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I gotta have one. It's just a matter of finding one at the price/performance elbow. Any suggestions, please e-mail me.
We <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?600">reported recently</A> that audio CD recorders are becoming hot items with consumers. How about with you?
Record? I'm still trying to maximize playback effectiveness! By the way, does Michael Fremer have an LP-R at home? I just bought some cool classical and lounge LPs for 25 cents/disc and would like to make some analog copies.
I bought a Philips unit for my dad for Xmas, because he wanted it. It sounded okay, but on his system it was tough to really tell. What I enjoyed the most was buying it at Best Buy. The salesman tried in vain to talk me into an extended warranty. His reasons? I am not making this up: he said that most CD players' drawers fail, and that all CD players need their lasers realigned every 4-5 months! I could hardly keep a straight face, but then I felt angry at him, and sorry for all the poor sods who come into places like Best Buy and actually believe that kind of crap.
I wouldn't use a CD recorder for music; the 10 year estimated lifespan of the format is unacceptable to me. On the other hand, I have a recent vintage Sony MD recorder, and that really does a fine job - and the MD's will last longer than I will.
Once upon a time, I used Nakamichi cassette decks for the car, portable, and office. Now everything is CDs, so I'm looking at the Marantz DR-17 with HDCD capability, but what about the Alesis, which records to a hard drive and allows fading & mixing before recording in 24/96? Isn't this the same thing I could do with a new PC and some software? Would the PC-stuff sound good and work in the car Kenwood and my Discman D-E905, and my office Musical Concepts and my home Micromega? Wish Stereophile or SGHT reviewed or commented on HDCD or 24/96 CD recorders, or CD/DVD recorders that can handle DVD-Audio (whatever that is) and SACD and HDCD and 24/96 and . . . How about something that uses dual Burr-Brown 1732 chips: 24/96 with HDCD??
The primary function of the CD-RW recorder in my computer from an audio point of view would be to make my own compilations from my CD collection, or possibly make a copy of a CD to take to the office. Another use that I can envision might be to make archives of my vinyl collection if I knew of a decent PC sound card. This might be a good thing for you folks to pursue. More and more of my vinyl collection has already been released on CD already, though I have some LPs of obscure or local bands/artists that will probably never make it to CD.
I've been intrested for some time now ,but I was looking at the HHB850 CR/CRW or a CD burner for the computer. My concern with the CDd burner for the computer is that it might not give me the sound quality that I am looking for. Compare to a standalone CDR. It would be nice to see a comparsion between the two for sound quality and ease of use and setup.
I recently purchased a Philips CD recorder and it is nice, but not as convenient as I had assumed. The main trouble is that the recorder cannot automatically differentiate between songs on the CD; it judges a pause of 2 or more seconds as the end of a song. This means that a copy of a live CD turns out to be one (long) song. Oh well!
I bought one for my computer and now wish I had bought an audio-oriented one--I can't control levels or record from vinyl, both of which I'd like to do. It sure is nice making "mixed CDs" instead of "mixed tapes" for friends, though. (Note to the music industry: my friends often end up buying one or more of the commercial CDs I sample on the mixes I make for them.)
Why? What would you do with one, tape your LPs? Analog reel-to-reel is the way to correctly do that! Tape CDsare you crazy? You can buy new CDs from clubs or used CDs for less than the cost of blank CDs. I totally don't understand this at all.