VisionTek Xtasy 48X

June 28, 2002

Review: VisionTek Xtasy 48X
Based on: Lite-On LTR-48125W
Reviewer: G@M3FR3@K
Provided by: VisionTek
Firmware: version VS06
Production date: May 2002

VisionTek was founded in 1988 by four childhood friends working
at a small DRAM brokerage firm based in their Chicago apartment. Their goal was to capitalize on the expanding demand for
memory products needed to run the newest software that was becoming available. Nowadays, VisionTek is the largest provider
of 3D graphics accelerators and memory in North America. VisionTek entered the retail market in May, 2001, and by the end
of 2001 had earned the #1 retail spot for graphics in the U.S.

A few weeks ago we posted a press release on
our website about VisionTek expanding their 'Xtasy' product line with new, ultra-fast, optical drives. By partnering with
retail giant Best Buy, VisionTek plans to extend the success of its
Xtasy brand into product categories that appeal to the PC enthusiast beyond 3D graphics.

VisionTek was kind enough to send us a sample of one of their new writers, the Xtasy 48X. This writer, based on the
Lite-On LTR-48125W, offers ultra fast write speeds of 48x, re-write speeds of 12x and read speeds of 48x. In this
review we'll take a look at the drive's performance and compare it to other drives we've reviewed. Since the VisionTek
Xtasy 48X is exactly the same writer as the Lite-On LTR-48125W, this review is also interesting for people considering to
buy this latest Lite-On model. Read on to see what we have to say about this 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 Disk: Maxtor 30GB 7200rpm (UDMA66)
IDE Controller: PCI UDMA100 Controller
USB Controller: NEC USB 2.0 Controller

System set-up:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X was set-up as MASTER on the (onboard) Secondary IDE Channel and, as you can see, identifies
itself as "LITE-ON LTR-48125W". DMA (Direct Memory Access) was enabled and Autorun was disabled for
every device. All drives (including the VisionTek Xtasy 48X) support UDMA33. The listed Mitsumi and Toshiba drives are
running on a separate IDE-controller.

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:

One note before we start with our VisionTek Xtasy 48X review, we upgraded its firmware to VS06 (it was shipped
with VS01) to get the best results out of our tests. You can get Lite-On firmwares from the Lite-On
website. Now let's take a look at the package of the
VisionTek drive on the next page...

First things first as we check out the contents of the VisionTek Xtasy 48X package. In the box
VisionTek send to us we find the following things:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive itself
Quick installation guide
Quick start guide
IDE 40-pins flatcable
Audio cables
Mounting screws
Nero Burning Rom 5.5 disc containing;
- Ahead's Nero Burning Rom
- Ahead's NeroMediaPlayer
- Ahead's InCD

One blank 40x 700MB Xtasy CD-R
(manufactured by Princo*)

* Identified with Lite-On's SMART-BURN Media Check Program v1.0

As we see it, the package could have done with some more extra's like a CD-ReWriteable disc and perhaps some certified
48x media. The CD-Recordable disc delivered with the VisionTek drive was detected as 40x with Lite-On's
SMART-BURN Media Check Program.
The 40-pins IDE-cable that came with the drive only had two connections (one for the mother-board, so leaving only one
connection for another device) and we prefer cables that have three since then you can attach more than one device with
it.

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X is shipped with Ahead's Nero Burning Rom
5.5. This software package doesn't need an introduction anymore and it's our personal favourite. Ahead's packet writing
software, InCD and NeroMediaPlayer are also part of the Nero Burning Rom 5.5 disc.

VisionTek offers a one year warranty on the Xtasy drive and, as with all Xtasy products, VisionTek provides web-based
and toll-free lifetime technical support.

The Drive:

On the front of the VisionTek drive we find the Xtasy logo (sticker), the supported speeds (48/12/48) and the 'High
Speed CD ReWriteable' logo. Besides that we have the usual headphone jack, a volume control, a busy/write LED (green means
the drive is powered on, detecting disc activity or reading and red means the drive is writing) 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.

The Software:

As briefly mentioned when we listed the package contents, the VisionTek Xtasy drive is shipped with the popular
burning software Nero Burning Rom. This software, by many people, is considered to be one of the best software
packages around when it comes to your CD and DVD burning needs.

Nero Burning Rom InterfaceWith Nero Burning Rom you can perform many tasks varying from simple data and audio compilations to full MPEG-2
encoding (via plug-ins) and MP3pro-file creation.

Besides Nero Burning Rom we also have Ahead's packet writing software, InCD. With InCD you can turn your CD-ReWriteable
discs into large floppy discs and use them as such (files can be saved, renamed and deleted). InCD now also supports
the 'Mount Rainier' format which we'll get back to later on in this review.

Last but not least we find NeroMediaPlayer on the Nero Burning Rom 5.5 disc. NeroMediaPlayer is a complete player with
which you can play your audio files (from hard disk or from a CD-Rom) and it even supports CD-text. You can also use it
to record audio files to WAV or MP3 format:

NeroMediaPlayerOn the next page we'll take a look at the features the VisionTek Xtasy 48X...

First things first as we check out the VisionTek Xtasy 48X specifications as mentioned on the VisionTek
website and the Lite-On
website. We also used
additional software like Nero InfoTool to detect
some of the features:

Drive Specifications:

Write Speeds:	48x: 7200KB/s CAV 40x: 6000KB/s P-CAV 32x: 4800KB/s P-CAV 24x: 3600KB/s P-CAV 16x: 2400KB/s CLV 12x: 1800KB/s CLV 8x: 1200KB/s CLV 4x: 600KB/s CLV
Re-Write Speeds:	12X: 1800KB/s CLV 10X: 1500KB/s CLV 8X: 1200KB/s CLV 4X: 600KB/s CLV 2X: 300KB/s CLV
Read Speeds:	48X max 7.2 MB/s CAV
Buffer Size:	2 MB
Interface:	Enhanced IDE (E-IDE)/ATAPI
Operating Modes:	PIO Mode 4, Multiword DMA Mode 2 (optional), UDMA/33 Mode 2
Access Time:	80ms (typical)
Supported Formats:	CD-DA, CD ROM Mode-1, CD-ROM/XA Mode-2 Form-1 and Form-2, CD-I Ready, Video-CD (MPEG-1), Karaoke CD, Photo-CD, Enhanced CD, CD extra, I-Trax CD, UDF, CD-Text
Recording Modes: (detected with Nero InfoTool)	Packet, TAO, DAO, SAO, RAW SAO, RAW SAO 16, RAW SAO 96, RAW DAO 16, RAW DAO 96
System Requirements:	166 MHz processor or faster, 64MB RAM recommended, Windows 95/98/Me/2000/NT4.0/XP
Disc Loading:	Tray, auto load/auto eject
Dimensions WxHxD:	145.8 x 41.3 x 190.0 mm
Weight:	1.0 kg
Extra's:	SMART-BURN, SMART-X and VAS (Vibration Absorber System) mechanism.

Overall nice features. The drive supports all recording formats and even offers some extra technologies such as
the (by now) well known Lite-On SMART-BURN and SMART-X technologies. Besides that the drive also has VAS
(Vibration Absorber System) mechanism. We'll explain these technologies below but let's give
you a screenshot of Nero InfoTool first with the detected features of the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive:

As you can see from the screenshot the VisionTek Xtasy 48X (or Lite-On LTR-48125W) supports all features a CD-Writer
should have including the new 'Mount Rainier' format which we'll test later on in this review. Now let's take a closer
look at some of the supported features/technologies:

Buffer (Underrun Protection):

According to Nero InfoTool the VisionTek drive has a 2MB buffer. Let's check this, along with other features of the
VistionTek drive, with Nero Burning Rom:

As you can see from the screenshot the VisionTek drive (Lite-On LTR-48125W) confirms the information provided by
Nero InfoTool. The drive has a 2MB buffer, supports 'Mount Rainier' and uses SMART-BURN as part of the buffer underrun
protection.

SMART-BURN:

SMART-BURN (Smart Monitoring & Adapting Recording Technology for BURNing)
is Lite-On's solution for writing discs at the highest possible quality and speed. By determining the optimum write
parameters and a running OPC (Optimum Power Calibration) the drive will determine the best
strategy for the disc and will change the write speed if necessary (e.g. due to poor media quality or a working
environment that has become too hot). SMART-BURN (of course) also includes a technique to prevent buffer underruns.
When the drive runs out of data it will stop writing and wait until its buffer has been refilled and will then
continue writing again.

As you can see from the Nero screenshot above it is possible to disable the SMART-BURN feature. When it's disabled
the drive will always try to write at the speed you've selected. However, the drive is still running continuous quality
checks, which means that it may still lower the write speed if the media can't handle the speed. In other words:
disabling SMART-BURN is disabling the media table that is in the firmware of the drive, but the write speed may still
be lowered if write problems occur due to a media defect or low quality media.

SMART-X:

SMART-X (Smart Monitoring & Adapting Recording Technology for eXtraction)
is a new Lite-On technology to increase the extraction speed of audio and VideoCD data with less errors even from
poor quality (dirty/scratched) media. The drive estimates if the ripped data will result in audio noise, interrupt
or mosaic on screen. If so, the rip speed will be reduced to get more correctable data.

Disc-Loading Mechanism:

You may have noticed, if you own a Lite-On, or Lite-On based drive such as this VisionTek Xtasy 48X, that its tray
is rather noisy compared to other drives. When you look inside the Lite-On drive while its tray is open you can see the
cause. The Lite-On drive's tray is driven by plastic gears instead of a belt which is normally used. Gears make more
noise but last longer and this is why Lite-On picked gears instead of belts:

Mount Rainier:

As already mentioned, the VisionTek Xtasy 48X supports the Mount Rainier industry standard. We'll 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..."

Write Method:

As you may have seen in the drive specifications on top of this page, the VisionTek Xtasy 48X uses the CAV
(Constant Angular
Velocity) write method when writing at its maximum speed. The write speed is increased gradually and there's
no switching between write zones as with the Z-CLV (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) write
method. This will result in a higher average write speed and the drive doesn't need to use its buffer underrun technique
when switching write zones. In the screenshot below you can see a test burn done with Nero CD Speed:

The green line indicates the write speed.
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) of the CD-R.

In the graph you can clearly see that the VisionTek Xtasy 48X starts writing at an extremely high speed of 22X and
then gradually increases the speed to 48x:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X (or actually the Lite-On LTR-48125W) is one of the first drives to use the full CAV method when
writing discs and is currently the fastest drive available. The average write speed of the drive is 37.10x,
which means an average increase of about 6.0x (900KB/s) compared to the fastest 40x Z-CLV writer, the
TEAC CD-W540E (31.21x).When the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive is writing at 24x/32x/40x it uses P(artial)-CAV instead of full CAV. It will then
also start writing at a lower speed of about 19x instead of 22x as we saw with the full CAV mode.

Later on in this review we will do more write speed tests and compare the drive to other (Z-CLV and P-CAV) drives
we've previously reviewed.

Next up in our VisionTek Xtasy 48X review, the data read tests.

Now we'll start testing the reading of normal/unprotected data discs. Let's see how fast the VisionTek/Lite-On 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 data read tests are divided into four sections:

Original/Pressed Discs
CD-Recordable Media
CD-ReWriteable Media
Conclusion

Transfer Rate Test - Original/Pressed 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:

And of course the speeds and seek times of the VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On LTR-48125W drive:

In the left screenshot you see that the VisionTek has no problems reaching 48x with our test disc. It can reach a top
speed of 48.72x. Although the drive starts slow it quickly speeds up as you can also see in the graph if you look
closely.The seek times with original/pressed media were pretty good 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 VisionTek drive
is the slowest starter but has the highest average and top read speeds. It has about the same seek-times as the other 48x
drives:

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-24102B	30,94x	18,37x	40,78x	86ms	99ms	171ms
Lite-On LTR-32123S	31,75x	19,02x	41,65x	94ms	103ms	168ms
Mitsumi CR-480ATE	30,42x	18,00x	40,11x	93ms	97ms	132ms
PleXCombo PX-320A	31,21x	18,38x	41,21x	108ms	120ms	216ms
Plextor PX-W2410A	32,01x	19,01x	42,17x	160ms	154ms	472ms
Plextor PX-W4012A	32,06x	19,04x	42,25x	118ms	143ms	217ms
Waitec MEGALUS	30,79x	17,98x	40,71x	152ms	157ms	275ms
Yamaha CRW3200E	29,46x	17,37x	38,89x	94ms	107ms	199ms
48x Max Readers
Lite-On LTR-40125S	36,78x	22,05x	48,54x	94ms	103ms	168ms
TEAC CD-W540E	36,71x	21,64x	48,47x	93ms	102ms	167ms
VisionTek Xtasy 48X	37,03x	21,39x	48,72x	93ms	104ms	172ms
The grey area's indicate the highest speed / best time

Transfer Rate Test - CD-Recordable Media:

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 VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On LTR-48125W drive reached with the CD-Recordable media:

In the left screenshot you see that the VisionTek Xtasy 48X again has no problems reaching 48x reading. Its top
read speed is 48.15x, a little lower than the TEAC CD-W540E and Lite-On LTR-40123S drive.The seek times with CD-Recordable media were again pretty good as you can see in the screenshot on the right.

In the table below we compare the achieved results to some of the reviews we've done previously. The VisionTek drive
is a little slower with the CD-Recordable media than with the original/pressed discs. Its seek-times are about the same
again, with the exception of the full seek-times which were a lot faster than the other drives we've reviewed:

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-24102B	30,80x	17,95x	40,77x	141ms	148ms	258ms
Lite-On LTR-32123S	32,21x	19,05x	42,07x	92ms	105ms	243ms
Mitsumi CR-480ATE	29,99x	17,98x	39,44x	91ms	96ms	127ms
PleXCombo PX-320A	31,43x	18,83x	41,36x	110ms	125ms	218ms
Waitec MEGALUS	30,49x	18,27x	40,07x	121ms	133ms	252ms
Yamaha CRW3200E	30,50x	18,28x	40,09x	92ms	106ms	196ms
48x Max Readers
Lite-On LTR-40125S	37,44x	22,21x	49,57x	96ms	96ms	266ms
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

Transfer Rate Test - CD-ReWriteable Media:

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:

The speeds and seek times the VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On LTR-48125W drive reached with the CD-ReWriteable media:

In the screenshots you can see that the VisionTek drive, like most Lite-On drives, cannot read CD-ReWriteable discs
at full speed and reaches a top speed of 42.57x.The seek times with CD-ReWriteable media were however very good as you can see in the screenshot on the right.

In the table below we compare the achieved results to some of the reviews we've done previously. The VisionTek
drive performs very similar to the Lite-On LTR-40125S drive but cannot keep up with the TEAC CD-W540E. Its seek-times
were however very good:

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-24102B	16,04x	16,05x	16,07x	141ms	148ms	258ms
Lite-On LTR-32123S	25,99x	15,31x	34,38x	91ms	101ms	361ms
Mitsumi CR-480ATE	30,98x	18,27x	40,84x	96ms	102ms	137ms
PleXCombo PX-320A	25,20x	14,87x	33,27x	105ms	124ms	215ms
Waitec MEGALUS	25,19x	14,84x	33,26x	123ms	138ms	261ms
Yamaha CRW3200E	31,14x	18,37x	41,11x	157ms	108ms	206ms
48x Max Readers
Lite-On LTR-40125S	32,32x	19,05x	42,54x	94ms	96ms	405ms
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

Transfer Rate Test - Conclusion:

Overall we can say the VisionTek Xtasy 48X or Lite-On LTR-48125W is a great reader. It has no problems reaching 48x
and going even a little faster than that. Its seek-times were good and sometimes very good as we saw with the
CD-ReWriteable media. However when it came to reading this media the drive is limited to about 42x. Of course not really
slow compared to other/older Lite-On drives but not nearly as fast as the TEAC CD-W540E drive.

So far for the data reading part. Now let's check the audio reading (DAE) speeds on the next page...

On the previous page we already saw that the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive is a great data reader and now it's
time to check its DAE (Digital Audio Extraction) abilities. On the box of the VisionTek
drive it stated it can do DAE at full speed (48x). Let's find out if this is really true. 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 VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On LTR-48125W supports using EAC:

As you can see from the screenshot on the left. the VisionTek 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: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 (Thunderdome XXII - CD1) had 20 tracks and a total
playing time of 77 minutes and 45 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 VisionTek / Lite-On drive reached in both extraction modes:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X DAE speed - Burst Mode

VisionTek Xtasy 48X DAE speed - Secure ModeThe VisionTek Xtasy 48X can indeed reach an amazingly high extraction speed! It reaches a top speed of 48.6x
in Burst Mode and gets an average speed of 35.0x! Its performance in Secure Mode wasn't that impressive but not
bad either. In the table below we've summed up the results and compare them to 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 LXR-24101A USB 2.0	28,3x	39,6x	8,6x	9,4x
Lite-On LTR-24102B	29,2x	41,7x	9,0x	10,1x
Lite-On LTR-32123S	29,8x	42,0x	9,5x	11,9x
Mitsumi CR-4809TE	28,1x	40,1x	10,4x	12,5x
Mitsumi CR-480ATE	29,1x	40,1x	10,3x	13,5x
PleXCombo PX-320A	29,7x	41,8x	9,2x	12,1x
Waitec MEGALUS	27,8x	38,8x	6,7x	8,0x
Yamaha CRW3200E	29,1x	40,4x	7,1x	7,8x
48x Max Readers
Lite-On LTR-40125S	35,3x	48,0x	11,0x	14,2x
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

Besides our tests with Exact Audio Copy we also did a DAE test with Nero CD Speed. You can see a screenshot of the
tests below:

The tests done with Nero CD Speed confirm our previous findings with EAC. The VisionTek drive has no problems reaching
48x and going even faster than that (49.11x!). As you can also see from the screenshot above, the drive has an
accurate audio stream and produces perfect quality (a score of 10). The only 'problem' with this drive is the very high
CPU usage. We had the same problems when reading data.. Maybe this can be improved via a future firmware upgrade? In the
table below we've once again summed up our results:

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-24102B	31,41x	18,56x	41,46x	86ms	99ms	169ms	10/yes
Lite-On LTR-32123S	31,91x	18,87x	42,09x	90ms	107ms	179ms	10/yes
Mitsumi CR-4809TE	30,98x	18,32x	40,84x	106ms	112ms	161ms	10/yes
Mitsumi CR-480ATE	30,72x	18,26x	40,46x	93ms	101ms	132ms	10/yes
PleXCombo PX-320A	31,68x	18,82x	41,74x	102ms	121ms	217ms	10/yes
48x Max Readers
Lite-On LTR-40125S	37,35x	19,98x	49,07x	88ms	102ms	177ms	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. Here are the results:

The average DAE speed of the VisionTek Xtasy 48X is again pretty high, but not as high as the TEAC CD-W540E drive
we've reviewed. The VisionTek drive has no problems reading the CD-Text from the disc and the SubChannel Data. The drive
can also read the lead-in and lead-out of the disc, something a lot of drives can't do.

We also tested if the VisionTek / Lite-On drive could indeed read CD-Text. We played an audio disc with CD-Text with
NeroMediaPlayer and the drive could indeed read it without problems as you can see in the screenshot below (Disc Title
and Artist are displayed):

Now that we've concluded our data and audio reading part, let's see how well the VisionTek drive can read
a (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 VisionTek Xtasy 48X and then read the same disc with a
PleXCombo PX-320A (firmware 1.01), a Yamaha CRW3200E (firmware 1.0d), a TEAC CD-W540E (firmware 1.0B), a Mitsumi
CR-480ATE (firmware 1.0E) and a Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM (firmware 1012) for comparison. You can see the results
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:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading scratched discIn the table below we've summed up our test results comparing them to other drives we've previously reviewed.
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
VisionTek Xtasy 48X	36.89%	44.41%	18.70%
Toshiba SD-M1502	35.84%	38.56%	25.60%
PleXCombo PX-320A	64.58%	-	35.42%
Mitsumi CR-480ATE	59.87%	-	40.13%
TEAC CD-W540E	32.08%	27.38%	40.54%
Yamaha CRW3200E	48.59%	-	51.41%
The grey area's indicate the least amount of unreadable sectors - : drive cannot report damaged sectors

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 with the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive using Nero Burning Rom. We disabled its SMART-BURN feature
so errors would probably be created:

We then scanned the disc with Nero CD Speed using the
following drives; the VisionTek Xtasy 48X (firmware VS06), a PleXCombo PX-320A (firmware 1.02), a TEAC CD-W540E
(firmware 1.0C), a Mitsumi CR-480ATE (firmware 1.0E) and a Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM (firmware 1012). You can see
the screenshots of all drives reading the low quality disc below:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading low quality disc

TEAC CD-W540E reading low quality disc

PleXCombo PX-320A reading low quality disc

Mitsumi CR-480ATE reading low quality disc

Toshiba SD-M1502 reading low quality discIn the table below we've summed up our test results again, comparing them to other drives we've previously reviewed.
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
Toshiba SD-M1502	86.21%	13.79%	0.0%
VisionTek Xtasy 48X	59.44%	40.56%	0.0%
PleXCombo PX-320A	89.49%	-	10.51%
TEAC CD-W540E	66.21%	11.75%	22.03%
Mitsumi CR-480ATE	60.34%	-	39.66%
The grey area's indicate the least amount of unreadable sectors - : drive cannot report damaged sectors

Conclusion:

The VisionTek drive performs very well and has the least amount of unreadable sectors (18.70%) with the heavily
scratched disc. When reading the low quality disc it was again very good and together with the Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM
it was the only drive that could fully read the disc (compared to almost 40% damaged sectors the Mitsumi CR-480ATE
reported). The Toshiba drive did have less damaged sectors so the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive gets the second place here.
Nevertheless an excellent result!

That concludes the reading part of our review. Now it's time to see how the VisionTek Xtasy 48X performs when
writing discs...

As mentioned before the VisionTek Xtasy 48X can write discs at an amazingly high speed of 48x max. What does
this mean in real terms? Is this really a lot faster than let's say 40x Z-CLV? Let's find out! To test the write
speeds of the VisionTek drive we set-up a basic write process using the latest Nero Burning Rom version 5.5.8.2. 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

The disc was written without problems in only 2 minutes and 39 seconds!. To test the created disc
we fired up Nero CD Speed, inserted the back-up disc in the
VisionTek drive and started a normal 'Transfer Rate Test' to see if the disc had been written without any errors.
In the screenshot below you can see the disc is read without any problems:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On LTR-48125W had no problems going faster than 48x and even reached a top reading
speed of 49.24x.

Comparing:

Next we did some more tests comparing the VisionTek drive to some of our previous reviews. As a comparison we've
added write times of both Z-CLV and P-CAV writers. We also added the write times of a Lite-On LTR-48125W (the same
drive as the VisionTek Xtasy 48X) but now with firmware VS02. This firmware is older than the version we're using
(VS06) but it does have faster write times since with this firmware the drive starts writing at a higher speed:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X performs very well and as you can see from the table is the fastest drive around. It is
however beaten by the same drive, the Lite-On LTR-48125W but now with firmware VS02 instead of version VS06 we're
using. Nevertheless the drive is very fast and beats the other drives with ease. As you can also see from the table
the drives using the P-CAV write method
are a lot faster than drives using the Z-CLV
write method.

Conclusion:

So what can we conclude from all of the achieved results? Well the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive (or we should say Lite-On
LTR-48125W) is the fastest writer available today. It beats the fastest Z-CLV writer, the TEAC CD-W540E, with ease and
you can clearly see from the write times table that P-CAV is the way to go when achieving faster write times. Compare
for instance the Lite-On LTR-40125S with firmware ZS0A (Z-CLV) to the same drive but now with firmware FW ZS0J (P-CAV).
The difference in write times is sometimes 18 seconds (700MB disc @ 40x)!

When writing audio the VisionTek Xtasy 48X has no special features like Plextor offers with its 'VariRec' technology
or Yamaha with its 'Audio Master Quality Recording'. The VisionTek will just write audio at the same speed as it does
data. Of course the quality of the produced disc partially depends on the media you used. When you use proper/certified
media you can write audio at full speed without problems. The only problem is that 48x media isn't widely available
yet..

Now that we've finished our normal read and write tests, it's time to test the drive for its ability to read
copy-protections.

In this part of the VisionTek 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 4.0.1.6 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 VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On
LTR-48125W with CloneCD v4.0.1.6:

As you can see in the picture above, the VisionTek Xtasy 48X is fully supported by CloneCD (DAO-RAW96). To determine
the 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 home.arcor.de/bejot.

We'll test the following, most common, copy-protections and compare the achieved read times with other drives
we've previously reviewed. After the tests we'll conclude the reading of protected data with our usual
conclusions:

LaserLock
SafeDisc
SafeDisc 2
SafeDisc 2.51.021
SecuROM
PlayStation/LibCrypt
Conclusion

Protected Data - LaserLock:

For this test we'll 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. The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following
settings (all other options like SubChannel Data reading were disabled). You can click on the image to download the
used Profile:

Read Speed: Max
Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
Intelligent Bad Sector Scanner:
- Sector Skip: 100 (default)
In the screenshots below you can see the VisionTek Xtasy 48X successfully reading the original LaserLock disc:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading LaserLock OriginalLaserLock 2 is hard to read for a lot of recorders but the VisionTek Xtasy 48X performs very well. It's not the
fastest Lite-On drive we've seen but it's faster than a lot of other recorders we've reviewed. The VisionTek Xtasy
48X drive is the fastest drive when reading the LaserLock back-up disc:

Protected Data - SafeDisc:

For this test we'll use a game called 'Beavis and Butthead: BungHole in One' protected with the normal (read: old)
SafeDisc protection. The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all other options like
SubChannel Data reading were disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
Read Speed: Max
Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
Below you can see the achieved result of the VisionTek Xtasy 48X:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading SafeDiscThe VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive needs about 9 minutes and 30 seconds to read the disc. Not a very slow time but certainly
not the fastest drive we've seen. Let's compare the achieved results to other drives we've reviewed. Please note that
some reviews were done on different machines so the achieved read times can be a little off:

Protected Data - SafeDisc 2:

For this test we'll use a game called 'The Sims: House Party' protected with SafeDisc version 2.10.030. The CloneCD
Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all other options like SubChannel Data reading were
disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
Read Speed: Max
Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
Yes we're using the same Profile as for the normal SafeDisc version. As the name of the Profile suggests, this
Profile has 'Amplify Weak Sectors' (AWS)
disabled. First a screenshot of the VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading the SafeDisc 2 disc:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading SafeDisc 2Like expected the VisionTek Xtasy 48X is again not very fast when it comes to reading the SafeDisc 2 protection.
It's not that slow though and can read the disc in an acceptable time. Let's compare the achieved results to other
drives we've reviewed:

Now as most people will know, we also need to check if the drive can write SafeDisc 2. Unlike the other protections
SafeDisc 2 back-ups depend on whether or not the drive support 'Correct EFM Encoding' which is needed to write 'regular
bit patterns'. For more info on SafeDisc 2 read this article.

We wrote the disc with the default settings enabled ('buffer underrun protection and 'always close last session' on).
Like said before, 'Amplify Weak Sectors' was disabled in the Profile. As expected (Lite-On writers are known for
their ability to back-up SafeDisc 2 without the need for CloneCD's 'Amplify Weak Sectors' option), the VisionTek Xtasy
48X succeeded in making a fully working back-up. We tested the back-up in the following drives:
- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: success
- VisionTek Xtasy 48X: success
- TEAC CD-W540E: success
- Mitsumi CR-480ATE: success
- PleXCombo PX-320A: success
Protected Data - SafeDisc v2.51.021:

Besides our SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests we need to take a look at the latest SafeDisc 2 version 'called' SafeDisc
v2.51.021. 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'll use a game called 'Grand Theft Auto 3' (the Play
disc) protected with SafeDisc v2.51.021:

We read the image with the VisionTek 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: success
VisionTek Xtasy 48X: success
TEAC CD-W540E: success
Mitsumi CR-480ATE: success
PleXCombo PX-320A: successAs expected the VisionTek drive had no problems creating a working back-up without enabling CloneCD's 'Amplify Weak
Sectors' option. The VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On LTR-48125W therefore fully supports 'Correct EFM Encoding' which is
a rare feature on a drive... Let's give you a final screenshot of the drive reading 'Serious Sam 2: The Second Encounter',
also protected with SafeDisc v2.51.021:
VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading SafeDisc v2.51.021As expected the VisionTek Xtasy 48X is again not the fastest reader we've reviewed when it comes to reading the
SafeDisc error sectors on the disc. In the table below a final comparison of the VisionTek drive when reading the
'Serious Sam 2' (SafeDisc v2.51.021) disc:Protected Data - SecuROM:The next protected data tests we'll do is with a game called 'V-Rally 2 Expert Edition' protected with SecuRom 2.
The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all other options like 'Fast Error Skip' were
disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
Read Speed: Max
Read SubChannel Data from Data Tracks
Read SubChannel Data from Audio TracksIn the screenshots below you can see the VisionTek Xtasy 48X successfully reading the SecuROM disc:
VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading SecuRomThe VisionTek Xtasy 48X supports the reading and writing of the full 96 bytes of SubChannel Data and has no problems
reading the SubChannel Data at full speed. In the table below you can see that the drive is the fastest drive we've
reviewed:Protected Data - PlayStation/LibCrypt:The final protected data test we'll do is with a LibCrypt protected PlayStation disc called 'Final Fantasy VIII'. We used
the first (of four) disc(s) of this game. The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all
other options like Fast Error Skip were disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
Read Speed: Max
Read SubChannel Data from Data Tracks
Read SubChannel Data from Audio Tracks
Don't Repair SubChannel DataIn the screenshots below you can see the VisionTek Xtasy 48X successfully reading the PlayStation disc:
VisionTek Xtasy 48X reading PlayStationJust like with SecuRom the VisionTek Xtasy 48X is very fast when reading the SubChannels. It has no problems reaching
full speed and again gets the first place as you can see in the table below where we compare the achieved results to
other drives we've reviewed:Protected Data - Conclusion:The VisionTek Xtasy 48X / Lite-On LTR-48125W showed some great results. It was not the fastest drive we've seen with
some protections like SafeDisc but it could read these protections at an acceptable time. The drive was very fast with
other protections based on SubChannel Data (SecuRom and PlayStation/LibCrypt) and had no problems writing the protections.
The drive even supports 'Correct EFM Encoding' perfectly (as most Lite-On drives do) and could back-up SafeDisc 2 and
SafeDisc 2.51.021 without any problem.Next up in our VisionTek Xtasy 48X review, the reading of protected audio discs...

Now that we've taken a look at how well the VisionTek 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), Feurio! and
CloneCD. In CloneCD we used the default 'Multimedia Audio CD' Profile.

Please note that the tests below were done with a different Lite-On LTR-48125W drive using a different
test computer (OC-Freak's test machine ). The results however are exactly the same as for our review since the
VisionTek Xtasy 48X is a rebadged Lite-On LTR-48125W drive...

Cactus Data shield 100:

For the Cactus Data Shield (CDS) 100 tests we used an audio disc with the title 'Westlife: World of our own'.
On the back of the CD-cover we find the following text: "2001 Cactus Data Shield 100 by Courtesy of Midbar Tech LTD,
Tel-Aviv, Israel" and a small CDS100 logo. For more information on Cactus Data Shield please visit
www.midbartech.com.

Westlife: World of our own - CDS100We fired up CloneCD and opened the disc tray. We selected the Lite-On recorder and let CloneCD close the tray.
The tracks on the disc were detected but they could not be ripped. We had the same results with EAC.
The tracks we be recognized but they could not be extracted. Feurio! couldn't even detect the disc inside the
recorder.

Cactus Data shield 200:

For the Cactus Data Shield (CDS) 200 tests we used an audio disc with the title 'Natalie Imbruglia: White Lilies
Island'. On the back of the CD-cover we again find the following text: "2001 Cactus Data Shield 200 by Courtesy of
Midbar Tech LTD, Tel-Aviv, Israel" and a small CDS200 logo.

Natalie Imbruglia: White Lilies Island - CDS200We again fired up CloneCD and opened the disc tray. We choose the Lite-On recorder and let CloneCD close the tray.
We got the same results as with the CDS100 protected audio disc. CloneCD would recognize the tracks but could
not extract them. The results with EAC and Feurio! were the same. They were able to recognize the tracks but
were unable to extract them to our hard disk.

Key2Audio version 2:

The next 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 2The results with the Key2Audio version 2 disc were even worse than with the CDS100/200 discs. All three programs
(CloneCD, EAC, Feurio!) were unable to detect the disc, let alone rip the contents...

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 3We again fired up CloneCD and finally had some success. Although the drive failed to read sector 0 it could read
the rest of the disc without problems. Our results with EAC and Feurio! were however not that good. EAC crashed when
trying to detect the disc and Feurio! would fail to recognize the disc.

Conclusion:

The results were rather bad with only one CD being read by one program (the Celine Dion disc using CloneCD). So if
you want a drive capable of reading protected audio discs you should consider other drives instead. This problem may
be bypassed by using another reader that reads protected audio discs, as the Lite-On is perfectly capable of writing
the discs.

Next up in our VisionTek Xtasy 48X review, writing CD-ReWriteable media and the Mount Rainier format...

In this part of the review we'll take a look at the VisionTek Xtasy 48X's CD-ReWriting abilities and its Mount
Rainier (CD-MRW) support. For both tests we used Ahead's InCD
version 3.31.0. For the erase tests we used Elaborate Bytes' CloneCD
version 4.0.1.6.

Packet Writing:

We formatted a Mitsubishi 650MB CD-RW disc which was certified for 10x re-writing. The VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive
is a 12x re-write drive but we had no problems using the Mitsubishi disc at 12x. 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:

We then measured the time it took for the drive to write our test folder of data (containing 400MB (419.742.820
bytes)). In the table below we've summed it all up for you:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X performed as expected for a 12x CD-RW drive. It wrote our test folder in about the same time
as the other drives did. The Xtasy drive was the fastest drive when it came to erasing the CD-ReWriteable disc with
CloneCD as you can also see from the screenshot below:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X erasing CD-RW discAfter erasing the CD-RW disc with CloneCD we wrote the same test data again but now with Nero Burning Rom. In the
screenshot below you can see that the VisionTek Xtasy 48X needs 4 minutes and 19 seconds to write the test data. About
one minute faster than a 10x CD-ReWriteable recorder:

Mount Rainier Tests:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X or Lite-On LTR-48125W is the first Lite-On drive to support the Mt. Rainier format
'out-of-the-box'. In this part of the review we'll test the drive's Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) abilities and compare them
to other drives which also support this format. If you want to read more on the CD-MRW format please read our
Mount Rainier article. In the table below
you can see an overview of the achieved results using InCD version 3.31.0. Please note that we re-did the tests
with the TEAC CD-W540E (firmware 1.0C) and
the Mitsumi CD-480ATE (firmware 1.0E, 16MB
buffer) writer since we did our previous tests using a different software package:

As you can see in the table above the VisionTek/Lite-On drive is kicking some serious butt when it comes to its Mt. Rainier
abilities. It beats all drives we've previously reviewed with ease! Other CD-writer manufacturers should go talk to the Lite-On
people how they've done this since the differences are striking.

Conclusion:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X performs as expected with CD-ReWriteable media. It's not the fastest drive we've reviewed but
it's very close to the other recorders. It was the fastest drive when it came to erasing the CD-ReWriteable discs.

The Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) abilities of the VisionTek drive were amazing. The Lite-On based drive was simply the fastest
drive we've ever seen and could beat the other drives with ease. The differences weren't even minimal but the drive was
sometimes three times faster than the other recorders! The Lite-On team has certainly done their homework when it
comes to the Mt. Rainier format.

On the next page we've summed up our tests results with various media...

In this part of our VisionTek Xtasy 48X 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. 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. We left 'SMART-BURN' enabled during these tests. In the
table below we've summed it all up for you:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive could write all discs at their certified speed and even higher. A question that comes
to mind here is what about quality when writing at such high speeds and higher speeds than the media is certified for?
Well as we see it you should always be very cautious when writing discs at a higher speed than they're certified
for. We had for instance some problems with the 'That's Write' (Digital Storage Technology) discs that were certified up
to 16x. The Lite-On's SMART-BURN feature indicated that the discs could be written at 40x as you can see from the
screenshot below:

The problem was however, that the discs would always fail at this speed! When we lowered the speed to 32x the discs
were written without problems. Agreed, this is still twice as fast as the discs were certified for but it shows that you
can't always trust the 'burner's opinion'...

Conclusion:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive could write all discs at their certified speed and most discs faster. All discs could
be read just fine after writing them but we had some problems with the 'That's Write' CD-Recordables as described above.
For more write quality tests we suggest you read this this page where our member OC-Freak has done some more extensive tests with the Lite-On LTR-48125W
writer.

To conclude our review we will take a look at how far the VisionTek Xtasy 48X can overburn and if it can handle 8cm
CD-R's...

We're almost done with our VisionTek Xtasy 48X review and we'll, as always, conclude with our 'special discs' tests.
These include an overburning test and a test to see if the VisionTek/Lite-On drive can write 8cm CD-R's. First of all, the
overburning test:

Overburning:

We used Infiniti 99min/900mb CD-R's for our tests that were certified up to 32x 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:

As you can see in above screenshot the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive has no problems overburning and can fully overburn to
99 minutes. Now let's have a look at how well the drive can read an overburned disc:

As you can see from the screenshot the VisionTek drive has no problems whatsoever reading the overburned disc. The
drive even reaches an amazingly high speed of 52.82x!

8cm CD-R Tests:

To conclude our VisionTek Xtasy 48X 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:
- ATIP: 97m 27s 19f
- Disc Manufacturer: Plasmon Data Systems, Ltd.
- Reflective layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine)
- Media type: CD-Recordable
- Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
- Nominal Capacity: 201.86MB (23m 00s 00f / LBA: 103350)
We set-up up Nero Burning Rom to burn a compilation of about 200MB and started the write process. The disc was written
without any problems. We of course did a final test with Nero CD Speed to verify if the disc was written correctly:

As you can see from the screenshot the 8cm disc is read without any problems at full speed.

That concludes our VisionTek Xtasy 48X review! Let's go to our final words and conclusions.

Positive Points:
- Fastest recorder available today!
- Supports 48x CAV writing
- Supports 12x CLV re-writing
- Supports 48x CAV reading
- Supports 'Mount Rainier' format
- Good features:
  - SMART-BURN
  - SMART-X
- Ahead's Nero Burning Rom included
- Excellent DAE speeds (up to 48x !)
- Excellent Mount Rainier performance
- Excellent performance with scratched/low quality discs
- Good DAE quality
- Good read speeds with CD-ReWriteable media
- Good read speeds with copy-protected data discs
- Supports UDMA 33
Supports DAO-RAW writing
Supports overburning (up to 99 minutes !)
Supports writing of 8cm discs
Supports reading and writing of CD-Text
Supports reading and writing of full SubChannel Data
Supports 'Correct EFM Encoding'
Negative Points:
- Only 2MB buffer
- Couldn't read most protected audio discs
- Drive is rather noisy when reading and writing discs
- Package could have used some more extra's
- SMART-BURN feature isn't always correct
- Rather high CPU-usage when reading discs
The VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive or we should say Lite-On LTR-48125W drive is definitely another winner. The drive
supports all major features a drive should have and often amazed us with its speed and performance. The drive is the
fastest recorder available today and showed some excellent performance when reading discs. The drive blew away the
competition when it came to Mount Rainier support and DAE speeds.

The VisionTek drive had no problems when it came to handling some of the advanced features a drive should have such
DAO-RAW writing, overburning, CD-Text, SubChannel Data reading, UDMA33, etc. As with all Lite-On writers the LTR-48125W
supports 'Correct EFM Encoding' so copying SafeDisc 2 is no problem at all.

The VisionTek drive did have some negative points as already mentioned when we summed it all up above. The drive
was not very quiet and produced quite a lot of noise when reading and writing. For us this was no major problems since
our test computer is already very noisy but for some people this might be a bigger issue. The Lite-On LTR-48125W only
has a 2MB buffer which is of course not an awful lot when writing at maximum speed.

Another disadvantage of the drive is that its package could have used some extra's such as 48x compatible media and
CD-ReWriteable discs. This is a problem since the retail price of the VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive is $159.99 while you
can buy the Lite-On LTR-48125W for $88.00 (checked on June 28th 2002 on PriceWatch.com). The VisionTek Xtasy 48X does offer web-based and toll-free lifetime technical
support which might justify its steep price but it's up to you to decide if you're willing to pay this...