I still own a Sony CDU33A with 2x speed and the proprietary connector, which was the first drive I ever bought around 1994.
Impressive collection, Ampera 😀

The first optical drive I bought was an Asus 40x CDROM (cd-s400). It has a ffwd button that also doubles as a speed changer (press longer and it reduces speed in 4 steps). If one of your units has this feature I'd say it's a keeper.

elod wrote:

The first optical drive I bought was an Asus 40x CDROM (cd-s400). It has a ffwd button that also doubles as a speed changer (press longer and it reduces speed in 4 steps). If one of your units has this feature I'd say it's a keeper.

This. I´d keep any drive that has control buttons and interfaces at the front bezel

Proprietary interfaces, exotic door mechanisms, unique proportions. Quad speed CD-ROM's and lower for their quietness, if they're in really good shape. CD-RW burners that can read tough copy protections. Most are just junk.

IMO they are all worth keeping, as I've had many slowly wear out, and although there are some substitutes to optical drives, there is nothing as awesome like the GOTEK floppy emulator yet.

I've seen large differences with CDDA support. Some output nothing at the back, while others don't support all features, especially changing the volume through software, some of the Pinball games use this feature.

Anyone have a working Kenwood 72X? True-X 7-beam pickup, baby. 😎

These are the ones I like. Pioneer, Panasonic and Toshiba.

clueless1 wrote:

Anyone have a working Kenwood 72X? True-X 7-beam pickup, baby. 😎

Don't think so (and I have been on the lookout for one of these locally for many years 🤣).

IDE DVD-RW drives with beige bezels are not easy to find inexpensively. I finally had one wear out after many years, and I had to replace it temporarily with a perfectly-functional black-colored drive. Needless to say, this is unacceptable.

Optical drives, the good :

Simple tray loading mechanisms, less likely to break down and even if they do, you can much more easily rescue a disk than with slot loaders or complicated tray mechanisms.

Front audio jack, useful when you just can't find that CD-audio cable

DVD drives - They read a greater variety of media and should read CD-Rs.

CD Rewritable drives - They will read CD-Rs.

IDE drives - Because not everyone has a SCSI interface handy or wants to go through the hassle of setting up SCSI

Also, caddy drives, just cuz.

Plextor SCSI caddy loaders especially. They were really stubborn about giving up caddy loaders, and made them all the way up to 32X. There are a few PX-32CSi drives on ebay right now, but they aren't cheap. I think I paid about $40 for mine. Worth every penny.

There's a PM heading your way.

SuperDuty455 wrote:

As far as giving them away instead of throwing them, that would be the ideal solution. But being in France, the shipping would make the deal uninteresting for anyone outside of the EU.

If nothing else, I would just give what you don't want to a thrift store. They'll probably end up on a shelf for SOMEONE to grab eventually. I've donated quite a bunch of random stuff that isn't worth the effort of selling or shipping to the Value Village down the street.

I've got quite a few drives too (but far from 110 🤣)
I've got a really nice 4x drive. Why ? Because it's so quiet ! I've never seen such quiet drive in my life but that CD drive. I can stick my ear to it and I would barely hear it running. Too bad it's the only one I own 🙁

I'm also from France, so we could make a little deal ? 😀
I don't need munch more CD drives, but you might have few of them that could interest me (at best a dozen I'd say)

Black cases and drives are an irritation because they make it so much more difficult to change CDs and insert USB cables in the dark. (There's additional fun if the reset switch is right next to the USB ports.)

The stars from one point of view, are those with well developed scanning capabilities...
Benq DW1620
Philips DVDR1648/00M - apparently a rebrand of a Benq DW1640 - a very good one for disk scanning ... my only attempt at getting a Philips/Benq so far left me with a DVD8881 - SATA interface, and lacking the fancy scanning capability (groan!)
Philips DH-20A4P - apparently a Liteon rebrand, also a good scanning drive
The Liteon SOHW and SHM models - there are also some tweaked firmwares around that do things like converting the 12X burn from a reduced speed CAV to a faster PCAV.

Don't know much about the others, but the Creative 5X looks classic

I think one Liteon is above the Benq in the last column, another 3rd up to the left of that one - the shape of the button, the round ended LED and the placement of the eject hole are a signature!

clueless1 wrote:

Anyone have a working Kenwood 72X? True-X 7-beam pickup, baby. 😎

I have a Kenwood 52X. These are interesting drives. Their IDE interface is buggy (DMA can be trouble). They can barely read CD-Rs. But if you put a pressed CD in and everything is happy, they are super fast and quiet. Their rotational rate is similar to a 10-12X CLV drive.

Anything with Creative or Reveal that were sold in kits before CDROM drives were standard on machines, Plextor or other old SCSI drive. The old external NEC 3plex drives with the pop up lid are cool as well, or caddy drives.

Wow a Creative 5x Drive ?!