Ok, let’s move on. The next step in our tests is the quality check of the written CD-R.

 
 
Burning/reading the CD-R disc at 40x speed:
LG GSA-4163 (left) and LG GSA-4160B (right)

There are no changes as concerns burning CD-Rs at the maximum speed: the new model uses the four-zone Z-CLV algorithm rather than the ordinary CAV, too. On the one hand, a big portion of the disc is burned at the max speed with Z-CLV, while with CLV the maximum of speed is achieved at the outermost tracks only, closer to the end of the burn session. But on the other hand, there are more time losses with Z-CLV not only when the drive switches from one speed to another, but also on those stretches when the drive “freezes” on the same speed before switching to the higher one. The burned discs were subsequently read without problems – but you can see the same throbbing of speed on the read graph of the disc produced by the newer model. What about its quality?

 
 
Quality of the CD-R disc burning at 40x speed:
by LG GSA-4163 (left) and by LG GSA-4160B (right)

The new drive is obviously preferable in this test. The total of C1 errors has diminished almost in double on the disc from the new model (from 11,965 to 5,926); C2 errors are absent in both cases. The average BLER on the disc produced by the GSA-4163 is below 8, which is just an excellent performance. If you take a closer look at the asymmetry graph for the disc written by the GSA-4160B and compare it with the disc burn graph, you can note that the beta value changes exactly at those moments when the drive recalibrates its laser and increases the burn speed. These changes of the beta value may confuse some household readers or obsolete PC drives because the lengths of lands and pits change a little with each recalibration. The asymmetry is almost ideal with the new model, though. It doesn’t go far from the zero mark – I haven’t yet seen a better beta with any of the drives we’ve tested in our labs. The average level and the regularity of jitter are also better with the new model. Thus, the LG GSA-4163 is in every respect better than its predecessor at processing CD-Rs at the maximum speed. Now let’s try to step the burn speed down and see what happens.