Stand alone Audio CD recorders

[Mr Blues]

I was thinking is it worth getting a stand alone audio CD recorder?. You can get one for £300 to £500.

I like the idea of having optical input as my computor is quite old.


Are they now out of fashion as people often get them with there computors. Are the stand alone ones much different the your 16x high speed CD writers that often come with new computors or one can attach tehm to your computor.

Dave

 

[ez_willis]

I have a Philips cdr770 that is almost worthless because I can't find discs that burn at a slow enough rate to record to anymore.

I liked using it, too.

 

[CoolCat]

I had a Pioneer standalone CD-R and in the beginning it was useful, the converters were crap (the copy of the copy was shit, trebly and thin).
It was less hassle than cassette.

But it then developed problems, which I found on the internet was inherent to the Pioneers. It went to garbage on Ebay for parts.

Moved to the PC and never looked back. You have editing software, mastering software, duping software, copy after copy no problem... no comparison.
Its all kept in 1's and 0's....

you can get a good soundcard with optical and good converters for the same price. its not like you have to throw the pc away?

 

[Lt. Bob]

Save up and get a Masterlink ..... a very cool and useful tool and they're going cheap now ...... around $800 ..... so that'd be in the area of 400 pounds right?
That'd be in your price range and they are a freakin' great unit ..... look 'em up.

As for slow enough CD s ..... you can still buy the music specific CDs and I'm sure they'll work. You can't use data CDs on a consumer audio CD burner ..... you have to use the CDs marked as "music" CDs. But it's a liscensing thing .... not a speed issue. The CD manufacturers have to pay a fee for every music recordable CD sold. So they're watermarked in some way and they're the only ones and consumer machine will recognise.

 

[ez_willis]

As for slow enough CD s ..... you can still buy the music specific CDs and I'm sure they'll work.

Nope. I know exactly what kind of discs to use, Digital Audio discs for standalone cd-recorders. I'm telling you I have tried every brand available and I can't get them to work. I have a few discs left from an old batch I bought and they work fine.

 

[CoolCat]

Standalones were something to pop in a CDR and press the red button.
Simple as it gets maybe.

that Audio Disc bullshit....I forgot about that crap, geez what a way to ruin a marketplace? Remember they were like $15 each at first! ? I do, I bought a few and took them back.

PC's killed that, the CDR in pc's and the home hifi, upgrading from cassette to MiniDisc and DAT then to CDR's....

CDR's would have had a better life but the whole copyright $15 CDR disc thing ruined it.imo.

like ez_willis said,
the hassle of finding the blanks that work....that sucked too.

the companies really fhkd up on the "CDR's sales game".. big time.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Nope. I know exactly what kind of discs to use, Digital Audio discs for standalone cd-recorders. I'm telling you I have tried every brand available and I can't get them to work. I have a few discs left from an old batch I bought and they work fine.

Wow ..... that's very strange. I've been using those for years and I don't see where they're any different than they ever were.
I wonder what the hell's going on there?

 

[CoolCat]

i think the earliest versions of the phillips cdr were fhkd up somehow with decoders. they sold those bullshit Phillips special CD'-r blanks and they were about the only ones that worked. maybe ez has one of these early ones?

I forget the details. over time, like my Pioneer CDR standalone...I could put just about anything in there, any kind of cdr. although some didn't work.
that was nice.
my brother has a Phillips and its picky, but there are a few brands that work.

I don't know about slow playing and all that, but the technology's changed after they saw what a low turn out they got for the initial CD-R and the "required" CD-R AUDIO DISC COPYRIGHT bs.

the whole thing kind of flopped, didn't it?

 

[Mr Blues]

Tascam do one which is a Tascam CDW900 which is meant to be quite good.

I would'nt go for the Philips now you mentioned your experiances Coocat. thanks for that.

dave

 

[ez_willis]

the companies really fhkd up on the "CDR's sales game".. big time.

I don't think it was the companies that screwed it up. The intent was to compensate the artists because of a projected loss in revenue from what is now called file-sharing. A percentage of the cost of each of the digital audio disc sold went to ASACAP, BMI, etc, for distribution to members.

 

[Mr Blues]

Are you saying its now harder to buy CD-R audio disc or are they a lot more expensive?

Dave

 

[ez_willis]

Are you saying its now harder to buy CD-R audio disc or are they a lot more expensive?

Dave

Neither. I'm saying the last 6-10 BATCHES, or spindles of CD-R Digital Audio discs that I have bought won't burn in my Philips CDR770.

They're cheaper, they just won't work. I can no longer find any of the 3 brands that I was purchasing the first few years I owned it.

 

[Randy Yell]

I have the same model Phillips that EZ has and it'll work sporadically. If I buy a ten pack of blanks MAYBE a couple will record. I don't know about recent models but the Phillips is a piece of crap. I'm going to give it to a friend to listen to cds on as it's pretty much useless for recording. My computer is old but the majority of the time I can at least burn cds on it. I've heard the Masterlink is pretty good though.

 

[ez_willis]

I have the same model Phillips that EZ has and it'll work sporadically. If I buy a ten pack of blanks MAYBE a couple will record. I don't know about recent models but the Phillips is a piece of crap. I'm going to give it to a friend to listen to cds on as it's pretty much useless for recording. My computer is old but the majority of the time I can at least burn cds on it. I've heard the Masterlink is pretty good though.

I swear to god this is true:

I bought a pack of 50 multi-colored discs, so there was a bunch of black, orange, purple, and red discs.

ONLY THE PURPLE DISCS WORKED!!!!!

How could the color affect the ability to burn? Coincidence?

 

[boingoman]

Neither. I'm saying the last 6-10 BATCHES, or spindles of CD-R Digital Audio discs that I have bought won't burn in my Philips CDR770.

They're cheaper, they just won't work. I can no longer find any of the 3 brands that I was purchasing the first few years I owned it.

Are they 74 minute CDRs? There are a number of older burners out there that can't handle the 80 minute discs.

To the OP: Sony CDR-W33 and W66 are good burners that can be had for reasonable prices used. HHB and Tascam also make good ones.

 

[ez_willis]

Are they 74 minute CDRs?

Yup! !

 

[Mr Blues]

Well I finally brought the Tascam CD-RW 900 and am very pleased with the results, I have only experimented with the anologue inputs so far and the response was very smooth the extra volume you can add on is also very good.

Can't wait to get stuck into the optical transfer.

dave

 

[Ford Van]

I swear to god this is true:

I bought a pack of 50 multi-colored discs, so there was a bunch of black, orange, purple, and red discs.

ONLY THE PURPLE DISCS WORKED!!!!!

How could the color affect the ability to burn? Coincidence?

Young Luke, you have much to learn of our history.

The different colors represent different dyes used. In the bad ol' days of CD burning, the burners were optimized for a specific dye, and thus, you had to use media that used that dye.

Later, CD burners we changed so that they can detect the dye of the media and optimize it's burn for it.

That is the ONLY reason why other media will not burn in your dinosaur burner.

Now, I am pretty sure that you can still find purple dye disks somewhere, now that you know.

Thank me later.

 

[CoolCat]

dang?
I never heard the dye history lesson before either.
Thats cool, so thats the story on the multi colored.

I got a brother with this same old Phillips CDR and the same problem. love this forum sometimes, really surprising details come up.

 

[ez_willis]

Young Luke, you have much to learn of our history.

The different colors represent different dyes used. In the bad ol' days of CD burning, the burners were optimized for a specific dye, and thus, you had to use media that used that dye.

Later, CD burners we changed so that they can detect the dye of the media and optimize it's burn for it.

That is the ONLY reason why other media will not burn in your dinosaur burner.

Now, I am pretty sure that you can still find purple dye disks somewhere, now that you know.

Thank me later.

Bullcrap! Maybe not in its entirety, but it was only in that particular bundle of multi-colored discs. And that was the most recent bundle that I've purchased.