Advice on Purchasing CD Recorders for Analog sources (1 Viewer)

I would like to purchase a CD Recorder to convert all my old reel-to-reel tapes over to CD's. Anyone have any experience with a Philips CDR820? This model seems to have all the capabilities that I would require including text entry via a pc keyboard. I have a Sony 300 disc changer that displays CD text and the ability to enter CD text would be a major plus. The main use (probably over 95%)would be for recording analog sources to CD rather than making copies of existing CD's Any advice with your experience with this model or suggestion for an alternative is appreciated Thanks in advance.
Mike Hood

I think you'd be better off with a pro unit from a place like www.musiciansfriend.com . The pro units will allow you to use "regular" CDs instead of the music CDs. They will also have more robust audio components and better A-D. Look for Tascam, HHB, and Marantz professional CD writing decks.

You'll probably get a lot of advice telling you to go with a PC burner. That's a great way to go as long as you have analog to digital conversion that can handle the high fidelity that you will demand. Consumer gaming biased sound cards are inadequate and will result in poor sounding CDs. You'll have to spend some bucks on a pro level sound card in order to get A-D conversion that's comparable to a stand-alone Audio CD recorder.

You'll also have to buy some software, I highly recommend Cakewalk Pyro http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Pyro/default.asp for this purpose. It handles the recording, basic editing, and Audio CD mastering. If you're willing to pay the price that's the best way to go.

I agree with Philip, I have the HHB unit that he mentioned. It does very well for recording analog sources. It allows for manual or auto tarck numbering, which is very useful in recording analog sources. CD Text is a breeze with this unit as well.

It probably isn't a big issue since you are recording analog, but the HHB and similar "pro" units will allow you to set your own copyright management. You can set it from none, up to like 5 Digital to Digital copies.

Chris V,

I'm also looking to get a CD Recorder to record music. My current system is set up as follows:

DVD player feeds into a Karaoke mixer, which feeds into a receiver, which powers the speakers. The mixer has microphone inputs.
(DVD player-->Karaoke mixer w/mic inputs-->receiver-->speakers).


I have lots of Karaoke DVD's that I sing along to, so my objective here is to record my "performances" onto CD-R's as I sing along with the Karaoke DVD's. I would think that if a CD recorder is wired in between the mixer and the receiver, so that the mixer feeds into the CD recorder, which then feeds into the receiver
(DVD player-->Karaoke mixer w/mic inputs-->CD Recorder-->receiver--speakers), this would meet my needs.

Actually, I recently bought a cheap CD recorder from Best Buy, a KLH CDR1000, and did just that, wired it in between the mixer and the receiver. However, the crappy part about the recorder, and the reason I'm returning it, is that the signal from the mixer passes through the recorder to the receiver ONLY when actually recording; when the recorder is stopped (I've found that pause is not available during recording), no signal is received by the receiver, so no sound comes from the speakers. In short, you can hear the Karaoke DVD's ONLY while actually recording.

The pro units that Philip suggested look like the way to go, provided that the answer to the following question is "yes."

My question is, when recording using the pro recorders, such as the HHB receiver that you have, is it possible to pause while recording and still hear the sound you are trying to record?

Thanks for any input you can give.

Robert,

the way you were connecting the cd recoder was wrong, you should connect the cd recoder after the receiver, using those analog out from the receiver.

Tan is correct, the KLH unit you used will work fine, just hook it via the "tape out" on your receiver. Pro units would have the same behavior and should use the same hook-up. Good luck!

Karakoke is so fun. I have a big stack of LDs but my Karaoke LD machine is at my brother's house. I do have some cassette tapes of the "performances" and they are sometimes embarrasing but often funny.