Quiet DVDRW drive like the BTC 1008IM

I currently have a BTC 1008IM and NEC 3500AG. Both are on external Plextor aluminum cases that I got from an old 40X CDRW writer. (USB 2.0)

The BTC is a so-so burner, but I am amazed at how quiet it is. It is virtually silent when burning, ripping, playing back DVDs and it doesn't vibrate at all. I swear I cannot hear it unless I press my ear against it.

Now, the NEC is an excellent and much more feature rich drive (DL + better DVD burns), but I hate that noise when it's spinning, it sounds like a small jet engine. Not as bad as those old 48X CDROMS, but it's many times louder than my BTC. I have not even taken off the riplock and it's still loud when playing back dvds. And it's horrible @ anything above 12X burn speed...

With this said, are any of the other drives silent like the BTC?

Pioneer (no bitsetting kind of a let down)
BenQ
LG

I see most of the discussions focus on performance, but there isn't much talk about noise levels...
I know noise is very subjective, but anyone that has a BTC or experience with a similar quest, please provide me with some of your observations.

The NEC spins at a high rpm rate durin playback of DVD+R/-R discs. It is very quiet during playback of DVD+RW/-RW and DL DVD movies that you buy at the stores. The burn speed is also quiet, up to about 8X. This is the default configuration at the factory.

You can force the NEC to run slower with DVD+R/-R discs with AnyDVD (slysoft.com). Launch AnyDVD and click on the Drive tab. Put a check mark next to Enable Speed Control and set the video DVD speed to Slow & Quiet. Also make sure that the NEC drive is selected in the Drive Selection box above. Try AnyDVD for free during the first 21 days.

You may need to Disable Speed Control when ripping/burning data to achieve maximum performance from the NEC.

is there a pure hardware solution? I don't like running applications in the background.

Put a radio on top of it and turn it up when burning or ripping. (hardware solution)

Don't you have to run PowerDVD or equivalent during DVD playback? How hard is it to click on AnyDVD? You can turn off AnyDVD at the end of the movie.

The pure hardware solution is to use the BTC drive for playback!

So all the other brands are the same as the NEC in terms of motor spin noise?

The Plextor 712A is quiet.

Ah, furballi answers my question before I ask. Do you have mental telepathy? I agree with iatacs19 that the sentiment that ergonomics in the form of acoustics are not discussed enough, not even here.

Can anyone answer what the noises on the BenQ 1620 and the Plextor 712A are in comparison to one another? In another post, someone made a comment as a response to a question about acoustics, 'you'll just need to hear for yourself'. Even though I normally order online, it's not like I can walk into a store and start unboxing, hooking up, and burning CD's in one of their computers! I guess the NEC noise is just another reason not to go there (no error checking capability). The 712A does error correction and overburning, too.

I guess the challenge implied in this thread is to know whether the quietness of a drive is a result of riplock or real acoustic ergonomic sophistication. "Quiet drives" thread: I like the idea!

i have decided to give the Pioneer a try after I return my NEC 3500 next week. From what I have read the retail Pioneer A08XL/A09XL have a little more design effort to curtail noise. For example they have QuietDrive which is user selectable via a utility and also the casing has some kind of honeycomb design to help with the noise. Does any of this work? I don't know, but I guess if it does it will be worth the premium over the NEC.

What really surprises me is how quiet the BTC drive is. The drive might not be good at all for burning(although for me it works just fine PO/PI errors are high though, usually scores 0 (zero), haha) but the discs play without problems. I wonder why manufacturers don't bother to make an effort to quiet down these jet engines.

I just got my PX-716A so I can comment on that now for CD's. Unfortunately my blank Verbatim MCC004 DVD+R's, shipped by another shipper (my drive was shipped via UPS and arrived the next day), despite the great deal, got lost or have not come yet.

So with CD's anyway, the Plextor I think is about half as loud as my TDK 48x CD-RW VeloCD made by Lite-On. The Lite-On was in turn quieter than some no-name crappy Chinese-made CDRW drive I had before that and returned. But I still considered the Lite-On loud. The 716A is not set on any quiet mode by default, but you can enable it via Plextools (or CD-DVD speed by Ahead/Nero). The tray eject/inject is also quieter, and there is an even quieter/slower mode for this, but it does not make a big difference as eject/inject is already pretty quiet. I am bothered more by drive noise than tray noise, but the tray is very quiet--not silent, however.

So the 716A isn't "silent" when doing CD stuff as fast as it wants, and probably couldn't be at those speeds. But it is much more humane than my lite-on. I definitely wouldn't consider it "loud", and the way I would term it is "well-behaved". It's a good change. Can't compare it to any other DVDRW.

If I have anything substantial to add about noise after my DVD+R's come, I will do so. Let's keep the thread going, anyone who has comments about noise of drives.

Totally agree!!
I've been spending a year trying to make my PC silent...(finally done )..but then there was my old Pioneer DVD which annoyed me during DVD-Playback.

So, now i'm watching DVDs with my Nec 2510, which is nearly quiet, or i'm using my Aopen 1648/AAP DVD-Rom in combination with Nero's DriveSpeed...

And the aopen is really quiet

LG Drives are very quiete drives

Anyone got some comments on external DL burners that are quiet?

Dr. C