Cons: Very unreliable recording; high loss rates; must use Sony disks.
The Bottom Line: Recording is extremely unreliable, and errors generally occur at the end of a recording session. Much wasted time and money. The RCD-W500C is a Coster Factory.
ddrhilo's Full Review: Sony RCD-W500C 5-Disc CD Changer / Recorder
I have had the RCD-W500C for 8 months now, and have lost dozens of disks from 'C14 Recording errors'. For reasons no one at Sony can explain, the recorder is unable to write the CD table of contents for a block of songs or for a whole disk. The CD is recorded (and usually unusable), but the tracks can't be accessed. A full disk can show up as blank.
It seems to happen at random; I'm a grizzled old veteran of CD recording, and have tried many, many different fixes, such as turning off the auto track increment and writing the table of contents every few songs. Nothing works consistently. The loss rate varies from about 1 in 6 disks to 2 in 3. Also: You pretty much HAVE TO use the Sony recordable CDs, which are 30% more expensive than the hybrids.
If you are digitizing old tapes or vinyl, the worst part is that the recording errors come at the END of 1-2 hours of assembling tracks and manually inserting track increments. (The auto-track feature doesn't work at all reliably with old analogue sources.) If you are lucky, you can salvage some tracks; if not, you put in another disk and start all over. By a conservative estimate, I have lost over 200 hours of work due to the RCD-W500C's unreliability.
I sent the unit in to Sony under warranty, and had to pay my own shipping costs ($50). If the Laredo techs fixed anything, it is not humanly detectable. The same problems recurred.
Bottom line: If you are doing short, simple jobs, maybe you'll be satisfied. If you are doing anything complex, DO NOT buy this machine. You'll waste your money, waste your time, and end up cursing Sony Corp to the heavens. Also beware of reviewers who have only owned their decks for a few weeks; in my case at least, the troubles didn't start right away.
Advice: If you are a halfway serious collector/ recorder, go on eBay and buy a good used Phillips 785. If my track record is at all typical (I have digitized maybe 400 of my old tapes and LPs), the Phillips long-term loss rate is about 1/6 of the Sony loss rate.
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