Spindle Rotational Speed 1,850 - 4800rpm Constant Linear Velocity

Sustained Transfer Rate 6750 to 7800 kb/sec.

Access time 85 - 160ms typical

Data Buffer 2048 kbytes

Interface Standard Enhanced IDE (ATAPI) bus interface

Data Format Support CD-Audio CD-ROM, Mode 1 and Mode 2 CD-ROM XA, Mode 2, form 1 and form 2 CD-I Trax Karaoke CD Photo-CD (Single & Multi-session) Video CD Mixed Mode CD (Audio combined data) CD-Extra

Data/Audio Capacity 656 Mbytes (Mode 1) - 748 Mbytes (Mode 2) - 74 minutes and 42 seconds

Front panel Controls Open/Close/Stop button - Volume control knob - Orange LED indicates POWER ON & BUSY - Emergency ejection hole

OS Compatibility Operation System: DOS 6.xx, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Netware, SCO UNIX, OS/2 Warp MPC level 3 compatible.

Hmmm….A spindle speed of just 4,800rpm max….Access times that border on average…How does the Kenwood 52x drive live up to it's advanced billing with such "normal" specs?

Advanced technology.

Here's how Kenwood explains it:

The Kenwood 52x TrueX CD-ROM uses TrueX technology to deliver a transfer rate performance of 45x - 52x across the entire disc, which equals a data transfer rate of 6750 - 7800Kb per second. TrueX technology is a component set that includes optics, detection devices, and a high speed ASIC. By illuminating multiple tracks on a CD-ROM simultaneously, TrueX allows up to seven tracks to be read and processed in parallel.

By using this technique, Kenwood's 52x CD-ROM only needs to hit and maintain a constant linear velocity rate of 4,800rpm. This lowers the noise associated with CD-ROMs to a new low, along with dramatically reducing spinup times. Also, thanks to the multibeam pickup technique of TrueX, the Kenwood drive not only matches the speed of CD-ROMs that have twice the spindle speed of the Kenwood unit, it exceeds their level of performance.