If you don't want to spend for the Alesis, and don't require a burner equipped with a hard-drive, consider the British-designed, Asian-built HHB CDR-830 BurnIT. I got mine for $550 new discounted, and it does sound superior to the mass-market brand competition. This is a pro studio unit, and will accept the less-expensive computer blank media and ignore copy restrictions, but is sold through pro-sound retailers only. I found my best price online, then printed it and took it back to my local dealer (list is $850, I believe), and have had no problems with it since I bought it. You can read what amounts to my 'review' of it before Audiogon officially had reviews:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1003577927
Respondents to that thread also discussed some other good machines. Since then, Yamaha has introduced a very interesting-looking new machine which I've seen on their website, one that does feature an internal hard-drive for geater ease of track-compiling and -editing, but is not a pro unit and so lacks those attendent benefits. I don't recall where the price on this one falls, but FWIW it actually has quite a bit more storage capacity for both music and playlists than even the Alesis, this despite the latter's interem software and hard-drive update. If I were buying over again, I personally would be willing to pay more and look at one of the hard-drive equipped machines (which were not available yet when I bought my HHB, who unfortunately don't offer one at this time) as long as I didn't have to sacrifice sound quality, and from what I've read the Alesis could certainly fit that bill. I've been thinking about trying one out on audition, so maybe I'll wind up selling my beloved HHB before too long... :-)
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1003577927
Respondents to that thread also discussed some other good machines. Since then, Yamaha has introduced a very interesting-looking new machine which I've seen on their website, one that does feature an internal hard-drive for geater ease of track-compiling and -editing, but is not a pro unit and so lacks those attendent benefits. I don't recall where the price on this one falls, but FWIW it actually has quite a bit more storage capacity for both music and playlists than even the Alesis, this despite the latter's interem software and hard-drive update. If I were buying over again, I personally would be willing to pay more and look at one of the hard-drive equipped machines (which were not available yet when I bought my HHB, who unfortunately don't offer one at this time) as long as I didn't have to sacrifice sound quality, and from what I've read the Alesis could certainly fit that bill. I've been thinking about trying one out on audition, so maybe I'll wind up selling my beloved HHB before too long... :-)