Sony Spressa Professional 12X8X32X CD-RW Review - PAGE 4

Re-write speeds -

Performance talk

To start out with we must tell you during all our tests we only ran into a couple different issues. The first one was a Buffer-underrun error! We had to dis-able auto-insert notification and that error disappeared –but not without the cost of a 12X CD-R, but at least the CD Extreme software gives you the option to test before you burn to make sure your machine is going to handle faster burn speeds.. The second problem was a bit more alarming. A very weird “rattle” would come from the drive itself when the Sony Extreme CD would be inserted into the tray. We know it sounds off the wall –but we couldn’t duplicate the noise with any other disk, and to make it even more odd the Sony disk wouldn’t rattle in any of our other lab CD-ROMs? –Go figure. Other than those little quirks all tests went off without a hitch.

As already stated, we were disappointed with the low read scores of the Spressa drive. With scores so low compared to the manufacture rated of 32X it’s hard to recommend this drive as a one-size-fits-all solution especially if you consider the high CPU marks when attempting reads on the outer tracks, but its worth mentioning the drive did very well in the CPU utilization area when performing any reads at 12X speeds and below.

But looking down the marks you will be able to see how the Spressa drive gets its reputation! We weren’t a bit surprised to see the fast write times of 6 Minutes when burning a 650 MB data CD, and 9 minutes when burning a 650 MB data CD-RW disk –but the re-write speed is a bit slower than comparable 10X CD-RW drives avaliable for the same money. Each test was ran three times and each time we got the same results.

The Mp3 conversion Music Cd test was rather impressive too, creating a 15 track 71 minute Cd in just over 7 minutes.. We thought the drive faired well in this position –proving its worth to all music lovers!

Final Thoughts

So did we like the Spressa drive –yes. Do we think it’s worth rushing out and buying one if you have never owned a CD-RW drive before Definitely! What about if you already own a fast 10X or 12X CD-RW drive but lack the faster 8X Re-write speeds? Our suggestion to this dilemma would be –if you need the faster re-write speeds then go for it, if you don’t then wait a while until you can justify spending the money!

The Spressa Professional recording system is a nicely rounded package that delivers average read speeds and great write and re-write speeds. The software package is nice and has many needed features, but we wished it provided full Windows 2000 support. We were aslo surprised to see Sony push the speed envelope higher without incorporating such technologies as Burn-proof into the firmware –so the CD writing experience is a little less complicated, especially for the beginners. At the time of this writing, the drive can be purchased online (from Sony) for about $279. That seems a bit steep when you compare it to the average net price of $180 for the older Spressa 10X4X24X drive –that has the exact same software package only performs just a little slower writing –yet much slower re-writing. But for $279 you’ll get a complete CD-RW suite, a one year warranty –and the ability to create any kind of CD you can imagine –in record times, just make sure you have a machine that can handle writing speeds that high because otherwise your forced to throttle down the burn speeds –thus having a slower CD-RW drive altogether and making the decision to upgrade wait a while.

Score is based on the overall package / performance and price.

Overall Score: 80%