The load speed is close to that of a 1541 by design.
Really?? In that case, it's a bad design. I was going to get one of those things, but my main reason for buying one was to speed up that damn slow 1541 loading. If it's the same speed, there is no point whatsoever.
The SD drive for my Atari 800XL is something like 10X floppy loading.