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Stephen Jay Gould had a theory that if scientists ever quantified the difference between the brain of a human and that of a chimpanzee, they would find that the human brain wasn't significantly larger, more developed, more efficient, or more powerful in any one way, but slightly so in many ways that add up to a tremendous difference. With their latest offering, the CRW-F1, Yamaha has attempted to create "The Ultimate CD Recorder" based on a similar model: via slight improvements, across-the-board, on everything else out there.
So is the F1 indeed "The Ultimate CD Recorder," as Yamaha intends? In one respect, yes. After a distinguished decade in the CD-R biz, including such milestones as the first 4X recorder under $1500 and the first 8X CD-RW, among others, Yamaha is getting out of the innovation-- by-inches game that CD-R has become: the F1 will be the last new CD-R model they make. Henceforth, all optical disc recording innovation at Yamaha will address technologies DVD and beyond.
That said, their last CD-R entry is an ambitious one. Not exactly revolutionary (it's hard to imagine how a CD recorder could be at this point), the F1 shows us a few things we've never seen before, and a couple others that only Yamaha has shown us in earlier releases over the last year. First among its signature strengths are recording speeds: 44X for CD-R, and 24X for CD-RW. Next, and perhaps most surprising, is Disc T@2, an ingenious disc labeling utility built into the Yamaha-customized version of Nero 5.5 OEM bundled with the drive, which bums graphics and text onto the unused portion of the data side of a recorded disc using the F1's write laser. The F1 also boasts two audio features unique to Yamaha recorders: Audio Master, an alternative recording mode that purports to enhance recording quality by expanding the physical space used to record each second of audio on the disc; and CD-RW Audio Track Edit, a track-- by-track editing tool for music discs recorded to CD-RW.
Yamaha submitted the first two models in the F1 family, an internal ATAPI ($199) and external USB 2 ($229) for evaluation in this review. The third F1 recorder, a USB 2/FireWire combo drive ($279), shipped in September.
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