All the spindles I've gotten have been labelled "Made In Taiwan" and have an MCC003 MID. I'm pretty sure that all the Verbatim 8x +R I've ever used have been the same but I don't spend much time here so I'm just reporting the information.

I don't think I'm "confused" or "slightly incorrect".

I've generally avoided Meritline in the past but all 3 shipments I've gotten of these have been very well packed with no movement of the spindles within the shipping box. YMMV.

Verbatim MCC003 has always worked out VERY well for me in the past and these have been no exception.

I rarely scan discs since I've found it a poor predictor of readability but I've done some of these and typically see ~3000 PIE and ~300 PIF totals on these on a Benq 1640 at 8x. I keep an old speed hacked LiteOn 166s drive around for testing as I've found the transfer tests from it a much better predictor. I used MCSE to enable bit setting on the Pioneer 115 and the 166s sees the burns as DVD-ROM and reads them at 16x in under 5 min. Virtually all of the 115D MCC003 burns have flawless curves with no dips. Many pressed SL discs don't do as well.

Bottom line for me is I prefer these to even TY T02 from Rima that I've bought in the past so I've stocked up before they disappear for good.

Mike