Advantages: Quality and reliability of drive
Disadvantages: Outdated and discontinued model

...The Teac 532 cd rom drive is an cd-rom reader that is designed to be fitted internally into a PC. I had this unit in my PC for about 2 years before I decided to upgrade the whole system. I paid about £120 for this drive and at the time 32x read speed was about the industry standard. How times change as now we are looking up to 72x read speeds on cd-rom drives, which make this unit look positively tortoise-like! Specs This cd-rom drive is compatible with operating systems up to Windows 98. It has a 32x read speed and needs to be fitted into a IDE interface inside the computer. The drive measures, (W) 5.75” (H) 1.65” (D) 7.56”. It weighs 2.65lbs. Overall these are the standard measurements for a cd-rom drive, otherwise it wouldn’t fit into your computer! On the front panel of the unit, from left to right there are... Read review

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Advantages: Compact, yet Powerful
Disadvantages: None

...After re-aranging our lounge a decision was made that the black clunky stacking hi-fi had to go, so a search on the internet and a visit to the Richer Sounds website led me initially to the Denon DM31. I visited my local Richer sounds shop in Norwich the following day with the intention of purchasing a Denon, but a very helpful assistant informed me if I was to run powerful speakers such as mine (Bose Acoustimass 5) I would be better off with the Teac CRL600 with a higher wattage. I hesitated as I had no info on this model, but decided to go with it when he assured me if I wasnt happy I could return it within 14days. I plugged it all in at home and WOW I was very impressed. Far superior than my stacking ugly system. This unit sits beneath my tv ontop of the DVD player and looks well at home. The audio quality from the CD and radio... Read review

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Advantages: Reliable sturdy product
Disadvantages: Not the fastest

...The Teac 56S was the second cd writer I bought after stepping up from a 2*2*16 Yamaha IDE drive. The 56S is a SCSI interface drive and as such requires you to but a SCSI card . I had decided to do this as I was wanting to be able to carry out a number of tasks on my Pc whilst burning a disc . I bought a cheap card (around £35)which was all that was required . The drive itself is robust and can complete a 650Mb cd in around 14 mins. It was fairly straight forward to install although if you are not comfortable poking about inside your pc it may be better to get somebody else to to it for you . It is not now the fastest drive on the market but if you were wanting a comnpetitively priced drive that has certainly proved very reliable for me then this could be what you are looking for . It also comes with the software you will require... Read review

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Advantages: Aztech and Delta drives, as an example, are much cheaper than bigger names
Disadvantages: If you buy cheaper CD ROM drives expect lower performance

...I have mixed feelings about Aztech CD-ROM Drives – and other cheap makes. Everything seemed fine until the speed's started to increase to 24x and beyond. I was used to slower drives and wonder quite why anyone would need a CD-ROM to go so fast – but who am I to know? I have never had any problems with CD-ROM running at around 10 to 16 speed. Anyway, I found on a 32x Aztech drive that it couldn’t get up to full speed without cutting off before it could read data. It was a never-ending loop of stopping and starting, making installation of any program a long drawn out affair. Eventually I had the unit replaced with a Delta CD ROM. It’s better, but still seems to suffer from its high speed at times. I would recommend, and it’s only my opinion, that you spend a bit more and purchase a Yamaha, Philips, Teac or any other well... Read review

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Advantages: Great Sound, Great Looks, Great Price
Disadvantages: Remotes a bit cheap, no USB port,

...Having been in the market to downsize my old hi fi for something more compact, I've settled on the Teac reference 300 mkIII with DAB tuner. Its a 3 box system as opposed to the other smaller one box systems manufactured by Teac and others such as Denon, Arcam and Onkyo. As such, although being larger, it is more user friendly to use and has more power at 45 wpc RMS. At around £500 rrp it stands up favourably in price to the Arcam Solo Mini and comes in silver or black finish with machined aluminium fronts and a classy blue display on each unit. It actually appears slightly retro in appearance although the remotes are a bit cheap looking. The silver units can be found for as little as £349 without speakers so its quite a bargain. Sound quality for such a small unit is really clear and well defined with a warm bass typical of Teac... Read review

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Advantages: Nice looking, nice sounding, reasonable value for money.
Disadvantages: Upgrades are not that enticing and the remote control does not send out a strong signal.

...I was drawn to the Teac 500 system because I wanted something more "high-fidelity" than an Aiwa all-in-one unit but didn't want to mix and match units. The advantage of having separates is that you can change units and therefore upgrade the system. Over time Teac have added various options such as 7 disc CD player, DVD player, AV amp. The advantage of having separates all designed by Teac is that the system has one remote control, can serve as an alarm clock and is semi-intelligent. For example, if I switch the amp from CD to tuner, the CD player automatically stops. I added a pair of Mission 701s to it and have found that it sounds superb. I have two gripes though: The remote control looks good, has all the required functions but has to be used 10cm away from the unit. I have e-mailed Teac to ask if they have a solution... Read review

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Advantages: Straightforward no frills tape deck
Disadvantages: Few

...Teac have been in operating the electronics industry for over 50 years, and whilst they don't often feature in most people's list top five manufacturers, their reputation for building no-nonsense tape drives is well established. Compact Cassette was first launched in the UK 1964 by electronics giant Philips. The first Walkman was introduced by Sony in 1979 By 1982 sales of pre-recorded tapes overtook standard vinyl albums, however by 1993 this was eclipsed by sales of Compact Disks. Ten years on, and we have DVD, Minidisk, MP3 and the likes, so how come people still hang on to their cassette decks, and how come it still serves as the most popular audio format for people on the move? The simple answer is cost. Cassette based Walkmans and car audio systems are still significantly cheaper than the CD based rivals. Sound... Read review

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Advantages: Reliable, compatible with hugh speed writers, good printing surface
Disadvantages: Probably not the best protected writing surface, but not too bad

...Working for a Document Management company, our work revolves around burning copious amounts of CD's full of images. The Kodak 74 min CDRs we use are by far the most reliable CDs we've ever used - and we've used A LOT. We've gone through TDK, Maxell and even previous makes of CDR that Kodak have done, but their recent 12x compatible CDRs seem to be the most reliable. We use Plextor 12x Burnproof CDR's, as well as some Teac 6x drives. We also have a Teac 3 CD tower, with 3 6x Teac drives (again). There is also an old Yamaha 4x which we don't use much. But all the drives seem to burn error free cd's almost 100% of the time (obviously when you get through 100's a day, you're going to have occational problems). The type we use are gold CD's, with a white printable top surface. The burning surface seems to offer reasonable protection... Read review

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Advantages: Great looks, ease of use
Disadvantages: Too big for some people

...This system consists of separates but they link so seamlessly that you'd swear you were using an integrated hi-fi. The sound quality is fantastic. I am using the speakers taht came FREE with the system and are TEAC speakers and retail at around £130. However the sound produced is rich and has great depth. The system has a AM/FM tuner, a CD player and a MD player all of which operate through the stereo amplifier. The remote control operates all components and is well thought out. The MD is easy to use and recording and editing facilties are simple to learn. The naming of tracks and albums is easier than on most MD players, more like the Panasonic portable MD players than Sony. The buttons feel reassuringly well built and flicking between tracks is a more than pleasant experience (i jest!). A remote solely for the MD is included... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap & Very Reliable, Fast Speed
Disadvantages: None

...problems with burning at all. With a 52x in speed disc and compatible recorder writing process is very fast and using the full capacity can take less than 3 mins to burn. I have tried them in various computer drives and have never had any problem with reading any data from the discs. With regards to stand alone DVD players I have tried the discs on Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, TEAC and Samsung Players. Again I have had no problem with data being read from the disc. Video and Mp3 playback have been perfect. I have tried them in various CD players, Sony, Technics, Panasonic, Teac and Kenwood with audio data on them and they have produced good results every time. I have had some of the discs for quite some time. I do look after my discs and I can report that they have not degraded in anyway since the original burn. My brother who often... Read review

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