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52X burns a complete CD in under 2 minutes. The limitations on going
faster are more mechanical in the drive mechanism than in terms of data
transfer rate. In fact, I won't burn that fast anyway, because I
believe that the quality of the burn is much better at lower speeds (16x
to 32x). Understand that data CDs have errors, but they also have ECC
error correction; audio CDs do NOT have error correction, they use the
extra space to get more audio onto the CD, on the theory that errors
will be inaudible. Neither the presence of ECC nor the fact that audio
errors may be inaudible is reason, in my judgement, to accept a
substantially higher number of errors that you get by operating at what
I consider to be extreme speeds. I have, and have seen, many discs that
behave like an out-of-balance washing machine at speeds far lower than
even 32x, and if the disc media is vibrating like that, it's going to
cause write errors. At 52x, the distribution of ink in the printing of
the label side becomes sufficiently critical to create an out-of-balance
condition.



Drew wrote:

> Hi All:
>
> Is there any kind of a maximum speed limitation for IDE interface CD
> burners? I think the fastest I've seen recently is 52. Is that the
> fastest possible speed with IDE or will they just continue to get
> faster and faster? Looks like there would have to be some kind of
> limitation due to the interface. Any ideas? I think I've also seen
> USB 2.0 burners that can go at 52x.
>
> Thanks
> Drew
>