Plextor
More info
- Type
- Optical drives (brand)
- Owner
- Shinano Kenshi, Japan
Japanese optical drives that a generation of audio enthusiasts trusted for error-free ripping.
A brand of Shinano Kenshi, launched around 1990. While most CD and DVD burners were interchangeable OEM commodities, Plextor built its reputation on drives that read scratched and copy-protected discs where others gave up.
Among people who extracted audio track by track — with tools like Exact Audio Copy — Plextor became something close to a standard, thanks to accurate C2 error reporting and the bundled PlexTools software. As optical media faded the brand moved on to SSDs (manufactured by Lite-On) before quietly disappearing in the 2010s.