NEC 7170A-0B Black 18X DVD+-RW Drive for $29 FS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827152076

I am soooo tempted. My 3500 is still chugging along, but is this a worthy successor???

I'd rather have the 3500

I am dreading the day my 3500 finally goes to the big optical drive roundup in the sky.
Why oh why didnt I buy two of them???

By the time I put a new system together I intend to have a drive that gives me faster dual layer burning speeds, but I dont want to sacrifice burn quality on other media.
Maybe I need three drives in my system :-)

How good would this burner be for straight-up ripping of CDs and DVDs?

I'm thinking about grabbing one for a new Vista machine.

Hey, with $29 you cannot even buy DVD-ROM so this one is interesting deal with NEC label and quality.

Thanks for the info karelj.

On the contrary..newegg has DVD-rom drives for 20 bucks and under.
I have a Liteon from Newegg and it's a very fast ripper. Cost me 19 bucks.

Yes but remember for the price of $28, 98 you get Double format burner plus a DVD-ROM and that you cannot beat it.

if you had to choose between The Nec this thread is about or this....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16827129001

Which one would you choose?

I am leaning twords the NEC.

I use primairly YUDEN000 T02 8x DVD+R

Still wondering of there is a preference. Personal opinions are more than welcome. I have only ever used Lite-on burners, so I could possibly be moving to a new brand and would welcome any information.

Yo-

Just did a little reading after using our 'search' function (suggest you do same) - the 7170a doesn't look too appealing to me - you are probably better off going for a LiteOn 160P6s or 165P6s (which are very good btw) - unless you want to have to play around a lot and possibly get marginal performance - both with read and write-eh!

I have been searching and finding contrasting information about the NEC(I always search before posting, thanks). That acutally makes me wonder about their quality control. What with one review saying they are great and another saying they are marginal and yet another review saying the first one they recieved was borderline terrible and after returning for another getting results comparable to BenQ. That sounds like a quality control problem to me and one I would rather not roll the dice on.

On the other hand, these drives have been out for a while and perhaps they have worked out some of these kinks. So my question still stands as stated above, just looking for suggestions.

Thanks for the lite-on tip, I will look at those now. I am using an older Lite-on and it has treated me well over time.

Thanks... I ordered one of the 7170's. I hope I get a good drive.

The NEC drive is very loud. I use nero drivespeed with it to bring it to sane levels.

Loudness does not bother me as long as it burns well!

Yes it burns well. [0ff-topic] Good to see you back Dalen Quaice.

I will add to this that when I had my 7170 it produced outstanding YudenT02 burns at 12x.

EDIT:

Here are some scans I posted a while back of 8x-12x-16x burn of YudenT02

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...2&postcount=36
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...5&postcount=59
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...2&postcount=45

Thanks Alan! I've just been busy, busy, busy and haven't had the time to post much.

I'm really looking for a drive that is consistent and will go through an entire pack of discs with only a few bad burns. I use +R MCC 003, MCC 004, and Yuden TO2 usually. With the BenQ drives, I sometimes get superb burns, but that's usually followed by a number of average to poor burns/coasters which takes up a lot of time reburning that seems counterproductive. The Samsung 182D seems more consistent burn to burn, but I tend to get a couple of coasters when switching from MCC 003 to MCC 004.

I'll see about posting some scans when my drive gets here.

@megadeth - Sweet... I hoping for some excellent results like yours.

With the media you mentioned using, poor burns and coasters should be very rare with any decent burner, and especially so with good burners such as Benqs. The 1640 is one of the best drives made, if you're having problems then I would wonder if it might be related to something other than the drive itself.

@scoobie -- I realize the 1640 is considered one of the best drives, but I can't say I'm all that amazed by it most of the time. Sometimes I do get exceptional results... just not often enough. I used to get exceptional results with RicohJPNR01 most of the time (I've burned 1000's of these), but I cannot find that code much anymore...

It may well be that it has a lot to do with the batches of media that I happen to receive. I have, on occasion, had a few batches where the entire pack has been exceptional on the 1640 -- so I'd say my system is not to blame, but the drives are just picky about what media it likes... I had a LiteOn 165P6S that would burn batches of MCC 003 and MCC 004 with good results that burned as total rubbish on both the 1640 & 1650. Unfortunately, that drive died recently after around 200 burns (of discs that I was planning on throwing out) and I decided not to get another one, but try other options. The 165P6S was annoying because the BenQ drives did not read it's burns very well, possibly due to excessive jitter.

Anyway, my 7170 should be here later this week...

All great advice. My Pio 111 is a good burner and my Toshiba 553SATA is a very good burner/like to see the results on this burner/keep us posted

My NEC 7170 drive has arrived. Made in China, November 2006, 1.02 firmware.

Read tests of both a DL pressed disc and a +R MCC004 burn from a year or so ago look superb! Can't see that mine is noisy either, at least when reading. It even scans in CD Speed without erroring out to 0!