Yamaha CDRW drive series w/AMQ - Two big thumbs up!

Hi all,

Let me just state upfront that I'm a very happy man today. As some of my friends here know, I've been generally dissatisfied with my CDR burns over the past few months, and what I perceived to be subtle, but painfully audible, differences between my burns and silver pressed originals when using certain CD players.

After doing quite a bit of 'net research on the audible effects of jitter when using CD burners, and, more importantly, Yamaha's new Audio Master Quality (AMQ) technology, I've come away a believer that a company has finally been able to deliver a product worthy of more than "just hype" -- with my latest purchase, a Yamaha F1 burner.

In a nutshell, the way AMQ works is that it burns pits that are a wee bit larger than "standard" consumer burners. The downside to this is that one can only get approx. 68 minutes out of a 700 MB blank disc, as opposed to the usual 80 minutes. The other downside is that currently, I believe, only Nero supports AMQ -- it comes bundled with the burner.

One of the claimed results -- on top of the the finished disc being more easily readable with some older, "troubled" players -- is a roughly 30% reduction in jitter rates. Yamaha also includes some other technology that further reduces jitter rates by approx. another 25% -- including the ability for the burner to do full CAV (Constant Angle Velocity) writing throughout the entire disc. Test-wise, the proof is in the pudding, as one of the web CDR sites did jitter tests in which the Yamaha F1 series actually beat one of the big-boy PLextors!

Audibly, even in the non-AMQ mode, I almost wept tears of joy. The flat, grainy and brighter in the upper-mids phenomenon that I had experienced with previous burns was replaced by an almost 3-D like, delicate liquidity with firmer bass. Like I said...tears of joy!

I haven't tried it yet but the damned thing is also capable of burning graphics onto the label side of a blank! Bottom line, $109.00 after a 20 dollar mail-in rebate at Circuit City.

If your apt to think this is all voodoo...then, please, disregard my little post here. Otherwise, I'd suggest reading up on this technology and checking it out . I'll try to find the Yamaha white paper links, and some other independent lab findings.

Great burner...maybe this jitter thing actually is the key!

Dave (who has no affiliation w/ Yamaha)

 

Hi David,

I've been looking into a CD writer for my computer. The price sounds reasonable. Does it handle rewritable CD's also?

 

Hi Gary,

Yes, it handles re-writeables and all of the other usual "book" formats/modes. The AMQ mode, obviously, only applies to standard audio discs.

This burner, IMO, is pretty much state-of-the art -- with every feature one could possibly want. It boasts the fastest writing speed out there, if one is into that kind of stuff -- most audiophiles probably wouldn't be and, on a related sidenote, the AMQ mode only supports the slower, "non-jittery" speeds.

109 bucks *might* seem a little steep in this day of 39 dollar burners. But, IMO, here the cost was well worth it....my Xmas gift to myself! LOL!

PS - My old burner is on Ebay for 23 bucks if anyone's interested.

 

Hi david,

Is it compatible with windows 98? What type of processor and how much
memory do you need?

I might run over to CC tomorrow.

Thanks for the tip!

 

Is Nero a "Mac only" program?

About that labelling facility... does it use only the blank, unused portion of the disk? Clever idea.

 

Yes...98, SE, NT, XP...pretty much anything. Minimums state 300MHZ P II, 64 Megs Ram...but I'm running it on a 233 P II with no problems at all.

 

No, Nero is PC. I'm not sure how the labeling function works. They say results will vary depending on dye formulation, that the labeling can only be done after the session is closed, and that it could take up to 12 minutes to do.

 

HI David,

I'm running windows 98 with a 233 cyrix and about 64 megs of ram.

I guess that should work for me too.

Did you see Dell's new deal: A Computer with Celeron 1.8 Gig Chip with 6 months free internet service for $399.

After the internet savings you practically get the computer for a song.

 

Bot $109 sounds reasonable to me, so its OK with Windows ME, I just upgraded to 197 Ram.........How easy is a Burner to install?

 

Internal IDE...took me 10 minutes.

 

Hi Ron,

Usually its pretty easy.

1. Power- there are extra power leads inside the computer just waiting
for something to plug into the burner

2. Sound- the sound card has an input for the sound wire that comes with
the burner and plugs into into the burner

3. Controller- controls the the drive. the drive should come with a rbbon
cable that plugs into an IDE input on the Computer Mother
Board Controller

4. Small Phillips head screwdriver

5. Installation Software- CD or disk that is self installing

You might have to go into the BIAS by pressing delete on boot up or escape
there you need to change some setting usually.

The whole job should take an 30 minutes or less. Circuit City probably will do it
for you at a nominal fee probably $50.

 

Here's the basic press release for the FI series. Within it, there's a link that gives a very brief explanation of AMQ. I'll also try and hunt down a few testimonials I found on the web/newsgroups from some engineers, audiophile-types and others. I have a bad habit of forgetting to bookmark things!

http://www.yamaha.ca/show_article.asp?articleId=52&targetName=Computer+Related

 

David,

I was planning to buy a Plextor next, but after your testimonial, I think i'll look into that Yamaha. Best Buy also has them.

I never had much of a problem with jitter anyway because I always burn slow, but never at 1x.

I've got a little experiment for you. You say that the AMQ technology allows older burners to read CD-Rs? Well, as you may know, some DVD players will not play CD-Rs either. I wonder if a disc made with that Yamaha will play on one of these DVD players? It might be well worth it to see. Then, if you made a CD-R for someone, you won't have to worry that it won't play on anything you throw at it.

Hmmm, I just may buy that Yamaha tomorrow and give my old HP/Sanyo to my sister. Of course, she won't be happy that it can't burn a full 80 minutes of music...oh well...

 

Hello to all.

Checked the info at the Yamaha site and found an interesting chart.

It seems that some blanks produce less jitter. One id'd as Ritek PHT (G) produces similar jitter figures with no AMQ than others with it. Chart

 

I'm not sure if jitter is necessarily reduced at slower speeds. Plus, I'm not sure if it's something everyone can hear. I have a feeling I wouldn't be able to hear the difference, and my guess is you wouldn't either.

I think the problem with some DVD players isn't pit length or jitter, but the reflectiveness of the media itself. The laser in many DVD players simply doesn't "see" CD-Rs, since they use a wavelength that isn't reflected by CD-R discs.

 

I have found that many dvd players that do not support cd-r's will play back many brands of cd-rw's, even if the documentation does not specifically say they will. I always understood this to be related to the different wavelength required to read a cd or cd-r versus a cd-rw or dvd, with the cd-rw wavelength being closer to that used for a dvd.

The Yamaha marketing blurb sounds interesting. It may have an impact on my purchasing decision the next time I buy a cd burner, but for now I think I'll keep my Plextor since I'm happy with the burns I get, notwithstanding the occasional disc that becomes unreadable at the outer most edge of the disc after stored for some time. (This also happened to be with my previous burner and has happened with different brands of media. I haven't figured out why certain discs have deteriorated like this but my hunch is that the failing ones may have been exposed to direct sunlight for an excessive amount of time.)

 

I don't know whay you would say that because I can hear the effects of jitter. It appears as the music sounding "glassier", or "colder".

Exactly! That's why i'm thinking that making the pits a bit larger would help the laser in some DVD players "see" the pits because of the reflectivity issue.

 

Oh...based on some of your previous posts it sounded like you couldn't hear the difference. Not that I was faulting you for it - I can't myself, or at least have never bothered to try.

Er...it's not quite that simple. The laser in many DVD players uses a wavelength that simply doesn't work with CD-R media. It essentially sees nothing. Making the pits larger won't help if the player can't even see them. Larger nothing is still nothing!

 

I bought one of these drives a few months ago here in Australia, and have been very happy with it. I'm surprised there hasn't been more interest in it before, due to the Audio Master Quality function. This technology has been available in a few of Yamaha's drives since 2001 or so (the 3200 model, initially, and the 2200 with firmware upgrade). The Audio Master Quality function does indeed seem to be a major advance for those who care about the audio side of burning, although for most users I don't think great sonic advantages are to be had from it. But it certainly does offer an alternative to other burners.

I've played around with teh disk tattoo function, and I think it's a waste of time, myself - clever technology, but the end results aren't that satisfying. Be nice if the tattoo function was better implemented in software - the Nero image editing thingy for Disk tattoo is pretty daggy.

You also have to have Nero to use Audio Master Quality - I'm not aware of any other software for Windows that makes use of the feature, although a number of other software programs do recognise the CDR-F1. Nero does the job well enough, although I find it's interface a bit odd at times. I believe another product handles Audio Master Quality for these drives in Macintosh computers - might be Roxio Toast, if memory serves me.

Anyway, this is a great CD burner. I paid a fair bit for it about three months ago. Just in the last few weeks the price has dropped by over 50% here in Australia. It can rip and burn a CD in about 6 minutes. Audio Master Quality takes longer, with a max speed of 8X, which isn't bad at all.

 

As Paul mentioned, one has to use Nero to engage the AMQ option for PC's (though I also saw a newsgroup post that mentioned Fuerio). The nice thing though, is that one can use another burning program if they choose to bypass this feature, say, on a per needed basis. I tend to be partial to EAC, Goldenhawk and CDClone, and all had no problem recognizing the drive in the "standard mode". In fact, CD Clone gave me my fastest ripping speed of all -- even on my old dog of a computer!

What really impressed me about this drive -- apart from some endorsements from engineers who actually *did* hear a difference, independent lab results, as well as my own positive audible results -- was the attention to detail in trying to gear a product toward a certain (i.e. audiophile) audience. Like I said, this drive has pretty much every "book" feature I would ever want, makes GREAT sounding burns, and appears to be well-engineered.

My only question to anyone else who owns it (e.g. Paul) -- does your drive seem fairly loud while spinning? Not a "bad" kind of loud sound...just fairly noticable. I'd assume this is par for the course for most modern, high-speed, full CAV burners? -- as my previous Sony was pretty loud while spinning too.

 

Feurio = distributed by Nero also supports it. It's a great music recorder program.

garryfp

 

Question for you David - why is CAV a good thing? Essentially that means you're writing the outer edge of the disc faster than the inner edge. Wouldn't CLV give a more "steady" burn, in theory anyway?

I believe most burners were CLV for a long time, until the burner makers couldn't keep up. That is, to get, say, 44x burning on the inside of the disc, you have to spin it a lot faster than you do at the outside. That isn't/wasn't really possible, so makers just switched to CAV, which might give 44x on the outside, but something slower on the inside.

 

Mr. Favre...from the owner's manual:

'About Full CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) Writing Method'

"Writing to a CD-R disc is normally done using CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) method. In this method, the disc's rotation speed is adjusted continuously to keep a steady data transfer rate. The data transfer rate, in the CLV method, is held constant but, because of the smaller size of the inner circles of the disc versus the large outer circles, the disc speed is adjusted depending upon which portion of the disc data is being recorded on (i.e. if recording on the inner edge versus the outer edge, the disc should rotate faster to keep up with the data transfer rate -- which is held steady throughout the writing cycle).

In contrast, the Full CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) method keeps the disc's rotation speed constant while adjusting the data transfer rate depending upon which portion of the disc is being recorded. In other words, in the CAV writing method, the outer portion of the disc should receive an increased data transfer rate compared to the inner portion. Applying the CAV method enables a significant increase in the data transfer rates with a minimum load increase to the drive's mechanism."

So, I *guess* the mindset behind the whole CAV thing is that the steady disc rotation speed is the more important of the two. Is that what you get out of it? On a sidenote, in theory anyway, data transfer rates may be compromised anyway if buffer memory situations occur. So, I don't think that data transfer rates are *always* going to be *perfectly* constant at all times even in CLV -- in real world situations.

 

Hi David,

Is NERO an additional stand alone program that you need to purchase in
order to gain the full benefit of this drive. Drives usually come with
all the software required.

 

Hi Gary,

Nero, and all of the other necessary software, is included with the drive. The usual deal.