Master Recorders. What to go for?

[James K]

Hi,
I've been thinking lately about my master recorder. I currently mixdown to a Sony RCD W100. However, I'm aware that this is a consumer deck and that I may be losing quality in recording to it. There is a noticeable difference between the sound from the CD and direct from the mixer. I'm now considering upgrading my master recorder but I'm not sure which option to go with. I've looked at both the Tascam CD-RW900SL and the Fostex500. I've also looked at the alesis masterlink and the tascam dv-ra1000hd (although the latter is rather out of my price range. I have also considered the options of getting a high quality interface and mixing down to a DAW (I currently do not have one) or simply buying a better ADC. Ideally I'd like to mix to a top quality 1/4" deck and then to digital but that won't be possible for a while.

So, to summarise, my option (as far as I know are):
-Stick with the Sony
-Buy a new CD recorder
-Buy a Standalone HD recorder
-Buy a DAW and good interface
-Buy a high quality ADC to use with my Sony

What do you guys reckon the best option is?

Thanks
James

[Massive Master]

Without knowing specifically which converters are in that Sony, I can tell you that with most of the Tascam CD recorders, all the Sony consumer-prosumer units I've used, the ML's converters were (surprisingly actually) quite a bit better.

That said - I'm a big fan of "modular" so I'd go with a decent AD and pull it on to your computer.

All that said - The DVRA's are shockingly decent - At least the DSD converters. I honestly don't recall if I ever used it to CD and I'm assuming it's a completely different converter for that purpose. And I've never been a fan of other Tascam CD-R recorders