Good deal for Current Kenwood TrueX owners

[lzpoof]

This is a bit of a stretch in this forum, but I definitely considered it a hot deal. It involves upgrading the 42X/52X/62X to the flagship 72X drive.

For those who own the lower end models (42X or 52X) you have probably seen the class action lawsuit against Kenwood where 42X owners got their drives replaced. I own a 52X that was a POS when I bought it and pretty much ever since. Their tech supprot has ignored me for months so I doubled my efforts to get their attention. I finally got them to agree to a tradeup from my 52X to a 72X for 30 bucks, including shipping (I have to pay to ship mine back though). This might not seem hot to those unfamiliar with the numbers, but the 52X rips audio at a constant 10X across disk and supposedly 35-50X data. Mine won't even do that, plus 10X doesn't work when your burner is 12X for on the fly.
The Kenwood 72X model does (*ahem* .. prepare yourselves) 45X audio extraction !!! I found that benchmark on some person's list of cdrom and dvd extraction speeds (forgot the site, link anyone ?) and it was confirmed I think in reviews. The drive has some problems reading scratched disks, but I got a TDK 12X10X32 for that. For anyone who owns a Kenwood and is either tired of its lack of performance or is having problems (the 42X are officially covered by the lawsuit), this is a great deal for 30 bucks. Imagine doing CD on the fly at 12X or 16X and being able to rip to wave a 74 minute CD in under 2 minutes. My machine will rip straight to mp3 with the TDK at around 16X-20X so this should save some wear-and-tear on the TDK. For those who prefer DVD, I will concede the high price of this drive and it will not be a good deal for them, but for those with a DVD player and who want high performance with no noise this rocks.

 

[Willith]

Sounds like I need to get on the phone. I have one of the 40X drives, but missed the deadline for the lawsuit. They told me if I sent my drive in for testing it would be gone for 4-10 weeks! What a crock, who doesn't need their CD for 10 weeks? I'm going to call tomorrow.

 

[pbrain]

i need to call too. my 40x40 is having some problems reading certain cd's, mostly cdr's, but i missed the lawsuit claim deadline to replace it. so you just bug them into giving you an upgrade?

 

[maxcom]

Text

 

[Spartacus]

I can do some testing on my 72X, however I havent been really statisfied with drive's ability to handle some brands of the CD-Rs.... PNY comes to mind...

 

[lhplam]

weird - I heard about the lawsuit a while back, but my drive works fine. Figures don't it.

Althought a 72x would be nice...$30 ain't so bad neither!

 

[lhplam]

*double post*

sorry y'all

 

[kw3i]

hey maybe im an idiot, maybe my drive is bad, maybe im using the wrong software. i can only rip at like 6x right now, and i am using a 72x trueX. if this thing can do 45x extration TELL ME HOW??!?! what software do you guys use? does the bitrate matter, i do 192. anyways let me know, id love to finish ripping my cd collection to disk...maybe i should shutup now: )

 

[Modeps]

Ive got a 72x as well, and honestly, the CDR support isnt perfect, it takes far too long to read the CDs sometimes, as for speed, yah its fast, but its nothing special

 

[Gorby911]

I got 52x a while ago. I am happy with it most of the time... however, the damn drive opens and closes whenever it want to. For example, I push the button to put a disk in; it opens and closes immidiately before I got a chance to put CD in properly...result-> scratched cd. Anyone else is having this problem or is it just my "haunted" drive?

 

[Maverick319]

I bought into the hype and purchased a 72X, but I wouldn't buy one again. The CD-R read speed even on a perfect disk is abysmal, and I don't like to wait. The drive is VERY quiet, even at max speed, but that isn't enough to warrant buying one again.

 

[lzpoof]

I used to get the problem with the opening and closing door. It just stopped at some point. Don't know why. For those who are responding about the owning the 72X, I understand the drive isn't perfect , but I plan on using it a lot for copying CDS (like roughly 300 audio ones at home). Once I get a bigger hard drive, I'll be using virtual drive all the time anyway so I don't have to keep shuffling CDs when I want to start a game. My post was not meant to make people buy a 72X. I understand the limitations, every review states the same. I was informing people that if their 52X drive ( and possibly the others) is under warranty, and they don't want to try another one of the lower end ones, they might be able to 'trade-up' to a slightly higher quality drive. The 52X's were not included in the lawsuit, but they aren't much better than the 40's. If you think have some problems and disapointments with the 62 and 72, then you really need to own one of the 52. Your 72 will look like the holy grail in comparison. And personally, I'd rather spend the extra 30 and get a really fast, quiet drive with some imperfections, then go out and spend 30 on a bottom feeder drive. At this point, I would not return the drive for another low quality POS, so those would be my only 2 options. To each his own. If you don't like the performance of the Kenwood, then go buy a Pioneer or Toshiba DVD instead. It's cheaper if buying new. But I thought this was a good deal for those who are sick of the low-end models.

 

[Gorby911]

lzpoof, did you have to prove that your drive is still under warranty? I don't have my receipt or anything like that to prove when I bought mine 52x. How did you talk them into replacing yours with 72x for $30? Let me know please: gorby911@yahoo.com

thanks

 

[lzpoof]

Thanx for the data Maxcom.. Nice link. The top 2 DAE drives are the 72X and 62X .. check out Maxcom's link below to see how fast yours is.

 

[lzpoof]

I tried emailing them a few times before and calling . they insisted that I needed the receipt for RMAing. I've RMA'd a lot of things and have yet to include a receipt, especially hard drives. At the time when I first started emailing them, the 52X I believe wasn't even a year old, so I had verifiable proof that the drive couldn't have been out of warranty (I believe there warranty is 1 year ?). Add in about a dozen emails and some phone calls, and either they got sick of me or admitted that my drive was defective and the problem existed under warranty. They did not require a receipt this time. It's currenty being shipped and should be here this week. I need to return my own drive. I'm really not sure of exact details on their side, only that I'm getting a new drive now. I didn't expect them to finally cave in, but they did. So I am only suggesting that you email them a few times to tell them your drive is crap and that you don't want to risk getting a nother of the lower 2 models (the 42X and 52X) cause they are definitely completely different drives than the higher 2. I apologize, but for those who would want it, here's me last email to them and the reply (a lot of typos.. I was pissed.):

>
> I own a 52X treuX cdrom. The drive is obviously faulty. I am
> having the
> same problems I have had in all of my other emails. I have intermittent
> problems iwth the drive being recognized simply as a collection of weird
> characters in the bios, not anything with Kenwood in the name. I
> can't get
> any kind of decent read performance out of a drive that is supposedly a
> continuous 52X. The drive is VERY loud when it is supposed to be the
> quietest drive on the market. My machine freezes intermittently when I
> attempt to install anything from a CD in the drive or occasionally try to
> simply open a CD with the drive. Performance-wise, it is not
> close to what
> was claimed, and especially not on a performance ratio with the higher
> Kenwood drives, which are OBVIOUSLY of much higher build
> quality. Basically it seems like you have marketed a lower speed, much
> lower quality piece of junk under the premise that it is at least
> somewhat
> similar to theh igher priced drives you offer. The class action lawsuit
> against Kenwood would seem to confirm this. I have emailed you
> repeatedly
> and gotten ONE response, which told me I needed a receipt in order to get
> warranty service. I bought this drive last spring from ELECTRONICS
> BOUTIQUE. I do not see why I need a receipt to get warranty service. I
> emailed you within months of purchasing this drive and probably within a
> year of when the drive was first built and sold by you, so I OBVIOUSLY
> qualify for a warranty. I see your repeated nonresponse as an attempt to
> simply brush me off and void my warranty by making me wait for
> responses. This drive should be covered under warranty and your business
> practices quite frankly are pathetic. I have spent a large
> amount of money
> on Kenwood products in the past, but after having to be involved in the
> technical support aspect of your company, I do not think I want
> to own any
> more Kenwood products. I'd hate to think after buying a 700-800 dollar
> stereo system that I would receive this kind of technical support. For
> the record, I have many years experience with computers and
> hardware and I
> have tried ALL possible solutions to this problem, including updating
> firmware and resinstalling windows/chipset drivers. I have also
> tried this
> drive on multiple machines and tried multiple CDROMS in my
> machine and this
> appears to be the only drive with this problem. As I have mentioned
> before, I would like a replacement and would PREFER to agree to some kind
> of dollar amount to receive a 72X drive in return. I am fully willing to
> pay a difference, which I think is quite fair, to not have to deal with
> another one of these obvious faulty pieces of hardware that you
> may try to
> send me in return. After seeing the lawsuit action, I don't think I'd be
> confident in receiving another one of these drives. Please email me ASAP
> with some sort of response on this. As I have said, I am willing to pay
> the difference to tradeup to a Kenwood 72X drive (which by the
> way are now
> going for the same price that my drive originally went for) and avoid any
> further problems with you, rather than having to refrain from further
> purchases from your company due to your extremely poor technical
> support. Thank you for your time.




THEIR REPLY :

I am sorry that I couldn't exchange your drive to 72x with no charge. We
will be happy to exchange the drive to 72x with little cost. We will
exchange the same drive which is 52x replacement drive.


Your RMA number is ######## (omitted here)
Please send your drive to following address;


Kenwood Technologies
RMA# #########
1701 Junction Court #100
San Jose, CA 95112
(408) 467-7900


** Please send drive only and via trackable mean.
** Please pack your drive carefull when sending to us.


Thnaks,


RMA Dept.

 

[lzpoof]

Kw3i, you may want to get new firmware. The later firmware updates added UDMA33 and supposedly better readability. Maybe they upped the DAE too ?

 

[Gorby911]

lzpoof, thanks for the info. Just fired my frist email to tech support. We'll see if they get back to me...

Update Feb/08/2001: 3 days have passed and NO reply from tech support yet. Sent another email today. After that, I'll try calling.

 

[popeye44]

Since i upgraded firmware on mine it's been terriffic...nero detects it as a 68x and i can copy from it nicely disk to disk.. 90% of my software is burnt cd's and only once has it given me real troubles.. i understand like anything some people get bad ones.. some get good but i would not hesitate to buy another kenwood.. it's quiet it's fast and it was cheap "75 new" my only real gripe with it has been cdrwin and other burner programs not recognizing it's speed.
30 bux would be a nice deal for this drive.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

I bought a 52x in July of '99. It had trouble with certain disks and would "growl" at me. Finally, in December of '00 it would do a series of 8 "growls" and not read anything. I sent a very plain, concise email to the support department:

> Good evening,
> I'm continuing to have troubles with my Kenwood 52x cd-rom drive. There
> are some discs it has always seemed to dislike. My other drive (an hp cd-rw
> drive) has no trouble with these cd-rom's. Recently, the 52x began going
> through a succession of 8 short "growls" at every power up, reboot, and every
> time I insert a disc. It no longer reads any media though the operating system
> (Win 98) still recognizes the drive. It is perpetually "Not Ready".
>
> How can I go about getting this problem taken care of or, if need be,
> replacing/upgrading the drive?
>
> Thank you,
> name and contact info (e-mail addresses +2 phone numbers I could be reached at)

The next day I received the following:

> Hi,
> it is adefective drive.
> Please send an e-mail to rma@kenwoodtech.com for RMA#.
> We need following information.
> Name
> Address
> Tel#
> Model#,
> S/N.
> Date of purchase
> Description of problem.
>
> Thanks
> KTI
> tech support dept.

I promptly sculpted my reply:

> Name/Address/Contact Info

> Kenwood 52x True-X UCR-412
> S/N 8Z20xxxxxx
> Purchased July 1999
>
> From Day 1, it's has problems reading some discs. I experienced the most
> "growling" from the drive when trying to load the game "Alpha Centauri:
> Alien Crossfire". For the past several months it will go through a
> succession of 8 short "growls" on every power-up, every reboot as well as
> any time I insert a disc. It hasn't been able to read any discs for some
> time. Rather than try to use it, I've used my secondary drive (an HP
> cd-writer 8200).
>
> I miss the speed and stealthy quiet that this drive often showed. I want to
> find a way to stick with the TrueX line.
>
> Thank you,

Never hurts to kiss a little booty...

The next morning, I received an RMA number. I sent off the drive, they received it 2 days later and sent off a replacement the next day. No notification of when they shipped, but I had it in under a week. Not bad getting a free replacement drive. I'd thought about upgrading to the 72x but since they didn't ask before they shipped I just stuck with the one they sent.

The 45x DAE intrigues me, however. If this is confirmed I just might have to send in the drive again. Heh.

 

[RGN]

FYI, last night my 72x died. Its not even a year old. I was kinda dissapointed, a $100 drive not even lasting a year? I hardly use the damn thing. :|:|:|

 

[Rhapsody]

Gorby911, my 52x has just the same personality as yours; it just loves to open and close and open and close and so forth. Really annoying. I confess I didn't know about the suit; can I use my receipt to justify the upgrade?

 

[Duvie]

I have a 42x kenwood...never heard anything about a lawsuit. Did register though with the card you send in.

Can I get a 72x upgrade? Is it free for 42x or the same 30 bucks upgrade?

I haven't seen a problem but then again my burner was only 4x4x16. I am going to get at least a 10x8xsomething here in the next week. I guess this is important, otherwise I will be paying for power I can't use. Unless I copy to hdd then onto disk, right?

I have a 8x40x dvd so it is not that bad if I have to live without the kenwood for a few weeks...the dvd is the one that has problems reading certain cd-r's.

 

[merlocka]

I just RMA'd my 72x cause it died. New one works better than the old, but 45x ripping? I wish. Musicmatch reports 6-9x.

 

[lzpoof]

To address 2 points so as not to mislead anyone.

1) 45X DAE applies to ripping a wav file from a CD. I have seen this number on a few sites including Anand itself right here I think. That's what DAE is. What Musicmatch is most likely reporting to you is the speed for creating MP3s. This speed is dependent mostly on the speed of your computer and not on DAE speed since your computer needs to encode the wav file data into mp3 data as it is being ripped. I myself get average of like 24X DAE with my TDK 12X10X32, but only 16X with musicmatch ripping straight to mp3. Make sure you realize the distinction. When I rip with my kenwood, I get 10X DAE for ripping to wav. Since the drive itself is only 10X, musicmatch also reports 10X for ripping straight to MP3. In this case, the Kenwood is the bottleneck, not the machine.

2) I was fortunate in getting the replacement I supposedly am getting for the 30 bucks. This is not an 'upgrade' deal. This is a RMA and upgrade deal. This does not mean send them email and they will upgrade your drive for you. This means that if your drive is broken and you need to RMA it, then ask for the upgrade. I'd assume this deal would apply to people with crappier 52X drives since that's what I am RMAing. The 42Xs were covered under a class action lawsuit (full details are provided on Kenwood's site) that has apparently expired. If you want to replace one of them, they most likely will make you go through the testing process someone spoke of earlier. THE ONLY REASON I posted this is to let people who have 52Xs (were not covered in lawsuit) get some reparation for the crappy product they were sold. Most of the time when you RMA something that's a POS (like my Maxtor drives) you get refurbed POS in return. Then they fail too.. and so on and so on til your warranty runs out. And the whole time you've had to stick with whatever performance it gave you. Regardless of how bad some people may think the 72X is, for 30 dollars it is one helluva step up from the crap some of us have been stuck with. So if your drive is already messed up and you were either not planning on returning it, or are RMAing it, then I am merely suggesting that you ask about upgrading so that you don't get stuck with the same piece of crap.

 

[atsang]

My 72X also died in less than one year. Their tech support was not too bad though, and they fixed it up for me a lot quicker than I expected.

As for audio ripping, y'all need to stop using music match! Go here if you want to know how to do it right

Also, the kenwood DOES rip audio amazingly fast.