I am looking to purchase a burner for my other system.
Right now I have a A109 in my newer system and love it. Should I buy another 109, wait for A110 to come out, purchase a oem Benq1640 or get a oem NEC3540?
I only use genuine TYG02's and burn at 4 - 8x.

I do not care about speed, QUALTIY is what I want. (Perferably Pi avg under 0.4 peaks less than 10, and very low betta/jitter.) This burners only job will be for data back ups BUT I dislike the idea of a mfgr. riplocking a drive just to appease the hollywood wankers .

Any comments greatly appreicated.

P.s I used to own a Plextor 708 thus the nick...I am not a troll.

I have no idea about how good an A109 is but I have several BenQ1620s and now a BenQ1640. TYG02 at 8x or Yuden000 T02 together with a BenQ1640 is about as good as it gets as far as I'm concerned. I had a bad burn today (95% with PIF of 268) but the next disk off the stack was back to 99% and PIF of 65. As you already have a 109 I would have thought that buying a BenQ made more sense - although I always buy retail.

Here is an article from AnandTech that may provide some good info. I'm biased, cause they say the BenQ 1640 is da bomb, and I just got a 1640 (after having my 1620), but still, they put it out there and tested it, so hopefully it is credible.

Start of Article: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2470

Final Summary Page: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sho...px?i=2470&p=13

Hi
Interesting one
If your happy with 109 why change? Personally I have a 109XL which I retired & replaced with the NEC 3540. I found the Pioneer too fussy over media & resented all its restraints.
The NEC uses same chipset as 109 but with Liggy & Dee's f/w (1.W5) is set free with a quality & reliability of the 109.
That said my current favourite is the 1640. BenQ seem to have a winner here.
It's ability to read both damaged CD's & DVD's alone almost put it in another league. Add to this speed plus accuracy. I know BenQ followers say the 1620 has the edge. New f/w & s/w to be released soon is likely to change this.
The 110 is largely a unkown factor.
So in terms of whats on the shelf
1st BenQ 1640
2nd NEC 3540
3rd Pioneer 109

Whichever one of these you choose you'll not be let down

(The anandtech review tests the 3540 with stock f/w with Liggy & Dee's its an entirely different beast) Far far better.

The article has been discussed few weeks ago. I wouldn't rely on it.
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=142778

I guess I don't see much in that thread to cause to to dismiss the AnandTech review.

The BenQ 1640 by far, with MCSE and QSuite what more could you want. (Maybe a few thousand TYG-02 or 03) but you can't have everything. Full bitsetting with QSuite and can disable WOPC.

Of all the currently available drives I own, the Liteon 1693 does the best job on TYG02. Sorry I ejected the disc before I saved the scan.

If you are looking for lower PIE levels, the TY +R YUDEN000T02 is actually better on most of the drives I tested. I haven't seen any yet on the 1640 but on the 1620 it is flawless.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...postcount=1703

So it is clear, the first scan is Liteon 1693, the second is BenQ 1620. The link above is BenQ 1620 with TY +R 8X.