Q) What type of CD-ROM drives are compatible with my AKAI?
Q) What brand/model of CD-ROM
drives do NOT work with AKAI samplers?
A) There are many compatible SCSI CD-ROM drives for the AKAI but unfortunately I can confirm more of the older ones than the more recent. These are:
- Pioneer DRU-124x 4xSpeed
- Pioneer DR-U12x Speed (let's say all Pioneer models do:)
- Panasonic 2x all models
- SONY 2x/4x all models
- Hitachi 4x
- Toshiba 4x XM-5401 TA (also mounted on CD3000)
- Toshiba 3401 SCSI
- Toshiba XM5701 12x (Can anyone confirm this 100%?)
- MAC external 2x CD drive (panasonic/matsushita)
- Plextor 12x, 20x,32x, 40x... (they all work but remember to set the *BLOCK*
jumper on the CDR/RW units!)
- Apple CD-300E
- Apple CD-600E
- Apple CD1200 (8x Internal)
- Panasonic LK-MC606BP (Matsushita 508)
CD-Writers:
Matsushita CDR 7502
Matsushita CR-8005A
Smart & Friendly 2006 CDR
Philips Omniwriter CD-RW external
Yamaha 4x write (CDr400)
Panasonic CW-7502 CDR (4x8)
Ricoh ?
Waitec ?
There are surely many other drives that work; please email me so I can add them to the list. What I can surely say is that OLD NEC CD-ROM drives *DO NOT WORK* with AKAI CDs. This due to a firmware problem in the CD loading routine so when you try to read the contents of the CD from your AKAI you get a HD READ ERROR message (512bytes per sector handling problem). New NEC drives, on the contrary, seem to have less problems, but I suggest you always test before you buy.
If you have a CDROM unit that doesn't work and it is listed above, be sure you have double checked termination and ID issues, and then contact me reporting what exactly happnes (activity led flashes then error, no activity at all, loads only parts etc). The list has been put together by reports given to me by other akai users so it should be coherent and trusted but I cannot guarantee it 100% ofcourse (apart from Plextors and Pioneers which I personally use). There are also some Yamaha CDrs that have a firmware bug which prevent them from changing AKAI partition on the CD. Yamaha has released an update for one of these models so please check Yamaha's CDr webpage (this update is also needed to overcome the same issue with the AKAI DPS12 system).
Q) Can I use my SCSI CD-ROM drive or MO with my PC stuff too if it is in the same chain?
A) Yes, you can as long as you have all the correct drivers installed and you observe the "NO FORCED CONCURRENCY" rule. In other words, this means that your AKAI is not capable of sensing the SCSI Bus to see if it is busy or in use by your PC or MAC or any other initiator on the same chain so it will rudely try take charge of the bus leading in a lockup or crash of your system (and possible data corruption if during a write operation). It is not true that in a SCSI chain there cannot be more than one "initiator", there can be as many as the SCSI device rules permit, as long as the SCSI rules are followed (which means, check the scsi "busy" lines before operating with the target device). The AKAI SCSI implementation regarding this matter is very poor and "preordial" so it does not do any of these checks - it doesn't even know what type of device it is talking with (it does not discern between CDROM or HD or MO hence the "NO AKAI FORMAT" rule for removable devices - check the removable media section). Keeping this in mind, do *not* connect your AKAI to a chain where you have DOS FAT formatted hard disks which you use under win9x and certainly avoid hooking it up to an UW 16bit Host Adapter as this will create you serious adaptation problems and will force to "narrow" any UW device leading in performance loss. If you have an UW adapter with an UW disk connected, don't worry, get a cheaper PCI UltraSCSI adapter, like the 2904 or SymbiosC810 and use that for communication with Mesa/Millenium. If you have any internal SCSI CDROM you would like to use with your AKAI, you will have to connect this unit to this same SCSI chain ofcourse and *remember* to disable the auto insert notification routine everytime your change it's ID or move it from one controller to another or re-install any Adaptec CDr application (this re-enables it).