Pioneer a06 or Sony Dru-510 ??

[kixer]

Hi

Help me plz , i'm about to buy a writer and finaly the 2 writers are a06 or sony dru-510, pioneer is good with cheep media, is sony also good for burning cheep media? Wich should i choose?

//KiXeR

[Bob W]

If I was to buy a new dual format burner these days I would buy the NEC ND-1300a for $143 here http://avlogic.com/product.cgi?code=18030059

BTW I have a Sony DRU500ax and a Pioneer 105 burner.

[fbreve]

I had the same doubt and my choice was Pioneer A06 for these reasons:

- it's cheaper
- I read too many bad reviews of Sony 510, some people had it for about a month and then it died. Though, some people also had this problem with the Pioneer one, but they were fewer. In USA and Europe I believe it's easy to replace the defective driver, but here in Brazil I waited for a month to get mine. I hope it doesn't fail, otherwise I'll have to wait another month to get it replaced.

So I bought Pioneer A06.
So far:
- it didn't like some cheap (and crappy) Princo 4X media (white/purple). There are lots of read errors (according to DVDInfo). Even recording at 2X there are still some sectors it has to be read twice.
- the Verbatim DVD-RW 2X that came in the package is total crap, bad results in DVDInfo, it plays with lots of skips in my standalone Sony NS400D either (it only worked ok the first time I recorded it).
- but at least it liked the Verbatim DVD-R 4X that came in the package, recorded fine at 4X, no errors in DVDInfo, works perfectly in my stand-alone Sony player.

Now I ordered some Power Discs and Riteks DVD-R and a ESN DVD+RW to see what happens. They'll arrive here on monday (hopefully).

[oOGoldenSunOo]

Hi, I have the sony 510, and I've had it for a month and a half. I've burned only about 20 dvd's so far on TDK at 4x speed, and I haven't gotten a single coaster yet. I'm extremely satisfied with the 510, but I haven't tried other yet so I'm not ruling them out, I'm just telling you what I like about my 510. The only con I have so far about the 510 is that it was more expensive, but I've always been a loyal Sony fan and I have many sony products. Just my two cents.

[frankb]

Hi,

I got my Sony 510a a week ago (so I should have about 3 weeks before it dies on me... ). Burning works like a charm, even on cheap(ish) Sentinel DVD-R media, labeled as 1 speed, but actually being able to be burned at double speed.

I have also used Philips DVD+RW media quite extensively and again no probs.

My DVD player is a Cyberhome CH-402, which will eat just about anything I feed it.

Frank

[kensig]

I have a Pioneer 106 which is a A06 packaged with less software. It loves Princo 4X white/purple that I found for $95/100 at RIMA. The 106 is now selling for $172.

[spiderman2k1]

All I can say is that I have a Pioneer AO4 for over a year now still working like new. I really like Pioneer DVD burner's

[fbreve]

I got my Sony 510a a week ago (so I should have about 3 weeks before it dies on me... ).

No reason to make jokes man :P

Search your DVD writer in this forum and in reviews section and you'll see people who had problem with it failing after some weeks.

Even Pioneer, Sony and (put your favorite company here) sometimes produce defective drives, that's why they have warranty.

But my first clue that the number of defective DVD writers is unusually higher than other computer stuff was when I was going to buy one and the selesperson told me they weren't given the usual 6 month warranty because there were too many of those drivers (including Sony and Pioneer) returning to them (RMA). So they would give me only 1 month warranty. Of course I refused and bought it in another place that gave me 6 month warranty.

Knowing that I started searching the net and found some people who had problem with those drivers, and there were more Sonys than Pioneers. As Pioneer was cheaper, I bought it

But I'm not saying Sony is bad, I like Sony, I have a Sony digital camera, two Sony sound systems, a Sony Playstation, a Sony TV, a Sony standalone DVD player and they're all great.

[hoyboy]

I have had the Pioneer A06 for about 3 weeks so far, and it has been really good. It has recorded both riteks and princo's ok, and the only stuff-ups i've had were problems with the software I was using. It was a fair bit dearer than the NEC 1300 burner, but I felt the extra money was worth it.

[Co0L]

Hi!
I've have a Sony DRU-510a since 6-8 weeks ago and it works fine.
I've burned +40 DVD's (from very cheap to HiQ expensive brands)
without any fails/problems so far!
Same goes for DVD-RW burning. Nemaz Problemaz there...

[falconx]

After reading reviews about SONY DRU-510A I got one and it is perfect ... you can check your self ... in cnet.com it is the editor's choice .


http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_DRU_510A/4505-3212_7-21226932.html?tag=tp

[ebenton]

Whenver I want to buy a new $150 bicycle helmet, and my wife gives me a hard time, I say, "If you have a $10 head, buy a $10 helmet."

Since the original question was which burner is better for burning cheap media, I would say neither. You should only use cheap media if you don't really care too much about the data you are burning.
If you have cheap, crappy data to back up, use cheap crappy media, I guess.
Otherwise, if you have high-quality data, use high-quality media.

[mkelley]

That's a good post about cheap media.

That said, since I'm probably the only one here that has both burners (at least, both burners working :>) I can tell you that I prefer the Pioneer. It's hard to quantify, but it just *seems* to work better, more responsive in setup, Record Now likes it better, and it works at 4x on some media the Sony thinks are only 2x.

However, I only use what I consider to be quality media -- Verbatim or TDK -- since you can get that stuff at less than $2 per disk. The cheapest stuff I've ever used on a regular basis is the Samsung disks, at around $1.29, and they all seem to burn great but not 4x.

Both burners are quality products and you're not likely to go wrong either way.

[ZacMan]

I bougth the Sony DRU510A on 7/30 and have burned about 20+ DVD's with only 2 coasters. These were on CompUSA 2.4X +R discs. All my -R discs have worked great.

Until yesterday!

The burner went into it's death spiral trying to burn a music CD-R. Now the tray refuses to open (had to use a paper clip to remove the disc) and the drive LED just blinks rapidly all the time. This was using the 1.0b firmware.

I'm going to exchange it for a new drive from CircuitCity and upgrade the firmware to 1.0c right after I get it installed. I think I'll also purchase the extended warranty for 3 years.

I should have bought the NEC or the Pioneer.

[kixer]

Thx for u'r cooperation I've orderd a Pioneer 106 hope it worx well

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Fear The Great KiXeR