, the Plextor was superior to it when it came to the Mount Rainier format. When we compare
the achieved results to 10X and 12X re-writers you can see that the difference is striking. Personally we love the new
ultra-speed CD-ReWriteable speeds and it's great this new Plextor PX-W4824A drive supports it.
On the next page we've summed up our tests results with various media...
In this part of our Plextor PX-W4824A review we'll test how fast the drive can write different CD-Recordable media. Of
course we tested every disc afterwards if errors had occurred as you can see on page 8: write quality. We used a 650MB
avi-file and various files to make a total file size of 700MB. We used Nero Burning Rom to write this file in DAO
(Disc At Once) mode. Every disc was finalized and set-up as non-multisession. For our tests we've
tried to use media certified for many different certified speeds (16/24/32/40/48). In the table below we've, as always,
summed it all up for you:
32X certified Taiyo Yuden media. The maximum speed of 48X was only reached with the CD-Recordables that were delivered
with the Plextor drive but future firmware upgrades will support more media at the maximum speed.
When writing CD-ReWriteable media we had an average result. All discs could be written at 10X and thus none at 12X.
We tested two types of ultra-speed media (the Plextor and the Yamaha/Mitsibishi discs) and both discs could be written
at 24X without problems.
To conclude our review we will take a look at how far the Plextor PX-W4824A can overburn and if it can handle 8cm
CD-R's and 99 minute CD-R's...
We're almost done with our Plextor PX-W4824A review and we'll, as always, conclude with our 'special discs' tests. These
include an overburning test and a test to see if the latest Plextor drive can write 8cm CD-R's. If you've checked out the
specifications of the Plextor drive
you might have noticed this sentence:
Overburning up to 94.55 minutes
In this part of our review we're going to test if this is indeed the case and we'll of course also test if the drive can
read 99 minute discs. Let's start with the overburning test:
Overburning:
We used DataTrack 99min/900MB CD-R's for our tests that were certified up to 40X writing. We used
Nero CD Speed to do an overburn test. We set the 'Test capacity'
to 99 minutes and started the test. You can see the achieved results below:
capacity to 94:56 minutes the test was completed successfully. Next we tried to read another overburned disc of 98 minutes
but (also as expected) the Plextor PX-W4824A drive couldn't read them. When we tried an 88-minute audio disc the disc was
read without problems:
To conclude our Plextor PX-W4824A review we tried to write 8cm CD-R's manufactured by Plasmon. The discs can hold a
maximum of 23min/200MB and were certified up to 12x writing. Here's the ATIP information and a picture of the disc
itself:
 |
|
We set-up up Nero Burning Rom to burn a compilation of about 195MB and started the write process. Unfortunately we had
some problems with our test system (Nero Burning Rom crashed for some reason we're unsure of) but when we re-did the tests
using a slow, but safe, 8X writing the 8cm disc was written without problems:
That concludes our Plextor PX-W4824A review! Let's go to our final words and conclusions...
Positive Points:
- Nice and complete software package (includes for instance five (!) 48X CD-R discs)
- Complete manual and in many different languages
- Two year full warranty for Europe, The Middle-East and Africa
- Supports 48X Full-CAV writing of data and audio
- Supports 24X P-CAV re-writing
- Supports 48X Full-CAV reading via SpeedRead
- 4MB buffer plus BURN-Proof
- Good features:
- PoweRec (which can now also be disabled)
- VariRec
- Good software package:
- Ahead's Nero Burning Rom & InCD
- Plextor's PlexTools
- Good DAE quality
- Excellent seek times
- Excellent Mount Rainier performance
- Supports DAO-RAW writing
- Supports writing of 8cm discs
- Supports reading and writing of CD-Text
- Supports reading and writing of full SubChannel Data
- Could back-up SafeDisc 2 (before version v2.51.021)
- Could read Key2Audio (audio protection) just fine
- Drive has an extra strong front bezel to protect from possible injury due to exploding discs
Negative Points:
- Picky with media that's not recommended by Plextor
- Cannot fully overburn to 99 minutes (max is 94:56 minutes)
- Doesn't reach 48X reading until 80-minute mark
- DAE and CD-RW reading is limited to about 42X
- Failed to back-up SafeDisc v2.51.021 even with CloneCD's AWS
- Reading scratched/low quality discs could be improved
Our expectations were high when we started this Plextor PX-W4824A review since Plextor has always been known for their quality drives. Plextor has put a lot of work into this new
recorder and the drive, compared to their previous PX-W4012A model, has been improved a lot. The Plextor PX-W4824A is
the first Plextor drive to support the ultra-speed re-writing format, full P-CAV writing, the Mount Rainier format just
to name some things.
As always with Plextor drives the package is very complete and it includes everything you need to get started writing
right away. You get a generous amount of five 48X CD-Recordable discs, an ultra-speed CD-ReWriteable disc, excellent
software and a very complete manual located on the Plextor CD-ROM.
When it came to performance we had somewhat of a mixed result. Things that really impressed us were the drives excellent
seek times and Mount Rainier performance. When reading discs the Plextor PX-W4824A drive is by default limited to 40X
reading but the drive can be 'unlocked' to reach 48X. This can be done manually or via the PlexTools software. Plextor has
done this because 48X reading can result in exploding discs when you use a disc that is damaged. As an extra security
Plextor has fitted the drive with an extra strong front bezel to prevent parts of the exploded disc coming out the front of
the drive and possibly injuring somebody. These kind of measurements show that Plextor cares about its products.
due to the fact that the PX-W4824A drive doesn't reach 48X until the 80-minute mark of the disc. Since we used smaller sized
discs for our tests 48X wasn't reached. We would have liked to see the Plextor PX-W4824A drive reaching 48X at the 68-minute
mark as Plextor uses as indication to reach 40X. Digital Audio Extraction and the reading of CD-ReWriteable media was also
limited to about 42X.
When it came to writing the Plextor PX-W4824A showed a good result. It's not the fastest drive we've seen but we can only
compare the drive to 48X Lite-On recorders we've reviewed. When we compare the drive to 40X drives the write times are
pretty close. What did bother us was the write quality. When you use CD-R discs that are
recommended by Plextor we had an excellent result. However when we used other discs that were not on
the list the quality wasn't that good. Although all discs could be read fine after they were written the C1/C2 error tests
showed a lot of C1 errors. Luckily we can be sure that Plextor will release new firmware versions improving the media
support and write performance.
When dealing with copy-protections the Plextor PX-W4824A performed pretty much as expected. Reading of SafeDisc protected
titles was extremely fast and SecuRom can now also be read a lot quicker than we saw with previous Plextor drives. One thing
that did disappoint us was the fact that the Plextor PX-W4824A drive failed to make a fully working back-up of the SafeDisc
v2.51.021 protection even with CloneCD's 'AWS' function enabled. When it came to audio protections we got our usual results.
During this review we received a new firmware upgrade for the Plextor PX-W4824A drive. We already tested this new
version with the SafeDisc v2.51.021 protection but it unfortunately also failed. We will keep you informed via our
Plextor forum when we update some
tests.
Update: With firmware 1.03 the 'AWS' problem has been fixed. More information on this thread on our Plextor forum!
