good CD recorders

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

I'm looking for a CD recorder with an excellent A->D stage for
capturing vinyl from a high quality system. Two units I have tried to
obtain are discontinued and show up on Ebay only occasionally: the
Marantz CDR-631 and Tascam CDRW-700.

Tascam came out with a CDRW-750 to replace the CDRW-700 but they cut
corners in the quality of the analog stage on the new product. The new
Tascam CDRW-2000 has the same high quality as the old CDRW-700 but
like the CDRW-700 it has a fairly "weak" output section having a
fairly high output impedance of 800 ohms.

The Marantz CDR-631 is the perfect unit for me: high quality A->D
stage, input impedance of 50 kOhm, low output impedance but it's
discontinued. Marantz has a CDR-770 with the same specs as the CDR-631
but it appears to be only in Europe.

My preference is for a unit with high input impedance (at least 47
kOhm) and low output impedance (100 ohms or less), since I have use a
10k ladder stepped attenuator as a preamp. This is leading me toward
the Marantz. However, the CDR-631 is discontinued and I can't seem to
find any info on the CDR-770.

Any suggestions on other units? Or is my best bet to keep watching
EBay?

Thanks,

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

Norbert Hahn <hahn@hrz.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote in message news:<fWIuc.24841$4A6.9159@attbi_s52>...
> You may consider the Alesis ML-9600. This is a hard disk recorder with
> builtin CD writer. It has a decent A/D-converter, a very good level
> meter (way better than the Marantz/Philips recorder) and a good D/A
> converter.

It looks like an amazing unit. However, it has an unusually low input
impedance of 10 kOhm. This is too low to work well in my setup. I have
a 10k ladder stepped attenuator which puts the recorder in parallel
with the power amp. Since the power amp is about 30 kOhm, that makes
roughly 5 kOhm total load for the source component, which is marginal.

I'm looking for a unit with an input impedance of at least 50 kOhm,
which keeps the source component happy driving a total load just above
8 kOhm. Also output impedance of 100 ohms or less is desirable.

I guess I'll keep watching eBay for that Marantz CDR 631 or 770.

Thanks,

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

<mike@mclements.net> wrote in message news:cc5e1r02lpu@news1.newsguy.com...
> I ended up getting an old Marantz CDR-630 on eBay and using Taiyo
> Yuden CDRs. The input impedance is 50 kOhm and output is 200 ohm so it
> matches my ladder stepped passive attenuator switchbox "preamp"
> nicely. It's also a flexible unit accepting optical or coax digital, a
> sampling frequency converter which can be bypassed for stable 44.1 kHz
> sources, and unbalanced RCA or balanced XLR analog inputs.
>
> The dynamic range of CD is higher than the LPs I'm recording so the
> recording level isn't finicky. Just set it to peak between -6 and -3
> dB which gives plenty of safety margin to avoid overload while still
> having plenty of amplitude resolution to keep the quiet parts above
> the floor.
>
> The recording quality is excellent. This unit makes it easy to make
> closely level matched recordings from good quality vinyl. I've
> listened and compared carefully both on speakers (Maggie 3.6Rs in my
> prepared listening room) and on headphones (Senn HD580s with a
> Headroom Maxed out home amp) and it is not easy to tell the difference
> between the original source and the CD copy. Audible differences are
> so subtle it is not clear whether differences really exist, or they
> are just an artifact of slightly imperfect level matching.

I also have a Marantz 630 (bought when it first appeared in the
marketplace), listen to Maggies (Tympani IVa) and Senn 600 with a Creek OBH
11SE), plus a number of other headphones including two Stax models. I also
find little if and difference between any source and burned CD-Rs. A
previous poster indicated that he thought his CD-Rs sounded slightly better
than vinyl source, something I also find true. Somehow driving my amps from
the high level in/outputs of my pre-amp vs. its phono section produces this
slight difference.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

"Norman Schwartz" <nmsz1@att.net> wrote in message news:<cc6hfa02rdu@news2.newsguy.com>...
> I also have a Marantz 630 (bought when it first appeared in the
> marketplace)

Norman, have you noticed that the CDR-630 causes distortion if it's in
the preamp's tape loop turned off? Turn it on and the distortion goes
away. The distortion is subtle but quite audible on good female vocal
recordings, and the effect is easily reproducible and audible once
you've heard it and you know what to listen for. Just listen to any
source while the CDR-630 is in the tape loop, while flicking the
CDR-630's power on and off.

Does yours do that? My setup might be particularly sensitive to it,
since it's a passive attenuator. So each source drives the CDR-630's
input stage and power amp both directly in parallel. With an active
preamp the devices are isolated, so the effect may not occur or may
not be audible. Anyway, I can only guess that when you power up the
CDR-630, it changes the impedance or grounding of its analog input
stage. Very strange.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

Norbert Hahn <hahn@hrz.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote in message news:<U3sKc.110265$IQ4.96535@attbi_s02>...
> >I'm looking for a unit with an input impedance of at least 50 kOhm,
> >which keeps the source component happy driving a total load just above
> >8 kOhm. Also output impedance of 100 ohms or less is desirable.
>
> I haven't found any spec of output impedance in the printed manual.
> Where does "100 ohms" come from?

The CDR-630's output impedance is 200 ohms, according to bob Loulousis
@ D&M Professional. This gives me a 40:1 impedance ratio driving an 8
kOhm load, which is plenty big enough to make it happy.

> Before you buy such a beast you should check the level meters if you
> can live with it. I can't, sorry to say.

The dynamic range of the burner is higher than any LP so I don't need
to monitor level accurately. Since I'm recording from vinyl, I just
keep peak levels on the low side, a safe 3-6 dB below overload. The
remaining 90 dB or so of dynamic range is still plenty to capture the
quietest parts of music as well as the tape hiss & groove noise.