Plextor Premium 2 Audiophile CD Writer

Plextor Premium 2 Drive made in 2008 with USB Enclosure and power supply.

Tested and working perfectly.

The Holy Grail of audiophile CD writers.

If you are looking at this it probably doesn't need an introduction.

This drive has been heralded by industry insiders and audiophiles as being one of the most robust, and probably the best audio CD recording drive ever produced.

It is the best extractor of music - it made even my best sounding CDs sound better. 

It is one of the rarest lost treasures in the Computer Audiophile world.

These drives were never available for sale in the US.

Features the AMQR (Audio Master Quality Recording) feature which can stretch or shrink the pits and lands to reduce jitter and error rates dramatically.

PleXTools Professional XL enables many features including the AMQR, choosing best bytes on rip, laser strength changes as well as ability to measure jitter and BLER, beta etc., etc.

You can find the PleXTools Professional XL on the Plextor Worldwide website. Not available from the Plextor USA Website.

I have not flashed this drive to the latest firmware (which I believe is 3.16), because again, working perfectly.

Enclosure works with either Firewire (included) or USB 2.0 type B (not included) cables.

It’s been collecting dust since I went to a music server. 

I tested it by ripping some CDs using Exact Audio Copy then burning with Apple lossless and… wow.  I'd forgotten how well it really works.

Thanks for looking.

From the 2006 press release:

Japanese Plextor will release an enhanced version of its Premium series of CD-RW drives in the Japanese market, which features the Yamaha's AudioMaster technology for better audio recording.

The maximum allowed burning speed for CD-R media is 52x, while CD-RW can be recorded at 32x max. What's new is the support for some more recording speeds, such as the 2x CLV for audio CDs, which promises more accurate recording and thus, better sound quality.

In addition, the Premium 2 supports Yamaha's AudioMaster recording technology for audio CDs. According to Plextor, the AudioMaster mode improves the audio quality of an audio CD by keeping the jitter in low levels (less than 1.4m).

Basic specifications:

Interface: ATA/ATAPI Ultra ATA/33 (Ultra DMA Mode 2)

Buffer: 8MB

Recording:

 CD-R 52x CAV, 48x CAV, 40x PCAV, 32x PCAV, 20x CLV, 16x CLV, 8x CLV, 4x CLV, 2x CLV, CD-RW 32x PCAV 4x PCAV, 10x CLV, 4x CLV

 Reading: 52x max