It played fine but I had to return it because the display wouldn't light up.

It's a great unit if you get a good one. The one I received had an inoperable "record" section.

Don't really know if there's much point doing a review on an item that has been long discontinued. This unit was one of the few made as a component to your audio system, NOT something you use through a computer. Perfect copies of CD to CD. Also great for converting analog components to CD. I used it with a turntable; cassette deck; & even a reel-to-reel tape deck & was always pleased w/the results. My first one stopped working (probably from overuse) when the 'finalizer' function stopped working. I could still record, but could only play it back on the same component. The really sad part is there doesn't appear to be any kind of replacement for this. Every other CD recorder I can find is meant to be used to record from music on the computer. Since all music is automatically compressed in digital form, the quality of the audio isn't even worth converting to CD (at least to me). More collateral damage by the never ending march of technology (even if it means the music sounds abysmal). No one has given me any reason to think any kind of replacement for this beauty is on the horizon. RIP!!

After being scared out of my wits by the negative reviews of this product, I bought one anyhow. I have never bought a Sony product that didn't work right out of the box, and I figured I would have to be pretty unlucky for this to be the first. I also figured that Sony has had plenty of time to correct any of the problems that supposedly turned up when the product first came out.

In fact, it works exactly as it is designed to work. The manual includes everything needed to use every feature, though it will take more than a cursory reading to do the necessary steps in the correct order. This is only to be expected in a machine that does so many different recording tasks.

The sound of the recordings seems exactly the same as the sound source, even though vinyl records are supposed to have a richer sound. On Advent Heritage speakers, the four feet high kind, or Sennheiser HD 600 headphones, which have an incredible sound quality, I can hear no difference. Perhaps the finest test equipment in the world can tell the difference--that's for others to decide.

I did have to give up on the plan to find the perfect setting to get automatic detection of each track on my old record collection. The idea is that you set the machine to detect a certain level of silence when recording, which signals it to make a new track and assign it a number. The problem isn't with the recorder, it's the records. Either the "silence" between the tracks has a detectable level of noise (the background buzz on old records) and the recorder doesn't make a new track, or when the threshold is set high enough to make a new track despite the buzz, there will be places where the music is so quiet that the threshold is triggered and a new track is made during the recording. I got songs that had 10 tracks numbered before the true end of the piece. The message here is simple: listen to your records while they're being recorded, with the threshold set so low that no new tracks will be set automatically, or with auto-track-making disabled, and simply push a button when each track is finished. Press Pause when Side 1 finishes, which makes a new track number, and continue to the end.

And please remember that the only time you don't do the Finalize sequence is when you're doing an exact duplication of a CD. Also, while you can use this recorder as a CD player, you will probably be disappointed with the random play function, or a play list with tracks from multiple discs (the Program function). Each time a new disc comes up, the machine has to read its Table of Contents before playing. This is a very handy feature for making a recording of your favorite tracks from 5 different CDs--you Program a play list, then record. The pause while a new disc is scanned does not become part of the finished disc.

This product performs every recording task a home user can desire.

this unit is great to record on for a dj and for home use. i use all vinyl to mix and all i have to do once i'm done blending a track is hit the record button and it separates the tracks without any gap. likewise when i'm burning a tape, cd, or vinyl to the cd recorder, i just have to hit record to separate the tracks, which can awesomely be done with the remote (PERFECT for recording full length vinyl)so i don't need to be by the system itself. i like that the one side is a 5 disc changer and the sound is great. exactly what i was looking for with some bonuses, good price.