I Need To Buy A Good CD Player/Recorder

[SUPERBEE]

Time to record some LP's for the car. Any suggestions?

[boputnam]

Rack mounting important?

With Sony discountinuing their legendary CDR-W66 (balanced and W33 unbalanced) series, I've lately moved to the Tascam SS CDR1, a 1RU unit with interesting functionality.

As well, Tascam has two 2RU offerings - I've got one of each and they both work fine.

Historically, I have not been a fan of Tascam, but they seem to have worked on the areas of my hate. All these units have proven to be robust, and reliable. The only gripe I have with the CDR1 is the display is teeny, and most of the variables are controlled via that interface. My racks can't be at eye level...

[grumpy]

Not clear to me what's being asked...

Home burner? I've had fine luck w/ computer-burned discs. The cheapest discs
tend to deteriorate more quickly... some will "wash off" with water... data and all.

Car player? I used to be happy w/ pre-out Alpine units, but that was quite a way's back... haven't kept track.

[SUPERBEE]

I need a good CD recorder to record some LPs on to CD

[rdgrimes]

I need a good CD recorder to record some LPs on to CD

The PC offers the ability to use software to clean up the audio and perform a whole range stuff as well as create audio CDs. A number of methods and devises exist to connect your turntable to your PC. All you'd need then is a CD burner. Of course, you can still record on a stand alone machine then transfer to PC for doctoring. There's not a great deal of difference in the various stand alone recorders, get whatever has the best specs on the A-D converter. Consider using CDRW discs for recording, then transfer to PC, erase and use again. On a PC, you can use any CDR you like, on a recorder you must use "audio CDRs". The only difference is the price of the disc.

[SEAWOLF97]

The PC offers the ability to use software to clean up the audio and perform a whole range stuff as well as create audio CDs. A number of methods and devises exist to connect your turntable to your PC. All you'd need then is a CD burner. Of course, you can still record on a stand alone machine then transfer to PC for doctoring. There's not a great deal of difference in the various stand alone recorders, get whatever has the best specs on the A-D converter. Consider using CDRW discs for recording, then transfer to PC, erase and use again. On a PC, you can use any CDR you like, on a recorder you must use "audio CDRs". The only difference is the price of the disc.

I pretty much agree. If you take the LP music to a PC first, you can run a "pop & noise" filter on the file (to me, important with a LP source) before burning..I disagree tho on CDRW's...they burn at a much slower speed, cost much more..why bother ? a CDR is only 10 cents in bulk.

I personally love MD's (no, not doctors, Minidisks) and run the LP to minidisk and take them to the PC...have detected no loss in quality doing this way, just takes a little longer.

don't fall for that USB turntable stuff, most of them are sub par.

[SUPERBEE]

Why would I want to "docotor" the sound of my LP's??

I am fairly low tech, all my stereos are tube man.

I just want a unit to throw under my current cassette tape rig and record LP's and the wife want to record some tapes to CD for our cars

When I really want to "hear" something I will play the LP

And I am not going to hook up a beautiful Thorens 125 Mrk II to my cornputer

The PC offers the ability to use software to clean up the audio and perform a whole range stuff as well as create audio CDs. A number of methods and devises exist to connect your turntable to your PC. All you'd need then is a CD burner. Of course, you can still record on a stand alone machine then transfer to PC for doctoring. There's not a great deal of difference in the various stand alone recorders, get whatever has the best specs on the A-D converter. Consider using CDRW discs for recording, then transfer to PC, erase and use again. On a PC, you can use any CDR you like, on a recorder you must use "audio CDRs". The only difference is the price of the disc.

[The Dude]

I currently have a Tascam CD-RW5000 and although i have not actually recorded on it yet, it quite happily picks up regular Tesco's own CDR disks no problem, ready to record.It has various input types too and i think their quite reasonably priced these days, although they cost a bit when they first came out.

[pierce]

you don't hook the beautiful thorens to the computer, you hook a tape out from your preamp via a USB A/D converter to your computer

At a bare minimum, you want to trim the start/stop of the recording, and mark the CD tracks. As others have said, running a de-popper filter can reduce any LP artifacts which you might not notice when you're listening to the LP directly, but WILL notice the 2nd or 15th time you play the CD. In lieu of fancy/expensive audio software, the freeware Audacity is surprisingly good for this stuff.

Also, I often like to apply a bit of compression to stuff I record to CD specifically for car playback as the car is a noisy environment and the quiet passages get lost otherwise. the trick is to be subtle about it, if you squash it too hard, it all comes out sounding like top 40 FM radio.