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On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 16:55:40 GMT, wrote:

One of my tape decks went south again and needs another repair. I
can't complain too much as it has thousands of hours on it. But rather
than fix it I'm thinking of burning CDs instead of tapes.

This question arises from time to time for myself but the answer
changes. So over the years I migrated from RR tape to DAT
to hifi CD recorder to hard disk recorder.

I have some questions:

1. What is better: a good quality PC sound board or a CD recorder? I
like the PC sound board idea but it could be inconvenient as my
desktop machines are not near my stereo.

The quality for a hifi CD recorder is fixed by the CD standard:
sampling frequency and word length. A good PC recording card
can be better. However, you would need excellent equipment
and a good recording location to get benefits from higher sampling
rates and/or word length.

2. How do you set the level on the CD when recording? Do they have VU
meters showing how many bits you're using?

Most decks have peak level meters rather than VU meters and some of
them have a separate margin indicator that shows how close you are
to clipping. OTOH, there are some hifi CD recorders with lousy level
indicators, i.e. my Philips CDR-770. All hifi CD recorders have a
recording level control and a balance control just as tape deck.

Both my PC recording card (Echo Audio's MIA 24) and my hard disk
recorder (Alesis ML-9600) do not have any recording volume controls.
Thus the recording volume must be set at the source (mixing console).

3. Is there any sonic benefit to HDCD encoding a recorded CD?

I don't know of any HDCD capable hifi CD recorders.

4. Will I be able to play the CDs I burn in any player?

That depends on the combination of burner/blanks/player you use.
Mostly it works but there may be still some audio players around that
do not handle burned CDs well, no matter if recorded in a PC or in
a hifi recorder.

Anything else I should know?

More critical for play back is the use of blanks that can hold more
than 74 minutes - and even more important, filling the CD to more
than 95% can cause play back problems with older audio decks.
This is a maintenance problem with the deck rather than a problem
with differing standards. Using blanks that can record longer than
80 minutes are way of the standard.

Norbert