BenQ 1650 and Liteon 160p6s: best firewire chip is Initio or Oxford?

[Sir Joe]

Hi!
I found two enclosures, unfortunately no one with Prolific chip. Well, a guy has got one and would like to sell it to me at US$ 160. I think he is really out of reality...
And there is an Argosy with Prolific 2506 2A, no idea if same good as 3507...
The other ones I can get are: One is a Macally with Cypress AT2 for the usb and Initio for the firewire. The other is a NSpire with Cypress AT2 for usb and Oxford 911 for firewire (in the site they say only Cypress AT2, but must be a mistake i suppose, and in cdfreak a guy tells there is an oxford chip, so...)
Another enclosure I can find is A-Power ap525c, no idea which chipsets, they never anwered me...
I would like to use a BenQ 1650, or a Liteon 160p6s...
Can anybody share his/her experiences about these chips and this combination of chips and drives please?

[ofbarea]

The Oxford 911 is a goody but oldie chipset. The original incarnation only supported disk drives of up to only 128 GB. Eventually there were new revisions of Oxford 911 plus some external hack that overcame this limit. With burners I never had a problem with it.

My case used to host a HP 200i burner for a long time. Never had I problem with it. Recently I gave away this old burner and now this case has an older Toshiba SD-W2002 1x DVD-RAM drive. It is still working fine. At one point in time I put a NEC2500@2510 into this case with no problems.

This case has been connected to NEC, TI, VIA, Ricoh and Agere firewire cards and it has been compatible with all of them. I did had problems when using this case in a overclocked system. It had stability problems with firewire cards based on Via and Agere chipset. Only an Adaptec TI firewire based card worked fine in this overclocked PC.

Regarding to cases, the advantage that Oxford chipset had, has banished as other companies developed capable chipsets. So you will do OK with any recent manufactured enclosure. Check this old post for firmware upgrade links for firewire chipsets: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1274893#1274893

Regarding your options, the Macally seems to be a good option. I do not have a case of this brand, but a friend of mine uses one in his Mac.

I was looking around and I found this:
http://www.deremate.com.ar/accdb/viewItem.asp?IDI=11566759

Nueva informaci—n agregada el: 1/9/2006 16:41

Solo el Case de aluminio plateado(2 Firewire + USB), con Cooler y fuente externa (la ventaja que no calienta el case) para DVDR y HDs: u$s100
- Solo el Case de aluminio ***** con luz azul (firewire + usb): u$s160

I think the silver case is sold in Argentina for $100.

By the way Lite-on bought BenQ a while ago

Regards.

[Sir Joe]

Yes, I am posting on that deremate thread, and actually those addictional infos were added because of my observations. I post there as Sharamate.
That guy is a thief. He want to sell me at us$160 a Bytecc which in internet is $35, and which could cost, when it arrives in Argentina, shipping and taxes, no more than $70. The silver $100 is an anonimous A-Power. At a point it seemed that he said this one too has got a prolific chip, but I would not trust him. And A-Power never answered me, so, it is not a good beginning.
There is a shop, vcda, in Argentina, which has got a bytecc 3.5, those macally, some vantec... So I asked them nd a guy told me he will search.
Let see...
A question: I was searching a prolific chip because it is the only one good for BenQ. As BenQ is not udma4, while Liteone yes, and if it is true that the last 160p6s and 165 are as good as BenQ in burning and scanning, it could be good to buy liteOn, have same quality of benq, more speed, and less compatibility issues whit enclosures, what do you think?
Well, at that point, what is supposed to be the best chipset for firewire with liteon, the prolific anyway, or the Oxford or Initio? A vendor told me that as prolific do the two jobs, usb and firewire, it dose them less well than two separates chips...
Well, see you later... It seem more a chat than a forum at this point 8)
Salutes

[OneSickPup]

I'll give you my opinion based on my experience. It is quite limited though. I started by reading at great length this thread:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=119149

I own 4 enclosures. A Macally PHC500BC and three different Plumax enclosures. I've tried Cypress AT2 and Prolific chipsets. The bottomline is that I could never approach 16x writing speeds with 100% consistency unless I stuck to UDMA4 drives like the Pioneer 108, Pioneer 111 and my LiteOn 165H6S. I did have some success with modified firmware on an LG 4167B that converted it to (You guessed it) UDMA4. 16x writing isn't necessarily a big issue as I most often downspeed my 16x media to 12x anyway. Based on your limited choices I would select the LiteOn drive and the Macally enclosure. I'm quite sure others will disagree. Good luck though.

[Sir Joe]

I started by reading at great length this thread:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=119149

me too... I also posted there... :P

I own 4 enclosures. A Macally PHC500BC and three different Plumax enclosures. I've tried Cypress AT2 and Prolific chipsets. I would select the LiteOn drive and the Macally enclosure. I'm quite sure others will disagree. Good luck though.

Very interesting...
Other should not agree about drive or enclosure/chip?
Do you use firewire or usb with those enclosures? Because I will use firewire. This is why I was looking for the difference between Initio, Oxford, and Prolific.
Cypress AT2 (or prolific) will be only for upgrade drvie firmware through usb.
Speed does not worry me too, as I will probably never get high speeds in my system.
But yes does worry me quality (and I understood that benq 1650 and liteon 160p6s are very similars), and compatibility. And about this I am not sure of the combination of each of those chips with Liteon. At first I want to be sure to not have problem (well, as sure as possible), then I can choose the faster chip.

[OneSickPup]

What I meant was that lots of people have different opinions and I'm sure some will disagree with my suggestion. I prefer firewire for reliable connections as USB2 can be problematic but your situation may be different. We are very spoiled here in the US where enclosures are very inexpensive. You can try something and either return it for a different one or just toss it away as a bad investment. Many enclosures are $40 or definitely under $50. We appear to have tons more models and brands. Our choices are much easier to make. Which model of Macally do you have available for purchase?

[Sir Joe]

PHC500BC , US$88...
Also can choose a NSpire with Cypress AT2 and Oxford 911, or a Coolmax 509 or 510 with Cypress (not know if old or AT2) and oxford 911, or a Bafo BF-6532 (same chips as Collmax).
I am waiting answer for a prolific chip enclosure (bytecc, plumax, syba, masscool, ppa...)

[OneSickPup]

PHC500BC , US$88...
Also can choose a NSpire with Cypress AT2 and Oxford 911, or a Coolmax 509 or 510 with Cypress (not know if old or AT2) and oxford 911, or a Bafo BF-6532 (same chips as Collmax).
I am waiting answer for a prolific chip enclosure (bytecc, plumax, syba, masscool, ppa...)

That Macally connected via firewire should work well. Otherwise the Plumax with the Prolific chip would be even better if it is available. Wow - $88, that is a little pricey.

[Sir Joe]

I told it, here it is extremely difficult to find good things, and the few ones are ridiculously expensive.
Imagine that a stupid guy on a sort of argentine ebay wanted to sell me at us$160 a byteccme-340u2f which wort us$ 35 in most sites. Adding shipping costs and argentine taxes it should cost 60 or maximum 65$. Selling it at 80 or maximum 100 it would have been a great deal for him and a normal deal for me. He is completely nut.
About Plumax, they seem a beat cheap plastic things. Why do all people suggest them?Storetecc are not better? Also i prefer it without fan, it is unuseful for dvd writer and make the enclosure heavier and bigger. At dealsonic there are a lot with prolific. I told to a shop to try getting one. Syba, ppa, kingwin, eurocom, masscool, bytecc, storetecc... I wait an answer from him... They do have the macally 5.25 and 3.5. And some vantec and bytecc 3.5 which I also need for the HDD...
Anyway, I wanted to ask you, about firewire you seem to prefer prolific to the other ones, oxford or Initio, I understood well? Why?