As far as outboard CD Recorders go, from what I hear the one to have, though a bit rich for me at this stage of my Digital Recording adventure, is
the Alesis Masterlink ML-9600. It's much more than just a recorder, with tons of features from live recording to mastering and more. It seems that this is "The One" at this time and goes for around $1400. Check it out at
www.alesis.com. There are stand alone models available from Tascam, Phillips and Microboards running from around $500-$1000. Pretty much everyone I know or have met record on a burner in (or externally USB'd or Firewire'd into) a computer . Even the last couple of studios I have been in locally use like external SCSI burners. There are lots of softwares available out there like Sonic Foundry CD Architect, Adaptec, and many more. Check out any local or online music or software vendor. I've even seen CD burning software at K-Mart. Check 'em out and see which have the features that you need. You may want to take Carter Simcoe's advice and invest in a more upscale sound card. Unless there is a way that I am unaware of, you'll need to go through your sound card to get into the computer and to the burner. I myself, just recently added
a M-Audio Delta 44 to my system and the quality over my Soundblaster Live! Platinum for recording is like night and day. I personally don't know if it will make a difference for just transfering data into the computer, so maybe someone else can enlighten us on that. I am sure you don't want to lose any quality in the transfer.
Well it's not much, but it's all I got. Hope it helps you out.