Stay away from SIS chipsets on the motherboard.. Intel chipsets are fine. You should really check out Didgidesign's Compatibility website for recommended PC's.... under their support / Compatibiltity area of their website.

Plextor PlexWriter Premium CD-R drives... There is no substitute.

Massive Mastering wrote: Plextor PlexWriter Premium CD-R drives... There is no substitute.

If this isn't digressing the thread too much, I'm wondering which contributes more to the error rate, the compact disc itself, or the writer?

I'd be guessing the CD-Writer is more critical.... So hypothetically, if it was strictly an either/or choice between using better CD's such as Mitsui Silvers or Taiyoko Yudens or whatever... versus getting a Plextor CD writer.... I'm reckoning the wiser money would be to buy the Plextor???

you will also want a DVD -/+ R drive as well there getting preatie cheap and cubace3 only comes on DVD also 2 raptor drives running 10k rpm for recording and maxtor with 8Mb buffer for the main drive but if you go to the DAW forum you will find all kinds of sujestions.

Nemesys - It's a combination, to a point... The drive is the "most" important part, but matching it to good media is obvioulsy critical.

The way I look at it, a great drive can make crappy discs with crappy media. But a crappy drive will make crappy discs with ANY media.