It's As Easy As Cdr
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday September 11, 2000
IN THE time it has taken Australian music lovers to wake up to the fact they can record CDs at home, manufacturers have released dual-tray CD recorders to make copying CDs even easier, and multispeed machines that make it even faster. The speediest CD recorder available is harman/kardon's CDR 2, which can record CDs at four times the usual speed. This means it can copy a 60-minute CD in just 15 minutes*.
The h/k's high-speed ability alone would make it a very attractive proposition, but the CDR 2 is also a dual-tray machine, so you can dub from one CD to another, play back a CD
at the same time you're recording another, or play back two CDs at once (one through headphones, the other through speakers, just in case you were wondering).
Unlike cassette recorders, which sacrifice audio quality for high copying speed, there's
no loss of quality involved in high-speed CD transfers. On a cassette, audio signals are stored as a series of alternating magnetic fields of various strengths that are difficult to capture and reproduce at high tape speeds. The digital code on a CD, however, is a simple series of zeros and ones, which is easy to transfer from one disc to another.
The only trick to successful high-speed CD recording is to use a high-quality blank CD, such as a TDK XA-80. This is necessary because at such high recording speeds even the tiniest surface imperfection can stop the record process. Abrupt halts like these are no problem if you're using a rewritable CD (CD-RW), because you'd just stop the recording, erase the disc, then start all over again at a lower speed. But if you're recording on a CD-R, which is a write-once format, the part-recorded disc will be ruined.
The CDR 2 will record on CD-R or CD-RW blanks. Because CD-Rs are cheaper than CD-RWs, use them whenever you need to record something you plan to keep forever, such as your child's first concert. For recordings that you won't need for long, such as lecture notes or voice memos, use CD-RW discs. Once you've transcribed what you need, re-record onto the same disc. Unlike cassettes, there is no loss of quality with CD-RW, no matter how many times you re-use a disc.
Recording your own CDs is relatively easy, though not as simple or flexible as recording on MiniDisc. If the source is a CD, a digital transfer is the easiest option, as this does not require recording levels to be preset. However, to copy from a cassette or LP you must first switch to the CDR 2's analog mode, then set the left and right record level controls in much the same way you would on an ordinary cassette deck. The CDR 2 does not have microphone inputs, so if you wish to make live recordings you'll need to buy an external microphone mixer.
* Commercially available recordings are subject to various copyrights. Permission
must be obtained from copyright owners before copies can be made.
Infofile
Harman/kardon CDR 2 CD Recorder
Price: $1,299
Convoy International Pty Ltd
Unit 7, Discovery Cove, 1801 Botany Road, Botany, NSW 2019
1800 817 787
hifi@convoy.com.au
www.convoy.com.au
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
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