Any Good CD Recorder/Players?


I'm looking for a quality CD recorder that can also perform well as a CD player. I intend to use the recorder mostly for recording LP's and mixes.
I'm not looking for Class A (I'm not sure one even exists) rather a good deck which would fit with my Roksan Caspian Integrated, Music Hall MMF-5 and Epos M-12's. Anything?
ossorosso
Hi again - Sorry to be late getting back to you. I do think that the CD-RW4U might satisfy you as a primary CD player/recorder. Very little top end glare, realistic mids, and decent bass. It has proven itself more than the equal of quite a few more expensive players I've tried - actually embarrassing a few. My advice would be to pick one up and try it. It does a really nice job recording vinyl, and might give your Roksan a run for its money as a player in your setup. If it does, you could sell the Roksan. If it doesn't, you still have the Roksan. :-) By the way, the CD-RW4U is a half-size unit, doesn't take up much space, and can be used horizontally or vertically! If that's not enough, it comes with a USB interface and software so it can be used as a PC CD burner! It works with Macs and Windows PCs. Extremely versatile, truly surprising sound - and it's quite inexpensive. Feel free to contact me if you have any more questions.
Ditto the Tascam CDRW700 as botha recorder and player. Great machine, excellent sound. Produces Redbook CDs that play on all my players without fail.
Have anyone heard the Alexis Masterlink yet as CD Recorder/Player? I read a review by Micheal Fremer of
Stereophile which said that this was a excellent player/recorder. I am in the same boat as Ossorosso in that
I am looking for a player to record vinyl and I have read reviews that said that the Masterlink was excellent. I wonder how it compares with Tascam CD-RW4U.
Hi - The Alexis Masterlink is a hard-disc based CD recorder that sells for around $1000. You must first record to the hard disc and then burn the CD - in real time this can be 1 1/2 to 2 hours for ONE LP! Also, at 24 bit resolution it only has enough storage capacity for 95 minutes of audio. So, each LP transfer would be its own project - then you would have to erase the disc to do another, AFTER burning the CD of your last "project." I personally find this a laborious redundancy (total waste of time!) when you can do a very creditable job with any of the Tascams for a lot less money. With all of its features the Masterlink is probable very good for studio mastering, but for home use to transfer LPs to CDs for casual and automobile listening I think its drastic overkill. HEY! No one here is thinking of transferring their LPs to CDs to get rid of their LPs, are they?? No one here thinks the resulting CDs will sound better than the LPs, do they?? Just checking.. :-) If so, I'll take your LPs, thanks.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Ed
i am recording to a polaroid DVD recorder with
hard drive. cost at walmart $200 . 80 gig hard drive. 160 available. I have opened mine and just pop in a 500 gig drive if you want I understands it is automatically formatted correctly. I record to dvd hi res format on the hard drive or DVD. if yu record to hard drive yu can dub to DVD. take the DVD to computer and strip out audio with a program. ( i use DVD audio extractor) i can record 7-10 records on one DVD. I filled up the hard drive with 125 vinyl. you have to put in video feed to do this ( i use vhs at SLP lately i stop the vhs and as long as the blue screen is there it keeps recording with no video. i just records the blue screen.) Dvd audio extractor can rip the audio out to commanw formats ( inlcluding wave and mp3 and flacc and also the mpeg audio dvd format!. ( the mpeg audio sounds better than mp3 according to my tests) play back from the dvd hard drive or DVD itself compared to a vinyl playback of the same record (in real time) sounds identical to me. There is even option (i have not used yet) bring the polaroid machine to your computer and hook sound in direct via digital inputs-(if your sound card has the digital inputs) i dont know if mp3 players will play the mpeg audio file. my dvd player will not!! here is test file of 1950s urania opera stars made using my rega turntable XLO Interconnects and acurus phono state. Stanton 681 EE cartridge. http://www.mediafire.com/?1sfsx9jx6zf