Best CD burner options

[MusicTrax]

Originally posted by speer: Get the new Yamaha F-1 burner, and use it's "advanced audio" mode for all critical audio. I have done blind testing on this vs two other burners, and the Yamaha cdr's definitely sound closer to the source audio. -really

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Man, watch out for the F1. When I tried to use it with my G4/400 (under Mac OS 9.2), it crashed and burned at a frightening rate. Sometimes, it'd crash just trying to boot-up with the Firewire Yamaha F1 attached to the computer, the thing would bomb quicker than Madonna's new film.

Strangely, the older Yahama I have (I think it's a 3200) worked just fine. The F1 also works like gangbusters under OSX on another Mac. I suspect it's a firmware issue, but the reality is that Firewire is still a little flakey under OS9.

To answer the original poster: I've had five or six different Yamahas over the last 8 years, and they've all been champs. The F1 gave me a little grief, but I think this is a temporary problem, and I was able to work around it.

Oh, and definitely don't rely on high speed 44x recording, particularly for important projects. I think it's a wise idea to go no more than half the maximum speed, like maybe 20X or 16X in this case. The HQ Audio Master mode is interesting, but so far, the only program that supports it is Nero for Windows; Waveburner can't handle it yet, and the decrepit-and-forelorn Masterlist can't deal with Firewire at all. Very sad.

--Marc W.

[Allan Speers]

Marc,

The only concern with the F1 is a couple of extention conflicts:

You must remove the Apple "disk burner" and "FireWire Authoring Support" extentions.

Amazingly, this is not in the manual, nor any read-me file. I had to call tech-support to find out.

-And as I sad, the latest version of Toast (supplied with the F-1) also supports "advanced" mode, not just Nero. -And Nero for Mac does support it, not just for Windows.

We are definitely in agreement, however, regarding Madonna's new film. [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]