Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!agate!news.ossi.com!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!library.ucla.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.umbc.edu!eff!news.duke.edu!duke!rfloyd From: rfloyd@cs.duke.edu (Rick Floyd) Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom Subject: Re: Audio Cable for NEC3XI problems Message-ID: Date: 27 May 94 15:26:07 GMT References: Sender: news@duke.cs.duke.edu Organization: Duke University CS Dept., Durham, NC Lines: 44 Nntp-Posting-Host: romeo.cs.duke.edu In-reply-to: msp@prism1.com's message of 27 May 94 03:15:40 GMT I am also about to order a 3Xi to go with my PAS-16. (I found it for $420 - is that as good as I can do?) I called MediaVision to see if I would need anything from them. The guy said that the 3Xi would include the necessary interface cable and software, and that all I would need from them is the audio cable. It sounds like this may not be true from what Rick is saying... The 3Xi only includes an internal SCSI cable. You'll still need an audio cable and a SCSI device driver (in your case, the driver for the PAS-16). You also need a relatively current version of the CD-ROM software that comes with DOS, but you presumably already have that. Also, is there any really any need for the audio cable if I don't care about playing music cd's on my computer? MediaVision wants $15 for the cable which seems like a lot. I recall reading a post from someone who sells them for six bucks. The MediaVision kit includes the audio cable, an internal SCSI cable, and their PAS-16 SCSI driver. That's why it costs $15. You don't need the SCSI cable, since it comes with the drive, and you can download the driver from their BBS if you wish. There is some CD-ROM software that uses the audio cable (the opening sequence for The Seventh Guest is an example), but not much. It took me a month to get around to actually hooking mine up, and I didn't miss it much. BTW, has anyone else tried to benchmark their 3Xi, either with the PAS-16 or with a dedicated SCSI card? I'm only getting 330KB/sec out of mine, regardless of how I measure it. BTW, I spent about 20 minutes on hold waiting to speak to someone at MediaVision :-( At least it was on their nickel. Consider yourself lucky. I spent an hour and 28 minutes on hold to NEC yesterday, so that could ask about a rumored firmware upgrade to fix performance problems. After denying there was such a thing, they forwarded me to their service department. Or, rather, to the service department's automated hold queue. That's when I finally ran out of patience. rick floyd rfloyd@cs.duke.edu