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CD Recorder Recommendations Needed

HHb 850 is a workhorse of a deck, SCMS free, XLR-RCA-DIGI in/out. Sounds great as a playback deck as well. Can be had cheap these days too.
 
HHb 850 is a workhorse of a deck, SCMS free, XLR-RCA-DIGI in/out. Sounds great as a playback deck as well. Can be had cheap these days too.

One thing I forgot to mention, both JVC and Yamaha decks are so so on playback, so for critical listening look else were.
 
HHb is a UK company which rebadges equipment for the professional markets. The HHb 850 is a rebadged Pioneer standalone. The earlier examples were excellent recorders but recent ones have had some reliability issues. Their blank media is excellent and so is their other gear. They sell no consumer products and their marketing is geared towards professional audio and broadcast users. Their old CD-R 800 was their best CD recorder. A big issue with consumer standalone recorders is most of the best available media doesn't have a Music CD-R option these days. Sony and Maxell are the only reliable vendors of Music CD-R discs these days. Memorex are horrible. MAM-A/MAM-E may still have Music CD-R media available but that status is unknown. You can't use the better data only discs in these consumer units.
 
Kent,
What kind of problems do the Denon rigs have? My DCD-1500 player just burned up and my wife and I were looking for a CDR-W1500 to replace it. She's paying half (I've got her hooked on this audio thing) and really likes the idea of being able to burn discs to carry in her truck and not have to worry about damaging them.
 
The Denon doesn't like any CD-R media except for low speed expensive discs. Mainly what I mention as good ones. I have had laser failures prematurely on them to boot. I do well to get 2 years of broadcast use out of one before it needs repair. This is the $900 ones. Marantz has the same issue with their recorders. The $350 Marantz CD players have been reliable for me on the air. The Tascam uses most any CD-R or RW disc without issues and will tolerate high speed media which is common these days. I have used a wide variety of good name brand media in mine without issue. I have several 7 year old Tascam standalone recorders which are still going strong in broadcasting studios without issues. I bought Denons and Marantzes at that time, none of them are still in use. All got the same amount of use.
 
HHb is a UK company which rebadges equipment for the professional markets. The HHb 850 is a rebadged Pioneer standalone. The earlier examples were excellent recorders but recent ones have had some reliability issues. Their blank media is excellent and so is their other gear. They sell no consumer products and their marketing is geared towards professional audio and broadcast users. Their old CD-R 800 was their best CD recorder. A big issue with consumer standalone recorders is most of the best available media doesn't have a Music CD-R option these days. Sony and Maxell are the only reliable vendors of Music CD-R discs these days. Memorex are horrible. MAM-A/MAM-E may still have Music CD-R media available but that status is unknown. You can't use the better data only discs in these consumer units.

MAM-A still has both silver and gold Music CDR's available direct.
 
As I rethink my situation, I've come to reconsider my needs, & have come to the conclusion that I may be looking for the wrong piece of equipment. I initially wanted a CD recorder to record classical music off of my tuner. This would entail leaving the recorder running for hours at a time, not knowing which pieces I wanted to save until after I've heard them. Such being the case, the Yamaha mentioned above with the internal Hard Drive seemed to be a much better choice than a unit that just records onto CD which, in my case, would be a pain in the you-know-what. Thinking further along these lines, I've realized that I don't really need a unit to record CDs at all, as this music will be listened to exclusively on my home system. Taking all this into consideration, I could use recommendations for a Hard Disc recorder that could be used to record long broadcasts from my tuner, with an eye towards editing later on & permanently keeping the remaining music (replaceable memory to accommadate an eventually finite unit?). Would a DAC fit into this category (I'm not even quite sure what this is, but I've seen it discussed here & there in reference to recorded material)?
 
MAM-A/MAM-E Silver Music CD-R is superb media. Their Gold is for low speed computer burning and professional recorders only. The Gold is the best but not usable in consumer grade units.
 
Take Audio CD Burner Studio, it is easy to use, can extract file names, so I never have names like Track 1..in my player. It also has a built-in player, it's very useful when deciding on the order of tracks before burning.
 
Your best investment for a CD Recorder is a Tascam. Their recorders take any data CD-R or RW discs you like. Excellent sound and reliability. In the radio stations I engineer I have had Denons, Marantz, HHb, Alesis Masterlinks, Tascams and Fostex standalones. The Tascam and Fostex recorders just work. The other makes have had reliability issues under 2-9 hour a day use.
I did have a clicking noise in my Alesis Masterlink CD transport after about 30 days-repaired under warranty,and it's been great for several years now.I got mine a few months after they went from 20G to 40G HDD.I use the MAM-A gold blanks.A friend across town decided he liked mine enough to buy one,too. No issues with his. If I'd heard more about the reliability of these,I might have made a different choice.But after all these years and 800 bucks-no complaints.
 
Oh- I use both the MAM-A gold 52X and 4X gold master in the Alesis.I get cheaper Sony blanks on sale for use in my vehicle.I know some home decks have bit of trouble with some CD's.None of my dual deck pro players ever skipped a beat with the MAM-A's or the Sony's. I got a lot less coasters with the Sony stuff than the "discount brands". Just my 2 cents,and may not be worth that much.
 
JVC XL-42010BK questions

I have 2, a Jvc XL-R2010, that I bought new in 97, or ,98. Works great, never had a issue with it, or any recorded dis's that end up as "coasters". It takes a bit to get used to using it efficiently, but after that' it's a pleasure. . . . It still works great, and I have burned 100's of disc's with it. I use gold disk's now for stuff I really want to save, they burn at a lower level, easier on your laser You can buy the direct from MAM-A Inc.com, they also have stadard audio cdrs. The gold run 71.50 per 50 pack, not sure on the silver. They alos have great deals on archivial gold dvd, and silver as well. They are all bulk spindle packs.

I bought the same model JVC a few years back, then got sidetracked for a while restoring an old roadster. After that my wife and I sold the big old house we'd had for 15 years and downsized to a smaller place with a little yard. Now I'm ready to start playing around with the CD-R deck and would like to ask a couple questions:

1) Do you have any kind of rule of thumb on record levels? With RTRs and cassettes, I always just used the best tape I could find (usually Maxell or TDK) and tried to keep the VU meters out of the red. This JVC has the bar-type meters, though, and I haven't quite gotten the hang of them.
2) Is there some trick to matching the overall levels if you're trying to mix tracks from LPs and tracks from CDs? If not, I may just have to stick with one source format or the other on a disc.

I'm also curious about those MAM discs you mention. Somewhere in another post I thought someone said their gold discs wouldn't work on consumer CD-R decks; should I just get the silver discs instead?

Not being tech-minded at all, or wealthy, any help you can offer would be appreciated.
 
Somebody with more burning an recording time than I do can answer the Q about the gold CD's in a consumer deck.The only problem I've had is playback in an older deck that was on it's last legs anyway-It recorded the consumer"music"CD's,and didn't always read the gold Mitsui's that I made in the Alesis unit.Kind of a non-issue for me......cause it wouldn't run well anyway.I even ran it in a club for awhile,switches were going bad,too.I tossed that unit,the Alesis is running right now.
Myself,I go the gold,but get the silver if price is an issue.I think they both have good coatings for durability,too.I'm about to order more gold 52x and 4x,and some silver to try....wouldn't even consider another brand,I'm sold on 'em. just my 2cents in a gold and silver discussion!:D
And still lurkin' for any info and tips I can pick up,too:lurk:
 
I use MAM-A/MAM-E Gold CD-R discs in my old 1983 Magnavox FD 1010 SL without problems. It has a CDM-0 pro transport mechanism. No trouble with them in my car or any of our CD players at home and at work. Yes, the MAM-A Gold Discs are for pro recorders and low-medium speed computer burning only, will playback after finalized in most any good player. Not for recording in consumer type standalone recorders like Sony, Philips, JVC, Pioneers, etc. For those machines it is CD-R Music or Digital Audio only.
 
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I can buy Music CDR's at any of the local office stores, Fry's, heck I bought a huge pile at a big lots store for pennies each.
 
Your only problem is that there's few good options left. Sony, TDK, and Maxell are all that remain which are reliable consistently. Memorex Music CD-R now have very high failure rates. And you're stuck with using these in those recorders at that. If one or more of the above three brands goes downhill, things get tough. One reason why pro machines become good buys for serious recordists.
 
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