Interesting questiion: just what determines the read speed? I thought it was the media itself, but I think there is more to it. Using the 'Drive Speed' utility supplied with Nero 5.5, my 16sp a-open drive can rip DVD's at 5-11x reading DVD9 as opposed to 2.6-6x if left to make its own decision. The same applies to any media - CD/CDR/RW etc. With 'Drivespeed' running, it reads a whole lot faster.

Now why should this be? Where are the settings (resgistry etc) that limit the speed?

One final note - no errors whatsoever have been encountered at the higher speeds.