which stand alone CD burner ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter geoff
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geoff

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I am looking to purchase a stand alone CD recorder. I do not want a pc unit.

The unit must be able to over ride the encryption code, because I am going to have it professionally duplicated. (the low end phillips uses a more expensive disk, and uses encryption) I Have seen units from Tascam, HHB, fostex, and marantz.

Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Geoff

[This message has been edited by geoff (edited 08-27-1999).]

[This message has been edited by geoff (edited 08-27-1999).]
 
I have no answer yet, just questions....
Circuit City has a Philips 760BK for $399.00
I wonder if it is too good to be true?

Dom Franco
 
Sure is! Those cheapy ones usually don't offer much in the way of versatile in's and out's. I bought the Marantz CDR-630 Professional for about $1200 last year but have seen them as low as like $950 lately. Good unit.
 
This one has RCA Analog , and RCA digital in/outs as well as an optical/digital type connection. I think this would work for me?

I am just wondering about the sound quality, It's digital? CD quality? ....Mabye I
could buy a blank CDR and ask to try it out before buying.

Dom Franco
 
I think these units just cheap out on the A/D converters relative to say, the $1000 unit from TASCAM. But if you're just using the digital I/O how could they cheap out on it and still have it work at all?
 
Heres a few basics that will get you going in the right direction when choosing a CD-R and the software to fit your desired application. Although stand alone CD Recorders are available and very efficient, the higher end CDR's can be expensive and limited in expandable capability.If your finding CDR's under 500.00, I would take a long hard look at what you're buying.With computer peripheral CD-Rs, expanding functionality is just a matter of loading or downloading the correct software and these drives can be purchased for less than $500.00 as opposed to over a thousand.It is also highly recommended that you confine your search to SCSI devices as they provide specific advantages over IDE . SCSI is not only faster in regards to transfer rates but also provides system expansion capability by implementing the chaining of other external SCSI devices (CD ROM drives, hard drives, up to 7 on a narrow SCSI bus).If you can get the cover off of your computer , it’s just a matter of snapping this PCI card in your available PCI slot and then hooking up the appropriate external cable to your CD recorder.
I would recommend using a SCSI CDR that has been thouroughly tested for audio.Some computer based and stand alone CDR's may have unwanted noise from internal workings that may effect the transfer of the digital audio.You dont want any unwanted noise in your CD burn.Although the noise may not be clearly audible, if your like me, you dont take any chances.There are companies in the audio biz that test computer based CDR's to ensure maximum performance in an audio application. Also be sure that the CDR and the software you choose will comply with redbook standards in case you want to duplicate professionally.Redbook standard is a very essential requirement for professional duplication. This is usually more dependant on the software installed on your PC to do your CD burning.Im not sure if stand alone units somehow indicate whether you are within redbook standards or not, but going SCSI with a computer based CDR with the right software is the best way to go in my opinion.

Bill L&M



[This message has been edited by LMSTUDIO (edited 08-27-1999).]
 
Bill, I'm still not sold on your reasoning behind the need for a SCSI CDR. Yes, that would be the system you'd need if you wanted to chain a half dozen of them together. And yes, digital multitrack manipulation can benefit from the increased speed of a fast SCSI HD. But for burning one CD at say a 4x
rate, IDE on both ends (HD/CDR) is plenty fast enough to provide the measly 600KB/sec without dropping a byte. And all that talk about the noisy circuitry in a standalone CDR deck shouldn't apply if you're only using the digital I/O. I've tried an optical S/PDIF dub from a $149 SONY CD-player to a TASCAM CDRW-5000 (admittedly a $1000 unit) and the transfer was slicker than snot. The cue information is sent along with the song data so once the CDR is prepped and in "pause", you just hit play on the player and the rest is handled for you.
 
I always try to keep my options open with the gear that I buy.The setup works well for my application as well as many other studios, but I understand opinions arent always agreed with. My post is a bit superfluous anyway since geoff didn't want to go PC in the first place.
Am I forgiven?
Bill

[This message has been edited by LMSTUDIO (edited 08-28-1999).]
 
With all this information and confusion about CD recorders, their A to D converters incompatability of recording media (CDR vs
CDRW): and coupled with the fact that prices are sure to continue to drop; I just might opt for a DAT recorder until the dust settles and the format is stable!

Sincerely;

Dom Franco
 
Well- be sure to keep that dust away from the tape heads on your DAT! No reason to be fearful of the format stability of CDR; For one thing, DATs and their media are much more delicate than CDRs and their media. And how are you going to play DAT tapes in a consumer CD player? And just because a CDR deck offers the capability of writing to CDRW doesn't mean you have to use it. And just because the prices of the two systems you're comparing sort of intersect doesn't mean they can be compared directly. Apples and Oranges.
 
I was hoping to use a CD recorder as my master recorder for mixdowns. In the past I have mixed down to DAT. I had to pay for time at a "Real" studio to use their DAT deck. But since prices are coming down on DAT's and CD recorders I have been weighing the Pros and cons of each.

I will be having my master duplicated professionally, and They will still accept DAT's for some time to come! I still don't
understand exactly what to look for in a stand alone CD recorder, that would make it comparable to a DAT for mixdowns.

Dom Franco
 
Dom: I think in your case, the DAT would be the way to go because you are already comfortable with this format. My questions (and I think to some extent yours as well) are: do these new stand-alone CDRs perform as well as the CDR decks in computers? In that setting, the A/D conversion is offloaded onto the soundcard. Is this requirement for "more expensive media" that Philips talks about just marketing hype to sell their media or a real limitation of their machines? This
Philips machine only makes sense if you've already got some machine with S/PDIF out and want a digital CD copy. If you've got a computer, CDR decks for them are much cheaper.
 
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