Software, Continued
Gamut 2000 is an audio player. You can easily create your own play lists and make use of its internal CD database, which will detect the vast majority of all commercial music CDs. A DSP software emulation will add effects like echo or voice emphasizing. An issue for discussions may be the program style: Both the play list and the DSP function require a separate window, taking up quite a lot of space on your desktop.
Again there are lots of alternatives available through the Internet. For example WinAMP or Sonique are better-featured players.
Norton Ghost 5.1 should be known from some of our motherboard reviews. It's not only included with the AOpen CD writer, but also with several motherboards from different companies.
Use Ghost to make exact backups of partitions or whole hard drives. They can either be used for quick hard drive duplication or as a complete system backup.
Summary
The price for AOpen's CRW-1232 should be well below $250. According to pricewatch.com there is also one company selling it for $189, which we could not verify so far. Yet approximately $ 210-230 is okay for a timely product - the drives from Plextor and Teac are usually more expensive.
Technically AOpen's new 12x CD-recorder is a good product. Its 4 MB write buffer is standard to ensure a safe write process at 12x-speed. The bundled recording software 'Nero 5' is one of the best. The drive supports all common formats and both read performance as well as operating noise are good. The drive does not produce an annoying noise level even when reading at 32x-speed. The drive was almost free of vibrations at this speed.
