This burner definitely had it's quirks, but in the end it is a very solid burner. It is a fast reader, fast writer, and is by far the best CDRW I've ever used for digital audio extraction - even on scratched or dirty disks, it's very fast, and has perfect quality. Without SpeedBoost enabled, it reads CD's very quiet at 40x, but with SpeedBoost enabled, it is a little noisier than other 52x burners I've used. The big bonus for me is AOpen's support of Mt. Rainier. . . it makes this drive a very viable option when choosing your next recorder.