The best CDRW I've ever owned.
Written: Oct 11 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Relatively fast, reliable, and easy to use.
Cons: Virtually no tech support.
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| cbn458's Full Review: Artec RW |
I bought the Artec 8/4/32 speed drive about a month ago, right after I received a bill in the mail from BMG for some CDs that I had bought. I was incensed at the cost and decided not to pay anymore for music. The obvious solution was to purchase a CDRW drive.
I selected Artec, since I've had bad experiences with Acer, Memorex, and Creative. Although Artec tech-support is almost completely non-existent, they do make a good product and bundle it with good software.
The 8/4/32 comes with the newest version of Nero, which makes duplicating CDs or creating them from WAV files extremely easy. I even taught my technology-disinclined mother how to find Bob Dylan songs on Napster and make them into CDs. You really don't have to be a techie to use this drive.
A great feature about the Artec drive is that it comes with two recording functions. The faster of the two is called "on the fly" recording. This directly copies the data on your source disc onto blank media. This function makes for a very fast burn, but you can't use it unless you have a CD-Rom AND a CDRW installed in your CPU. The "on the fly" duplicating process is also not very forgiving if you have any scratches on your source CD.
Due to these deficiencies, I recommend recording audio CDs through an intermediate process involving an image file. In this process, you write your CD onto your hard drive, and then from your hard drive onto blank media. The process takes a little more time than the "fly at once" method, but the results are better in terms of quality and consistency. However, if you don't have much time, or simply not enough hard drive space (you need about half a gig per CD,) the "fly at once" method of recording does work.
This is a quality device, with quality software. I would encourage anyone who wants to build a substantial music collection to purchase this drive.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cbn458
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Member: Christopher Nugent
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 3 members
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