No, not really. BUT, TDK has been known to use inner parts made by other companies-- complete sets of them. TEAC has been around for many years more than TDK, they made floppy drives when 5-1\4" floppies were the in thing.
TDK used a TEAC mech(the electronics and laser and rotating motor inside drive casing), most likely, as they have used Plextor and others for various models.
Go to www.pricewatch.com and click cd recorders, THEN in search box type TDK. The results for TDK come up but in item description it says TEAC. I'm after a TDK Velo 52x cd-rw. I may have to call the distributers up and say , "Whats up"
The resellers sometimes put who mfr'd the insides in ads. TEAC is one of the folks who bundle and resell specialty mfr's private labelled gear, and they have been know to bulk buy Plextor mfring capability, TEAC, and I have seen some TDKs that I could swear were Panasonics.
In the past, HP and Lexmark have private labelled for others, with Compaq and Dell being resellers or sellers of private labelled stuff. Dell Flat LCD panels right now are made by Samsung.
Why?? the mfrs make money by selling LOTS of one mfring set, one internal model with differnt outsides lets them make more money on the effort done and money invested in one internal design spec. so, they build many innards, sell the most recent under their own name in many cases, contract batches of last year's internal design with different casings and private labels for major computer sellers. To get the mfr direct prices, you need to buy thousands of one item at one time.
Cheaper to specialize in one market area, be it mfring, VARs, reselling, or bundling components sets you have tested than to build factories, and warehouses, and sales offices of large scales all in one company. IBM used to do it all, now lots of their stuff is purchased from others and IBM only needs assembly plans for lots of things like workstations. IBM makes more per item this way. Dell does too.
I was not trying to morph the thread, simply saying that if you can find sources that buy a lot mfr direct you can spend less for one item than you would tryign to buy from a mfr that might be mfring on another side of the world from you and ship that one item to you. Big shippers also offer bulk shipping at cut rates.
In the case of Teac CDRW's, these are made by Lite-On.
Along with some Sony CDRW and DVD -R drives, are also made by Lite-On.
I personally recommend the Lite-On CDRW and DVD Rom drives in all the systems we build.
In reviews these drives are able to read disks where others fail and cannot continue making a copy of a disk.
I build systems using LiteOn's, but the mechs are sometimes TEAC. You have it reversed. Look at LiteOn's corp site in Taiwan, http://www.liteontc.com.tw/ then on TEACs site in Japan http://www.teac.com.jp/ (click the option that says Worldwide in upper right corner for English version of site).
LiteOn does: Monitors, some Networking stuff, and some motherboards.
TEAC has a complete mfring division for storage products, and they only sell to others high in the distribution channel.
LiteOn drivers DO work with some TEACs, but some of the LiteOn mechs are TEAC innards adn firmware. TEAC supplies firmware drivers to people like LiteOn who resell, LiteOn does the software bundling, tunes firmware to fit software, etc. TEAC only does Storage Product hardware in most cases.
I was after the TDK due to the excellent write ups I read over the last year. I am willing to shell out the extra $$ (but not too much) for the TDK. I've seen LiteOn's and considered them not as good, apparently I was wrong. the LiteOn is a bit cheaper ($50 verses $70 for the TDK). Maybe I should consider the LiteOn
BruceY
What are the best brands of CDRW disk to use with Lite-on 48x? I was reading that Lite-On has some problems with Azo Metal disks, and I think that might be true, cause it can't burn at 48X with some Mistubishi Platinum Blue disks that I just bought. (52X) It will burn fine at 16X.
I'm going to see if there is a firmware fix for this tonight.
Looking for a good quality disk that I can achieve pictures on.
I did upgrade my firmware for my 48X 48246S drive from SSOC to SSOE, and it seemed to have fixed the compatibility issues, so I thought. In simulation at 48X 650MB+ to simulate burn, my drive downgraded to 24X, and started to simulate, but fell over anyway.
So I immediate returned the Mitsubishi for the Imation.
Actually, the best speed was the Lite On disk that came with the drive, and its made by Ritek.
I tried for far tonight
Imation (phthalocyanine) 48X - Stable at 24X (Heavy burn)
Stable at 48X - (light burn ie 100MB)
Mitsubishi Blue Platinum - Unstable over 24X (heavy burn)
Mitsubishi Gold 52x - Unstable over 24X (heavy burn)
Maxell 48X - Very Unstable at 24X (heavy burn)
Lite-On 48X - Stable at 32X (Heavy burn) Stable at 48X - (light burn) this one came free with the drive. Its made by Ritek.
After finally thinking my drive was at fault, I took it back to the distributor and he swapped it with a brand new one. Installed it, but got the same results. Called the technical support, and he asked me if I had the DMA enabled for the drive............Was there any documentation on that? Can't remember if there even was an installation manual.
Well, sure enough, its okay, and all the disks that I had tested before, test okay now at 48X
Comments
TDK used a TEAC mech(the electronics and laser and rotating motor inside drive casing), most likely, as they have used Plextor and others for various models.
In the past, HP and Lexmark have private labelled for others, with Compaq and Dell being resellers or sellers of private labelled stuff. Dell Flat LCD panels right now are made by Samsung.
Why?? the mfrs make money by selling LOTS of one mfring set, one internal model with differnt outsides lets them make more money on the effort done and money invested in one internal design spec. so, they build many innards, sell the most recent under their own name in many cases, contract batches of last year's internal design with different casings and private labels for major computer sellers. To get the mfr direct prices, you need to buy thousands of one item at one time.
Cheaper to specialize in one market area, be it mfring, VARs, reselling, or bundling components sets you have tested than to build factories, and warehouses, and sales offices of large scales all in one company. IBM used to do it all, now lots of their stuff is purchased from others and IBM only needs assembly plans for lots of things like workstations. IBM makes more per item this way. Dell does too.
I was not trying to morph the thread, simply saying that if you can find sources that buy a lot mfr direct you can spend less for one item than you would tryign to buy from a mfr that might be mfring on another side of the world from you and ship that one item to you. Big shippers also offer bulk shipping at cut rates.
Along with some Sony CDRW and DVD -R drives, are also made by Lite-On.
I personally recommend the Lite-On CDRW and DVD Rom drives in all the systems we build.
In reviews these drives are able to read disks where others fail and cannot continue making a copy of a disk.
LiteOn does: Monitors, some Networking stuff, and some motherboards.
TEAC has a complete mfring division for storage products, and they only sell to others high in the distribution channel.
LiteOn drivers DO work with some TEACs, but some of the LiteOn mechs are TEAC innards adn firmware. TEAC supplies firmware drivers to people like LiteOn who resell, LiteOn does the software bundling, tunes firmware to fit software, etc. TEAC only does Storage Product hardware in most cases.
BruceY
I'm going to see if there is a firmware fix for this tonight.
Looking for a good quality disk that I can achieve pictures on.
I did upgrade my firmware for my 48X 48246S drive from SSOC to SSOE, and it seemed to have fixed the compatibility issues, so I thought. In simulation at 48X 650MB+ to simulate burn, my drive downgraded to 24X, and started to simulate, but fell over anyway.
So I immediate returned the Mitsubishi for the Imation.
Actually, the best speed was the Lite On disk that came with the drive, and its made by Ritek.
I tried for far tonight
Imation (phthalocyanine) 48X - Stable at 24X (Heavy burn)
Stable at 48X - (light burn ie 100MB)
Mitsubishi Blue Platinum - Unstable over 24X (heavy burn)
Mitsubishi Gold 52x - Unstable over 24X (heavy burn)
Maxell 48X - Very Unstable at 24X (heavy burn)
Lite-On 48X - Stable at 32X (Heavy burn) Stable at 48X - (light burn) this one came free with the drive. Its made by Ritek.
Well, sure enough, its okay, and all the disks that I had tested before, test okay now at 48X
Sigh........