A Great Idea but has Some Quirks
Written: Aug 29 '01
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Can record records, tapes, and other CDs and can play on any CD player
Cons: Is quirky and requires a lot of patience and time to use
The Bottom Line: This recorder is a great idea, but you if you are looking for a frustration-free method of recording music, you should probably wait until the technology is improved.
|
|
|
| llukins's Full Review: Philips CDR770 CD Recorder |
We purchased this CD recorder in October of 2000. Our main reason for purchasing it was to be able to make our own CDs that could be played on any regular CD player. We have accomplished this with this CD recorder, but not without a lot of trouble.
First, the CD recorder is very picky on what brands of CDs you use in it. It is not so troublesome to use different brands of 74 minute CDs, but the CD recorder becomes very temperamental when you use any brand of 80 minute CDs but Philips (especially Maxell). The CD recorder sometimes doesn’t always recognize CDs of brands other than Philips when you put the CD in the recorder. Also, with other brands, when you hit the button to record, it sometimes won’t record. Instead, it says “update” and never gives you the option to start recording. My husband has also had trouble with the recorder permanently not recognizing the CD anymore in the middle of a recording project. He couldn’t use CD anymore, so he not only wasted the CD but also wasted his time. The CDs aren’t really expensive (only about $1 each) so that isn’t a big problem, but because it takes a long time to record a CD (especially when you have problems), wasting all that you’ve done is a real problem.
Even when you’re not having problems with the recorder it takes a long time to record a CD, especially if you’re recording from several different sources. You have to be there to start the source when it asks and have to stop the recorder each time the song is over. Although there is the option to record an entire disc, I have tried this and have not been successful. The CD recorder is supposed to change tracks when the source CD changes tracks, but that doesn’t always happen. I have had the second track start on the source CD without the track changing on the recording CD, which messed up my recording. Since the recordable disc I was using was write only (and not rewritable), I couldn’t correct my error. It is possible that this problem is due to our source CD player and tuner being somewhat older (1993 and 1994, respectively) and not having the ability to hook directly to the CD recorder via a cable included with the CD recorder.
One of the main reasons we purchased this CD recorder was to be able to record some music we had on records and tapes. The CD recorder does a pretty good job with this, but in order for it to work, you must remember to use the manual recording method instead of the track recording method. The manual method isn’t really a big deal because the only difference is that you have to press record. In fact, this is actually nicer sometimes because you have more control over when the recording starts. With the track recording method, you have to wait until the recorder asks you to start the recording source. When you start that, the recorder is supposed to automatically start recording. However, the recorder doesn’t always recognize that you have started the source and thus doesn’t begin recording. This is a real pain when you are dealing with tapes or 45 RPM records, because it is difficult to get these perfectly cued again. The quality of the recording from records and tapes is actually pretty good, but I have also noticed that the recorder will record the sounds the record player’s needle makes when playing the space on the record before the song starts and hiss from the source tape. I suppose this is to be expected since the recorder doesn’t have the ability to detect what of the source is music and what is background.
Two other things I noticed about this recorder are that the Philips emblem on the door of the CD drawer fell off almost immediately after we purchased this. Although this isn’t important to the quality of the recording, it made me wonder how high quality the parts of the recorder that were crucial for recording were. Also, when you press the open/close button to open the CD drawer, you have to move your hand out of the way immediately. If you don’t, the drawer won’t open, and you have to press open/close again to get it to open. Although this sounds silly, you really don’t have a lot of time to move your hand out of the way.
The idea behind this recorder is a great one, and I have really enjoyed having the opportunity to record music from all different formats onto a CD. I think that since the technology for the stereo component type CD recorder is still fairly new, some of the quirks of this recorder will get better over time. I think that this would be worth buying now, but if you are looking for a frustration-free method of recording your old records and tapes, you should probably wait until the technology is improved.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 350.00
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
llukins
|
|
Reviews written: 39
Trusted by: 6 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.