[zowie]

I've been seeing a bunch of stand-alone high speed CD duplicators on ebay lately for under $300.

This looks like it might be an appealing option to supplement the aged 4x burner in my PC. Speed, convenience, reasonable price.

Anybody have any experience with these? Significant drawbacks like high error rates, TAO only, etc.? Major differences from the $1k+ studio models?

Thanks

 

[Pierre Lambion]

Don't they need special cd-r's?

 

[zowie]

I don't think they need special CDRs. These are not audio component duplicators (e.g., Harmon Kardon) and usually do not have recording facilities (A/D or D/A converters, transport controlls, etc.) Rather, they're computer-type CD-RW drives mounted in a stand alone box that are kind of the equivalent of the high speed cassette duplicators of days gone by.

I'm mostly wondering if they have problems with high error rates, blown discs, etc.

 

[Pierre Lambion]

Ah, OK. I thought about those hifi cd duplicators.

I have absolutely no experience with those stand-alone duplicators but I suppose the main limitation is in the fact you are stuck with their firmware and cannot use another burning software. Might be a problem for protected CD's?


Well, as I really don't know, just take this reply as a *bump*

P.

 

[rickcr42]

gotta go with pierre here,taking the hardware out of the computer means you have no upgrade options.Andwhat about signal manipulation such as NR and EQ

 

[DigiToast]

Actually, some of the machines do require you to buy those special music cd-rs that you always see in the computer store. I always wondered why anyone in their right mind would pay more money for a "special" cd-r until my friend bought a standalone and gave me a demonstration of how normal cd-rs would get rejected.

 

[jbannow]

If you are looking at PC based copiers, they work rather well. You have no upgrade ability tho, so copy protected stuff is going to be a problem. Research the drives in the unit you buy to find out their abilities. These will take standard media as well.

- Jeff