CD-ROM Changers: The Inside Story

Upgrade to one of these internal quad-speed CD-ROM drives from Alps or NEC and put four discs on-line instead of one

Chris O'Malley

Anyone with even a small handful of favorite CD-ROMs can easily see the value of a CD-ROM player that holds several discs at once. That goes double if you depend on a CD-ROM-based reference work or phone directory. But until recently, CD-ROM changers were available only as bulky, external, and often pricey "jukeboxes."

New internal changers from NEC and Alps put four discs at your disposal. The NEC MultiSpin 4x4 CD-ROM Changer and the Alps 4X Internal CD-ROM Changer are both quad-speed CD-ROM players that hold four discs yet fit into a standard half-height drive bay. They come with Windows software and handle regular CD-ROMs as well as audio CD, Enhanced CD (or CD+), Photo CD, CD Interactive (CD-I), and Video C D discs. Most important, neither will break the bank: The Alps 4X lists for $410 and is likely to be substantially discounted, while NEC gives the MultiSpin 4x4 an estimated street price of just $279.

Nakamichi makes the MultiSpin 4x4 drive for NEC and is also supplying it to a number of major PC companies to include in their systems. By the time you read this, Nakamichi will be selling its own version, called the MJ-4.4, in a retail package for the same $279 estimated street price.

Not to be outdone, Panasonic just introduced--too late for this review--a half-height internal CD-ROM drive that holds five disks. The $399 Big 5 quad-speed drive has a multitray mechanism that you load with bare discs. Panasonic claims a disc-switching time of less than 5 seconds.

Two Loading Approaches

Both the Alps and NEC drives reviewed here come with the same short, L-shaped Enhanced IDE (EIDE) interface card made by Future Domain, as well as an IDE ribbon cable to connect them and audio cables (for linking the CD-ROM drive with a sound board). Both drives also have a headphone jack and a volume-control wheel on the front plate. You can install either drive horizontally or vertically.

For all the similarities between the two drives, they approach disc storing and swapping quite differently (see the sidebar "Changing of the Discs" ). Like many car audio players, the Alps 4X uses a magazine mechanism (derived from the mechanism used in the car stereos made by Alps' Alpine division). The NEC MultiSpin, on the other hand, uses a direct-feed mechanism in which there are no trays, caddies, or magazines. This mechanism has also been proven in audio CD players from Nakamichi and in an external seven-disc changer.

You can configure each drive to handle its multiple discs in either of two ways: as a single dri ve letter, where you select which disc is active, or with multiple drive letters (e.g., D, E, F, and G). The single-drive mode makes it easier to run multidisc games and other titles that you must install and run from one drive letter. With the Alps 4X, you select the active disc by pressing a button on the drive. With the NEC MultiSpin, you do it through the provided Windows utility program.

Treating a multidisc drive as four separate drives, on the other hand, means you can launch programs without selecting a slot. But it also means that the programs must be in the same drive-letter slot in which you installed them and that multidisc programs designed to work with only one drive letter (as many are) must all use the same slot--forcing you back into a manual disc swap. Also, audio CDs can be played only in the first slot in this mode.

Either way, these two drives function best as a convenient place to store and play single-disc titles. That gives the less-expensive NEC MultiSpin the advantage, because you can easily insert or remove one disc at a time. Unless Microsoft endows Windows with the ability to fluidly direct CD-ROM changers, the best hope for simplifying multidisc games is the recently announced digital videodisc standard, which promises enough capacity to eliminate the need for multiple discs in most cases.

MultiSpin Eats Naked Discs

As it has done with its other products, NEC takes extraordinary steps to make the installation process painless with a "getting started" poster and, if you prefer visual instructions, a videotape. Still, installation isn't a no-brainer. The procedure varies, depending on whether you already have an available secondary IDE connector (and therefore don't need the interface card) and whether you're running Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. There are also DIP switches involved. The NEC manual outlines the steps, but it does a relatively poor job of putting the if/then choices into perspective.

NEC's setup software installs the device drivers and a utility program that lets you control the drive. The ability to treat the MultiSpin as a single drive broken into subdrives (e.g., D:1, D:2, D:3, and D:4, so you can see what's in each slot) currently works only under Windows 3.x. Windows 95 support is promised for the first quarter of this year. Current users will be able to get the Windows 95 driver via NEC's World Wide Web site ( http://www.nec.com ) or fulfillment center ((800) 820-1230).

The MultiSpin drive is a pleasure to use. Loading the discs is as easy as pressing one of the four numbered buttons on the front bezel, which opens the drive door, and inserting a naked disc (label side up) about halfway into the opening. The drive draws the disc inside automatically, as a cassette-tape player does, closing the door as it does so. You can tell which slots are occupied by the small lights next to each slot number. You eject the discs by pressing the same slot buttons or by using the eject button in the utility software.

The buttons and the loading slot have special seals to prevent dust from being sucked into your PC's fan. We had no troubles in inserting and ejecting more than 100 discs. However, there's a way to manually rotate the gears to eject a disc should one become jammed, although it requires partially removing the drive.

Alps Reads Magazines

Like many other audio and CD-ROM products, the Alps 4X uses a magazine. Depending on how you like to work (or play), that makes it a little more or less convenient than using the MultiSpin. The downside is that you must fit discs into trays that slide into the magazine and then load the magazine into the drive--a fairly tedious procedure. The advantage is that you can buy extra magazines (for about $20 apiece) and keep separate four-disc sets ready to quickly pop into your drive. The MultiSpin comes with one magazine.

There's no poster or video bundled with the Alps 4X, but the installation process is similar to that of the MultiSpin. By default, the Alps setup software handles the four slots as separate drive letters. However, you can choose to assign them all to a single letter by configuring the Alps device driver with a software switch in the CONFIG.SYS file. You can then use the stop/change button on the drive's front panel to cycle through the discs and make one active. This works under Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. The pros and cons of these arrangements are basically the same as with the MultiSpin.

As befits its Alpine heritage, the controls on the Alps 4X drive's bezel follow the model of a CD audio player, with reverse, play/pause, forward, stop/change, and eject buttons. LEDs on the right show which disc you have selected, and a busy LED shows activity. Alps' MultiPlayer Windows program closely resembles the controls on a car stereo player, giving yo u full control of the changer.

For software that you tend to operate by set or category, such as CD-ROM telephone directories or a group of favorite audio CDs, the magazine approach makes a lot of sense. But if you frequently change single discs, the direct-load approach of the NEC MultiSpin is much more convenient. And, at less than $300, it's a convenience you can afford.

---

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Alps 4X Internal CD-ROM Changer.................$410

Alps Electric (USA), Inc.
San Jose, CA
Phone:    (800) 825-2577 or (408) 432-6000
Fax:      (408) 432-8337
Internet: 
http://www.alpsusa.com

Circle 1128 on Inquiry Card.

MultiSpin 4x4 CD-ROM Changer....................$279 (est. street price)

NEC Techno
logies, Inc.
Boxborough, MA
Phone:    (800) 632-4630 or (508) 264-8000
Fax:      (800) 366-0476
Internet: 
http://www.nec.com

Circle 1129 on Inquiry Card.

HotBYTEs
 - information on products covered or advertised in BYTE

---

Features Comparison

                          
Alps 4x Internal        NEC MultiSpin 4x4
Feature                   CD-ROM Changer          CD-ROM Changer


Price                     $410                    $279 (estimated
                                                  street price)
Data transfer rate (KBps) 600                     600
Average access time (ms)  210                     250
Buffer size (KB)          128                     12
8
Interface                 EIDE                    EIDE
Disc loading              Four-slot magazine      Single-feed
IDE burst transfer        PIO mode 3 (11.1 MBps)  PIO mode 3 (11.1 MBps)

---

CD-ROM Changers Exposed

photo_link (27 Kbytes)

Both the Alps 4X (bottom) and the NEC MultiSpin pack four discs into a half-height 5 1/4-inch form factor. The Alps unit uses a cartridge (shown) , while the NEC drive feeds in bare discs.

Other similarities are quad speed (600 KBps) and an EIDE interface (adapter card included).

---

Chris O'Malley (Boynton Beach, FL) is a freelance writer w ho covers computers and software. He can be contacted on the Internet at 4312323@mcimail.com or on BIX c/o "editors."