What to Look For in cd Burner

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 24 Jun 2001 3:32 pm

Just doing some reserch on CD burners before making the plunge and would like to know what I should look for and avoid? Can anyone suggest name brands that seem to work well, please? I am aware Philips is big. I want to record CDs cassettes, and vinyl. Also, is it possible to record from a 16 channel mixer into the CD machine directly? I have also heard that the higher the speed, the better the copy...tree or false? Finally, what speeeds do the CD burners usually have. Many thanks! Steve

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 24 Jun 2001 5:05 pm

Steve, what type are you looking for? A standalone unit or one you can attach to your PC?

The standalone units generally are a lot slower than the PC units, unless you pay $$$.
Many of them are 2X burners. The speed is not an issue with fidelity.

Several things to consider with standalone units. First, they use the higher priced "music" CD's only. Second, most have an audio input that can be used with an external tape deck or whatever. However, you should also know when you burn a CD if there is anything wrong it's a "coaster". There is no recovery or rewriting on CD-R's - the primary type you use for audio. Very few standalone burners will write to CD-RW discs and very few CD players will play CD-RW discs(although they are becoming more available).

Burners for PC's have write speeds up to 16X and rewrite speeds of up to 8X. With a PC type, you can first "record" to the hard drive and then after you are satisfied with the wav file(s) on the hard drive then you can burn the CD. This prevents a lot of "coasters" (cd burns that aborted or have errors). This may seem to be a hassle but it's well worth doing this way. Also the PC burners do not require the "music" CD's - they will use the standard, less expensive, data CD's for music.

John Sims · Post by **John Sims** » 25 Jun 2001 5:22 am

Don't buy a Hewlett-Packard...

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 25 Jun 2001 6:34 am

John, why? I have an internal HP, two years old and no problems with it??

Darvin Willhoite · Post by **Darvin Willhoite** » 25 Jun 2001 7:56 am

I would recommend an Alesis Masterlink. It has a built in hard drive that will allow you to record up to 5 hours of music into it, then arrange it any way you want on the CD's. It records the CD at 4X speed. It is a stand alone unit and has analog and digital inputs, balanced and unbalanced. It isn't cheap, but if you're like me, you have a music collection that is priceless. Availability may be a problem for a month or two as Alesis recently went through an ownership change. For more info go HERE

Darvin Willhoite
Riva Ridge Recording

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 25 Jun 2001 7:44 pm

I'd like some info on CD Burners from you guys that have em. I looked at stand alone ones in Best Buy. One was a dual Sony and one a Phillips. You can copy from one to the other and also input a Cassette and copy to CD.
The others I looked at HP external and HP internal, hooked to the computer. Is that the same as the standalones? or what is the difference.?...thanks...al

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 26 Jun 2001 2:44 am

Al, read my comments above.

Roger Kelly · Post by **Roger Kelly** » 26 Jun 2001 5:08 am

Steve, I use an Iomega ZIP CD Burner 8x4x32. Circuit City had them on sale a few months back for $149.95. I have since seen this burner on sale for $99.95. It comes with Adeptec software that will allow you to create either type CD-R or CD-RW. Also you can make CD labels and Jewel Case labels. It is very user friendly. I also am using Total Recorder to make .wav files and find that this is a very good program and simple to use. I also use DePopper V2 that you can get free for 30 days on here, to clean up some of the noise on my old records that I am in the process of putting on CD. I have made a lot of CD's and so far I've never had a problem with anything. Everything that I am using to make these CD's I have bought on the advice of a Forum Member that has posted on here. So, look around on here and read what others are doing and go from there. Good luck.

Marco Schouten · Post by **Marco Schouten** » 27 Jun 2001 7:44 am

I like the Plextor drives with burnproof.

------------------
Steelin' Greetings
Marco Schouten
Sho-Bud Pro III Custom

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 27 Jun 2001 8:03 am

One feature I'd look for if I were buying a PC burner is text mode. That would allow putting the artist/song titles on the CD. The HP burner I have works well, and has burned a lot of CD's, but it doesn't support text mode.

Roger Kelly · Post by **Roger Kelly** » 27 Jun 2001 3:31 pm

Jack, my CD software won't allow me to put text from my CD tracks to the Jewel Case Insert either. Do you happen to know of a program that will?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 27 Jun 2001 4:28 pm

Roger, no I don't. I have to make the labels and inserts manually.

What I was referring to is writing the artist, CD title and song titles to the CD. The older burners didn't support that but some of the newer ones do. My HP burner is about two years old and it doesn't support the text mode. But, if I were to buy a new burner today it would have to have that option.

Roger Kelly · Post by **Roger Kelly** » 27 Jun 2001 6:13 pm

Thank's Jack for the info...I would want that feature too, if I were buying a new burner.

John Sims · Post by **John Sims** » 5 Jul 2001 5:22 am

Jack,

Heck, I dunno. Every H-P device I have gotten hasn't worked right. Maybe the config., or operator!

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 5 Jul 2001 6:49 am

John, I've had the exact opposite experience with HP. Both commerical systems and consumer.

Geoff Brown · Post by **Geoff Brown** » 6 Jul 2001 7:48 am

I've had a HP 9100 (internal) for a year and a half or so. No problems. It came with the
adaptec software for burning and creating covers. Works great w/ Win98. But I've encountered problems creating covers since installing Win ME. I can't import artwork for the covers. No problems burning tho. Win ME is a bad OS anyway IMHO, so I'll probably be reinstalling 98 soon. This is my opinion, but I wouldn't pay top dollar for a 12x burn speed. I would think that there may be some good deals to be had on 8x burners out there, and that's plenty fast enough for the average user.

RickRichtmyer · Post by **RickRichtmyer** » 9 Jul 2001 9:49 am

For what it's worth, Roxio is the new name of Adaptec's software division.

I have a Yamaha CD-RW that I bought about a month ago. It came with a version of the Adaptec (pre-Roxio) that does allow you do create jewel case labels that list the songs on the CD.

My only complaint is that I've found that even though it's supposed to burn at 16 on CD-R media, it's prudent to stick with 8x if you don't want to make coasters. As someone noted above, perhaps it's a Windows ME problem. In my case I can't (easily) fall back to Win98 because ME came on the PC (A Dell Dimension 4100). I have a copy if Win98 but I suspect that Dell customer support wouldn't be as likely to help me out if I changed the OS.

------------------
Rick Richtmyer
Good News

John Floyd · Post by **John Floyd** » 9 Jul 2001 10:25 am

I just bought a Yamaha Internal unit for my PC Friday. 40X read 16X Write and 10X rewrite at a place Called Bj's Wholesale Club. They were originally priced at $219.99 several months ago and I bought mine for $159.99. When I saw the price had dropped that much I decided it was time to buy.

As far as recording audio, I have two of the Sony Je-440 Minidisc Recorder Decks. They work great and with 4X compression, I can record up to 5 hours 20 minutes of audio on an 80 minute minidisc with no appreciable loss in quality. A package of 30 minidiscs cost around $27.95. I have one of these units mounted on a rack shelf and mounted in my mixer rack for my PA System, Can record a whole gig on 1 minidisc. the other unit is part of my home stereo system and I can record Cd's by optical link from my Cd Changer to the minidisc and it will also get the Table of contents data drom the CD, Title, etc. This allows me to Record several CD's on to a minidisc and play music during our breaks on the PA system and review the previous gig at home without moving a recorder deck or swapping wires around on my home stereo. These Sony minidisc units cost me $189.95 each and are a lot more versitile than the standalone Cd recorders, a thousand times cleaner audio than a Cassette Deck and priced about the same as a decent home stereo cassette deck. Its a shame the idea of the minidisc never took off, because they are great for exactly what I am using them for.

------------------
John

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by John Floyd on 09 July 2001 at 11:30 AM.]</p></FONT>

Dennis Lobdell · Post by **Dennis Lobdell** » 12 Jul 2001 7:32 pm

Check out this Teac 12X10X32 that Outpost.com has to offer. Let us know what You think.
Dennis