Access Time
Most of the drives have similar average access times, but here, Yamaha's 16x CD recorder CRW2100E clearly lags behind with regard to maximum access time. Yamaha seems to have fixed this problem with the 20x recorder, which had much better results.
Conclusion
The test results prove that Yamaha's 20x CD-R generally offers better performance than the rest, but then again, is the increase in performance substantial enough to justify buying it? As with many hardware products, it's a toss-up, so once again, consider your needs and your budget. The Yamaha CRW2200E costs $180. For $150 or less, you can get an OEM version of the Yamaha 16x CD-R, and 12x devices are sometimes available for less than $100.
If you plan to use a CD-R only occasionally, 7 minutes recording time for the 12x drive is quite an acceptable speed, so it's not really necessary to spend the money on the 20x drive. Power users, on the other hand, will get tremendous value by investing in the Yamaha 20x CD-RW, which can record CDs in less than five minutes. Theoretically, you could use it to record 10 CDs per hour. If you are one of these users, then you will notice a considerable time-saving when recording with the Yamaha CRW2200E.
