Yamaha CRW70 Spyder 12x8x24 External USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive and MP3 Player

by Yamaha

Product Details

Product Manual [1.85mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005YVKW
• Item model number: CRW70
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1973

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The new Yamaha Spyder is all about style, performance, quality, and reliability. With its stylish metallic silver color and streamlined design, this Yamaha CD-RW drive is not only the world's best recorder but it really performs with a 12x write speed and SafeBurn Buffer Management, delivering industry-benchmark reliability.

With Plug N Play installation and Yamaha's illustrated instructions, this Yamaha CD-RW writer can be installed in just minutes to any PC or Mac with a USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 interface port.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not bad...not bad, August 27, 2002

By 

"jackiejean19" (seattle, wa USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Yamaha CRW70 Spyder 12x8x24 External USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive and MP3 Player (Personal Computers)

So, I bought this for my lap top, and not knowing much about burners I kind of had to guess which to get.

Let's start with the bad then end of with the good:
1. Yamaha never sent me the rebate that was advertised with the burner. So, it makes this burner a little more pricey than others
2. The burning software is a little bit buggy and often does an illegal operation and shuts down. however, it hasn't really affected it too much because it usually does the error when you are shutting it down anyway.
3. I often lose sound on my regular cd drive when playing discs and on the hard drive when playing music. but that could be my own computer's fault.
4. I bought the drive thinking i could use it with headphones since it's portable. well, you need an outlet to get power, so it's not something you can use to run off of batteries. I also thought it could store MP3's, which it doesn't, but that's pretty much my own ignorance when it comes to these things.

Ok, so the good things:

1. it was really easy to install
2. it records music very quickly
3. the sound quality is good
4. you can plug it into a receiver and play CD's that way without having to buy a separate cd player for your stereo.

well, anyway, I hope this helps!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid, convenient, winXP compatible, & advanced features, July 1, 2002

By 

N. Caine (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Yamaha CRW70 Spyder 12x8x24 External USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive and MP3 Player (Personal Computers)

I've been using the product for six weeks and I have been very happy with it, even though I normally buy nothing but Plextors. I have winXP on my hp notebook, and after plugging the drive in to the usb port using the included high-quality cable, the drive was recognized and installed immediately.

Audio burning allows cd-text, overburning (necessary for using 90 minute cdr's), and other features only found on high end burners, but extremely useful.

I was pleased to find an enclosed card for a mail-in free pci usb 2.0 card (faster than firewire) or a discounted pcmcia usb 2.0 card (with 4 ports!). The requirements are technically different from the mail-in rebate, so you apparently don't have to choose between the two. Unfortunately, though a UPC "photocopy" is listed as acceptable for the mail-in rebate, I received a postcard that my rebate had been rejected because an "original" barcode was not sent to them. So in reality you have to choose between the usb 2.0 card and the rebate, due to false advertising.

So far, I've had no bad burns or dae flaws.

The bundled Nero software is good for advanced hobbyists but impossibly complicated for newbies. Nero is fully XP compatible, and it is the only major burning software suite to support overburning for 90 minute cdrs. But it has a complicated, unintuitive interface. If you do NOT use winXP, and you've never done cd burning before, you're better off buying a retail version of Roxio Easy Cd Creator to go with the Spyder. (Free bundled versions of Easy Cd Creator lack the jewel case cover creator anyway, so it's just as well Yamaha went with Nero.)
The ac adaptor is rather large for carrying around, so this isn't everyday portable, but it's portable enough for me to stick into USB ports on my family's computers and back up their date conveniently for them.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars beautiful...but doesn't work as MP3 player, April 7, 2002

By 

Romeo Papa (Concord, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Yamaha CRW70 Spyder 12x8x24 External USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive and MP3 Player (Personal Computers)

My particular drive worked fine as general-purpose storage. It would play normally encoded CDs but not MP3 files that it recorded itself. (The MP3 files all conformed to the parameter restrictions in the manual.) I confirmed that the MP3-encoded CD itself was OK by taking it to a store that had a boombox that played MP3 CDs, and it played fine on that (so it wasn't operator error). I had expected better digital design or quality from a drive that is this expensive. Also the manual had only a medium correlation with the software on-screen menus. It had poor orientation to MP3 files and software choices. Only one of three people on the phone-line tech-support knew anything about the product & I don't think they had one physically with them. I am returning the drive for a refund.