The latest product from Ricohs Media Master line is the new CDRW+DVD Player Combo 12x10x32x8 MP9120A. This drive supports 12x CDR, 10x High Speed CDRW, a 32x CDROM read speed, Plus 8x DVD read speed. Ricoh is one of three drive manufacturers producing Combo drives, but the MP9120A is currently the fastest available. The drive also features a proprietary buffer under run prevention system called JustLink. The drive is listed at $349.00 direct from Ricoh but is expected to have a street price around $300.00.
With its primary target being the mid to high end audio and multimedia pro-sumer this drive will also have great appeal to anyone who has concerns about consistent and reliable high speed recording. Ricoh achieves this stability through their JustLink technology. JustLink predicts when errors or data stream losses will occur, suspend recording until the data stream is available again, and then resume recording. JustLink is patented by Ricoh but expect to see them licensing it to other drive manufacturers. Other attractive features of this drive include 32x Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) and true SPDIF output for digital audio.