The only real Sound Blaster Pro 2 that uses the Sony CD-ROM interface is CT1690. CT1600 uses the Panasonic CD-ROM interface.

You might be better off using a slightly modern IDE CD drive over a period-correct one since they may have aged poorly due to deteriorating moving parts.

I suggest keeping that card since it is the "gold standard" for Sound Blasters when it comes with compatibility on DOS games, otherwise selling it might be a better idea than tossing it since it is selling at very expensive prices on eBay lately for such as old card.

Don't know if there's a full list anywhere. There was a thread here : CD-ROM Compatability with Creative Sound Blaster SB16 Value CT2770. That includes the following:

• Panasonic/Matsushita CR-521, CR522, CR523
• Panasonic/Matsushita CR-562b (I've got one of these that works and one with a busted read head)
• Panasonic/Matsushita CR-563b
• Teac CD-55a

Don't think they're very common these days. I kept an eye out for a few months last year for a 562b in case any came up that I could use for parts and didn't see any that weren't going for what I felt was silly money. I may have found another way to replace the read head, but that still needs work.

I suggest keeping that card since it is the "gold standard" for Sound Blasters when it comes with compatibility on DOS games, otherwise selling it might be a better idea than tossing it since it is selling at very expensive prices on eBay lately for such as old card.

Yeah I should be more careful with my words, with current prices of everything “vintage computing” on eBay, even non-working stuff will end up for sale rather than the trash can.

I’ve read that the CT1600 is one of the best sound cards for DOS games as well, which is why I’d rather keep it and find a compatible CD-ROM drive to go with it. I’m just struggling to find one.

Thanks for pointing out that thread with those model numbers. In all my searching I’ve found several threads here discussing the basic issue but not that particular thread. It’s a short list but much better than no list.

There were some IDE interface versions of some of those Matsushita models, I don't know if you could transplant the interface boards from a not reading matsu interface one to a good head/mech of an IDE one, but might be worth investigating if you can get them cheap.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-10, 15:17:

There were some IDE interface versions of some of those Matsushita models, I don't know if you could transplant the interface boards from a not reading matsu interface one to a good head/mech of an IDE one, but might be worth investigating if you can get them cheap.

I did have a look at the 583, which is 3 years younger ('97 vs '94) and is an IDE drive, but that's got a different read head in it. The 562 had the same head and mechanism (transport?) as some versions of the 3DO, but even if I found one of those cheap I'm not going to break one thing to fix another. Sellers on AliExpress apparently have new 3DO read heads for $50. I think there was also the same head in the 503 (SCSI drive, used in some Apple computers I think), and they sometimes show up but generally as not working and with symptoms that sound like the read head is failing (could be laser fading, or just a dirty lens). I have something else to try, but that'll have to wait until I also have time.

I've the same problem, dead Panasonic interface CD drive and no ability to add a IDE drive.
Problem is compatible drives are rare, often expensive and very old and unreliable. Even when new these drives had problems reading CD-R's
If you don't have a 2nd hard drive you can add a IDE drive as slave.

Although I found I don't really need CD drive in my 486.
I've got a large CF card as a slave HDD that holds games, install files, etc which I can move across to my main PC for file copies.
And once the PC is up and on the network I use that to copy files over.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-08-11, 15:55:

If you don't have a 2nd hard drive you can add a IDE drive as slave.

this is the best answer if you're short on ISA slots, otherwise I would suggest adding one of the common multi I/O cards that can have its IDE interface jumpered to secondary

Back in the day, when hard drive space was expensive, running several HDDs in one system made sense, but now there's no reason not to go for a decent sized drive and put the CD on slave. Unless you need more than 6 bootable partitions or something.

Get a jumpered ESS ISA sound card with IDE support and IDE Optical drive. If you have a lot of good spinning rust hdds laying around like I have it's easy enough to fit another hdd as Slave as long as the Master isn't a Conner hdd....😉

Forget about it.

If you want a good running gaming computer then get a modern CD Drive.
A good working 4x or higher IDE CD drive.

Forget about these proprietary drives. They are too expensive, hard to find. And usually don’t work.
The OLD Proprietary SONY CD drives were plagued with bad capacitors thats why their are so few around.
The Proprietary Panasonic were better built but they are hard to find.

I would just get a good working IDE CD drive and use it with the IDE controller.
Don’t use the Sound Blaster CD interface unless it is for an IDE CDROM drive.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2021-08-11, 17:32:

I would just get a good working IDE CD drive and use it with the IDE controller.
Don’t use the Sound Blaster CD interface unless it is for an IDE CDROM drive.

This is probably what I’m going to do. I was hoping to use the sound blaster for the CD interface since the original hard drive is working fine, and I was planning to add a CF card as a slave hard drive. But I can probably live without the hard disk, and will just put the CF and a newer CD-rom on the IDE.

Thank you everyone for all the help!

Well, the Mitsumi FX-001D at least had ISA DMA transfer.

cosmicinsane wrote on 2021-08-12, 10:39:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2021-08-11, 17:32:

I would just get a good working IDE CD drive and use it with the IDE controller.
Don’t use the Sound Blaster CD interface unless it is for an IDE CDROM drive.

This is probably what I’m going to do. I was hoping to use the sound blaster for the CD interface since the original hard drive is working fine, and I was planning to add a CF card as a slave hard drive. But I can probably live without the hard disk, and will just put the CF and a newer CD-rom on the IDE.

Thank you everyone for all the help!

just skip the CF card instead

Personally, I don’t care for the CT1600 audio output.
Its NOT clean enough. I have a couple of them and they don’t sound to great.
I think the AWE64 puts out better audio.

I would just get a NICE sound card with IDE CDROM interface and a wave table connector to add a wave table like the “Dream Blaster X2 GS”
This will give you some really nice clean audio.