Test Results
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Aopen CRW-1232 | Plextor PX-W8432t | Plextor PX-32TS32X SCSI ROM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audio CD Read(80 Min, Audio Catalyst2.1 w/ Dynamic Sync) | 12min 59s | ~80min | 11min 13s |
| Copy CD to HDD(647 MB) | 3min 34s | 3min 38s | 3min 46s |
| Write Time at 12x | 6min 40s | n.a. | n.a. |
| Write Time at 8x | 9min 48s | 9min 50s | n.a. |
| Write Time at 4x | 19min 22s | 19min 28s | n.a. |
| Write Time at 10x RW | 8min 5s | n.a. | n.a. |
Special MP3-Compatibility?
On the box of AOpen's CDR you will find a comment saying '200 music titles on one CD!'. Looking closer reveals the reason for that claim. Of course it's 'MP3' AOpen is talking about. The bundled 'Nero 5' recording software is able to handle both, MP3 as well as WAV music files and can convert one to the other format. You know that CDs with 200 songs using the MP3 compression format cannot be played in a normal CD-player. You either have to use your computer's CDROM or you need a special MP3-player. There's more and more CD and DVD-players that include MP3-functionality and even some car radios are nowadays able to handle MP3-CDs. Still, people who don't know about MP3 might get the wrong impression when reading '200 music titles on one CD'.
Of course, besides the provided 'Nero 5' software there is nothing that would make the AOpen drive better suited for MP3 files than any other CD-recorder. People who don't have either the experience or tools to handle MP3 files will get useful features thanks to Nero. However, there are hundreds of useful tools available all over the web for encoding, playing or extracting MP3 files. Therefore the '200 music titles' claim could basically be printed on the box of any other CD-recorder as well.
