I love hot hardware. It's a masculine trait, right? I'm convinced that these primal urges date back to pre-history. "HONEY, I'm HOOOOOOME! Check out this NEW CLUB! Gopher wood! Look at that arc! And check out this impact. Er.... hold still, Dino!"

Anyway, when Kenwood offered to send me their MULTIBEAM CD ROM drive, claiming the fastest drive on earth, with 7 (SEVEN, no less!) lasers whirring around inside, I felt like they were offering to transport me to the deck of the Enterprise C! ("Target the engine pods, No. 1. Steady. FIRE!!")

Yeh, it's cool stuff. And the fastest CD-ROM drive on earth just got faster! Originally Kenwood was planning to send me their 40X MULTIBEAM. But instead they sent me their latest product, the 52X.

Does this thing scream! With a transfer rate that would put most hard drives to shame, and as if that weren't enough, it maintains this rate across the entire disc! This little number has twin turbos and an overhead... oh, sorry, that's my car. I mean this CD ROM transfers data at from 6750 - 7800 KB/sec, around 75% faster than the average 50X CD out there.

Kenwood Technologies makes this drive with Zen's TrueX technology and Kenwood's patented 7 Beam pickup, For you technofreaks, the seven beams illuminate multiple tracks simultaneously, read them in parallel, and process the data through a custom ASIC. By reading multiple tracks at once, the 52X TrueX CD-ROM drive actually spins the disc slower than conventional single-beam drives, resulting in extremely precise readability and quiet operation. (Hmm.. a stealth drive!)

Er, whazzat? Allow me to translate. "The twice blessed man will embrace this platter. It represents a divine confluence in the heavenlies. Seven beams from seven suns will bring revelation to your CPU."

Forsooth, the Kenwood 52X TrueX CD-ROM drive is faster, quieter, and more reliable than the average 50X Max drive.

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Well, its faster for sure. I found its seek reads a bit louder than my US Drive 24. But general use is actually quieter, no more "jet engine" hum. And they ain't kidding about the "consistent high performance data throughput across the entire disc." Does this baby fly!

My load time for a new install of Falcon 4 was reduced by about 30% over my 32X. I have a feeling this was CPU limited. On the other hand, this US Drive 24Max is faster than my SONY 32.

But the real difference arrives in games which require the CD. The access time of this device is only slightly improved, but transfer rates are unbelievable. In EAW moving between GUI screens or loading a scenario was about 3x faster! The difference is astonishing. There are mystical forces at work here.

If you happened to be doing data intensive stuff via a CD ROM, this drive would be the cat's meow. If you play games like EAW which demand the CD for accessing terrain or other files, you need this drive. Heck, the pricing is virtually the same as for any new CD ROM product. Why settle for less? (MSRP $129.95).

I love it when it's this easy. Install was a snap. Load and fire. In spite of reports on problems with music CDs in earlier versions, this one gave me no trouble. We award this product a Top Pick! Nice work Kenwood!