Version 3.5 isn't (officially) supported in Win2K, so I had to upgrade. Adaptec don't provide a free upgrade path between 3.5 and 4.0, so I had to fork over the cash.

Audio Catalyst claims that it's ripping at around 17x. That's all I know. It slows down to about 7-8x on battered CDs, or at the edges, but it seems OK. I get bucketloads of "Possible Speed Problems" in AC, but all of the CDs I've done so far sound fine.

Full spec: P2/400, 128Mb, Asus P2B-LS (Adaptec 7890 - i.e. an integrated 2940U2W). The CD-ROM is plugged into the -SE bus. It might be down to the SCSI bus - the Plextor's on a wide segment, yours appears to be on a narrow bus. The SCSI HD is a Quantum Viking II (9Gb), plugged into the U2W bus.

AC is set to ASPI, Plextor, Buffered Burst, maximum speed.

When I rip normally, however, it's limited by the 10Mbps bandwidth on my home network - 'cos my 30Gb IDE disk is in my Linux box. This brings it down to 6-7x or so. The Plextor automatically brings down the speed if it's having problems, and this doesn't seem to cause any problems with the quality.

I must admit I was quite surprised. It could have been a fluke, however - the recent rips have been limited to 6x. I still get loads of "Possible Speed Problems", like 600 or so per track, but the music sounds fine. I've only had the drive for a couple of days, so it might be that the average speed that it works at is lower.

The intended upshot of my post was a resounding endorsement of Plextor CD-ROM drives.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg