[SWG255]

I am considering buying a DVD writer to replace my Plextor 48X CD writer, but I'm concerned about the quality of both extracting audio from CDs and burning redbook audio to CD-Rs with a DVD burner. Has anyone had good success both extracting redbook CD audio and writing redbook audio CD-Rs with a DVD writer? If so, which manufacturers and models would you recommend?

Thanks.

[andy_c]

Hi,

The two DVD writers I've tried worked fine for DAE.  I use separate drives for DVD writing and audio writing, just because the combo drive I have is very good at reading CDs that are scratched up, and extracts audio faster than my DVD writer.  There's a really good site that has reviews of DVD writers, and they run them through a thorough suite of tests including DAE quality.  The site is here.

[timkeeler]

I highly recommend the NEC 3500 DVD writer (or the newer model 3520).  It has performed flawlessly for me for both DVD and CD burning.  Not the fastest CD ripping speeds using EAC but as long as you use EAC, you can be sure it is a bit perfect copy if you have configured EAC correctly (proper offset, secure mode, etc.).  BTW, the NEC replaced my Plextor 40x burner as well and I have no regrets.

[SWG255]

I've been reading the reviews on cdrinfo.com and it looks like there are several DVD drives out there worth considering, and the Plextor PX-716A is one. Although many of these drives have problems with one or another of the tests performed on them most of the drives such as the Plextor, Pioneer DVR-109 and NEC models do pretty well.