I got a 1655 about 2 weeks ago and so far its impressive. As a reader it made me realize my old burns with my old nec 2500/2510flashed were pretty good. Even the nec that burned them said they failed. But the 1655 burns were even better. I went through about 10 different single layer media from old 2x to new 16x. They all burned well even the junk disks pass as readable. Usually a cd-speed quality rating of 92%+ but sometimes the junk media would fall apart at the 4+ gig mark with a 20-40 PIF error spike. The good media like mcc or ty are beautiful with a q= 94-99% PIF usually <2 or <4 very few total PIF and and the PIE <30 . Thats with the stock FW. It should get even better with upgrades. So far so good.