Background
I'm an experienced CD burner for many years now, back when blanks cost over $5 each, and we were talking 1x burners and SCSI interfaces exclusively. So I've seen the industry slowly evolve, and now we're getting somewhere finally.

Why did I choose the TDK VeloCD?
As a DJ, I need to burn many audio discs a week, and was sick and tired of the "cross your fingers", hit or miss style and frustration of previous generation burners. With the fast (24x) CD Rip speed, and BurnPROOF feature, I was excited to get started. Plus, I got 50 free blank CD-R's as part of a promotion.

Initial impression
Setup was easy and plug and play. The drive seemed as well constructed as any other. Software installation went seamlessly on Windows 2000. I did update the software and firmware online prior to using it. I always want the latest drivers and software from the get go.

90 day road test
I've been using the VeloCD for about 3 months now, and have burned about 150 CD's. Only two discs failed, and that was due to me deselecting the "burn-proof" feature. I need to use software that allows MP3 Playlists (.m3u) to be imported. Unforturnately, the bundled software is not so great. The TDK Digital Mixmaster and Nero Burning ROM are included. The TDK software is essentially Nero with a different interface. It doesn't work as well, and is very sensitive to poorly encoded MP3 files. The Nero software can stomach a bad MP3 much better. Either way, using BurnPROOF is a system hog, and your computer may be rendered relatively useless while in the middle of a burn. I'm running a PIII 550 with 384 MB of RAM, so if your PC is newer with more RAM, you might not have a problem. I tried not using BurnPROOF, and both times the discs failed. One other thing, the CD drawere popped out once, but I was able to put it back in.

Overall
With faster drives already out (16x) and faster coming (24x) look for this 12x burner to come down in price. Considering the advancements of CD burners over the past few years, I have no real complaints about the VeloCD burner. It's exceeded my expectations, and I'm very happy with it.

Recommended: Yes