OC-Freak has completed his review on the Pioneer DVR-A08XLA 16X DVD writer.

Please use this thread for constructive criticism, general comments and hopefully compliments on the review.
Additional tests can also be requested, which OC-Freak will look into once he has the time.
Thanks!

i dont expect that cd-write quality to be so bad
my 107d burns cd's better.

Congratulations OC-Freak, another nice review.

It must be something to do with the earth's magnetic field, but the Pioneer x08 drives seem to burn just that little bit better in the southern hemisphere.

Nice review!

Unlike NEC Pioneer tries to improve the drive's features with firmware-updates.

Great review!

Very good writing quality except the speed. At first i think to buy 108, now i think to buy x08. After i read 108's review, i was confused, because writing quality war really bad, especially after 107 and i think to buy Plex 712a with out DL+... Now it hard to decide what to buy: x08 or 712a/716a (but 712a can't write DL+)

I want to know how to connect 8 optical drivers in one PC?

By using IDE controller PCI cards.

...that support ATAPI devices.

Pretty thorough but negative review. Were the compared drives (like the NEC) running official or third party firmware? BTW Nero 6.6.0.1 is out (vs 6.3.1.25 used in the review).

The NEC 3500A was running official NEC firmware.
The Nero version would not have affected performance since 6.3.1.25 was pretty stable.

But in the above system, it is display "Primary & Secondary IDE Channel", not another IDE controller.

Start counting how often it is displayed then.

I've not compared it much against the NEC ND-3500AG, only DVD-Writing speed which were done with official fw 2.17.

Beside that it was tested against the BenQ DW1620A that I reviewed a bit earlier.

Negative? yeah -I was disappointed by this drive at first I had big expectations for this drive except for slow Z-CLV writing speed :z

But it disappointed me in these areas:

-CD-Writing quality
-VEEEEEERY poor media compatibility compared to the previously reviewed BenQ DW1620A. Give me a break! media that has been out for a year is still not supported at certified speed? Well known (philips) 16x media that has been available since late may is still not supported? Now give me a break - that plain sucks in my opinion!
-Regular firmware updates???? Not compared to BenQ and Pioneer have done little to cure the problems I've reported to them (like media that should work at 16x do not work at 16x with my drive etc) - opposite to BenQ you may say.......

Well in general the drive and support/backup from pioneer DID disappoint me.

Only 8?

I have 11 internal + 3 usb = 14 in total connected to my computer

Great review (as always) so kudos to OC-Freak

Am a little surprised and disappointed with the performance which, although generally very good, still has a few glaring shortcomings like the poor cd-writing quality - something you would expect Pioneer to have nailed. I wonder is this indicative of the sort of performance we are likely to see from the 108? I'm guessing that, apart for the cosmetic differences, hardware-wise the A08 and 108 are both the same drives?

Now all we need is a head-to-head comparison with the NEC 3500

Any ETA on a possible NEC review?

Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9 ( oem NEC 3500A ) should be posted within a week if they don't supply a new firmware... If they do, I'll need to redo some tests first.

What about NEC? IMO, their firmware support is MUCH worse compared to Pioneer. Take the NEC ND-2510 for example. Still no official support for Ritek DL media. THAT simply sucks. I mean these media do NOT WORK AT ALL. Unbelievable, but they seem to have discontinued the firmware support for that drive - although it is not outdated yet.

My next drive certainly won't be a NEC, that's for sure.

I also use Sil0680 to connect optical drivers, the display is "Silicon Image Sil 0680 Ultra-133", but in this "Pioneer DVR-A08XLA review", it is display "Primary & Secondary IDE Channel", so I want to know how to connect 8 optical drivers in "Primary & Secondary IDE Channel".

Ooooh thanks for that Wesociety. Cant wait! Been holding off my purchase of a burner until I see a cdfreaks review of this drive

I'm using a silicon image CMD-649 PCI card which uses the default Microsodft IDE drivers included in windows XP- and thus it shows up as an extra primary and secondary channel.

How can you change the Silicon Image CMD-649 drivers to Microsoft IDE drivers? Is MS IDE drivers support CMD-649? I can't change my Sil-680 PCI card to MS IDE drivers, so some software can't detect my writer.

Yes - the windows XP supports the CMD-649 with built in drivers - this is not possible with newer IDE cards from silicon image.

Now that a lot of time has passed, is the CD writing quality better? I am about to burn many CD-R discs with my DVR-108 (firmware 1.19).

To my testing - nope.

The CD-Writing quality is still mediocre compared to most other drives.