CD Rom drive read ahead?

[BVD]

I've noticed that some new Cdrom drives
spin mindlessly and either take forever to
access discs (originals-not home made ones)
or can't access the disc at all. This can happen with 30x-40x-50x .. doesn't matter.
My new 52x Delta does this while my 48x Delta runs perfectly. After selecting "no read ahead" in DManager, there's no change. I've returned at least 10 drives for that reason;
Sony, Teac, Mitsumi, Memorex, Creative ...
but they can't ALL be defective right?

I don't think the PC specs are an issue
because it's happened on more different machines and Windows versions in the shop than I can remember.
What's really going on here?

[Antimatter]

It's your spin up and idle time b4 spin down you're worried about isn't it. Want fast spin up get a Creative 4x. PIO mode for some reason works better with a lot of newer UDMA CDROM's. Also the ATAPI vendor support with the VIA 4-in-1 driver works wonders with lots of CDROM drives as far as access times go(VIA chipset mainboards).