Price Paid:  $799.00 from American Musical Sup

Summary:
This a follow up for the ML 9600.
I am glad I invested more time getting familiar with the 9600. This deck is to be reckon with. No doubt it is a challenge to master and make reference recordings. I suggest to have at least 5 blank cdrs to make mistakes on and get the hang on how this decks really works.
The build quality is excellent and it feels great to touch. I grade equipment on how well it performs and how the switches respond. The Alesis is truly audiophile quality. This is not for your typical everyday person who wants to burn a cd for a friend or whatever, nor is this piece of equipment for the entry level audiophile. The Alesis is a professional piece of equipment.
I am glad I owned recorders in the past. Now I have a totally different appreciation for recording. Now, I book time to do a session. I put together tracks for critical listening. Which is everyday. Yep I listen everyday. This is part of my lifestyle, I make a point of it...
The sound of the 9600 is as good as it gets. It far exceeds my reference sacd player.It is truly hard to see how companies get away with what they charge for their products. I most recently listen to the 10k Linn, and the 9600 sound was so much more. This is without applying the DSP.
Not only the Linn but the Krell,Ayre,BAT,Sony, just to name a few, all was out classed!
Where the Alesis moves so far ahead of what's out there is the flexibility of recording. Recording on Hard Drive to put your favorite tracks in order or out of order, then a cd is made. A red book cd can even be put on Hard Drive. This establishes a playlist. There are 16 playlists with 99 tracks within each list.
The most impressive feature is to be able to apply DSP to each or all the tracks. From more gain to trimming the mid to applying compression. The 9600 delivers.THIS IS A SERIOUS PIECE OF DIGITAL EQUIPMENT!
Again the ML/9600 is not for the fly by night hobbyist. This is for one who takes this journey seriously and expects the best always.
The ML/9600 is by far way ahead of any recorder on the market today. My listening is on a whole completely different level now and believe me I do expect the best. ALWAYS!

Strengths:
Functionality
Build Quality
Sound Quality
Ease of operation
Looks
Price Point

Weaknesses:
Having a sync feature would be nice but the 9600 has so much more, the sync is just a qubble

Similar Products Used:
Pioneer
Tascam
Yamaha

Price Paid:  $799.00 from American Musical Sup

Summary:
I really like this deck. I was looking for a recorder to replace my pioneer. I looked at the Yamaha and the Tascam. Both of which are pretty good and has gotten good reveiws. I went with the Alesis. I like the look and the options. I am just getting started with ML 9600. I made a recording on the hard drive and cd. It is really hard to believe how good the Alesis really is. I didn't expect to consider selling my reference player. It's that good. I will give an update after I really get to know this deck. Stay tuned!

Strengths:
Build Quality
Ease of operation
Reference Quality

Weaknesses:
Too early to tell

Similar Products Used:
Tascam
Pioneer
Yamaha

Price Paid:  $850.00 from Mac Midi Music

Summary:
I'm simply shocked at how good the converters are on this thing. I never knew. The Masterlink sounds rich and detailed. The low end extends into the lowest octaves with authority and depth. Even simply playing CD's is a joy. Very involving sound. I'm mixing to half inch analog tape from the Masterlink and the results are gorgeous. I tried the Lucid AD2496 and it sounded hashy and two dimensional. The Masterlink extended nearly an octave lower than the Lucid. Try the test yourself! I'm surprised there isn't more hype about the sound of the Masterlink ... I almost didn't use it and am glad I did my a/b tests.

Strengths:
great converters. innovative concept. tidy and functional. cheap.

Weaknesses:
for the money, none. except maybe the inability to burn a cd in real time if desired.

Similar Products Used:
There is nothing quite like it.

Price Paid:  $1000.00 from Guitar Center

Summary:
The Masterlink 9600 is just great! It makes cds that sound better than
the originals in some caese. I t allows me to rearrange and edit many
aspects of my music, allowing me vast flexibility. And for $1K, what
a deal. Build quality is a little lacking but the rich feature set makes
up for that. Only thing si sthe cd doesn't sound that great for
playbakc. I bought the 30 gig model.

Strengths:
Editing features, rearranging of playlists, fade in/out, and being able
to adjust the record out level, just outstanding! Electronics are top rate
as well as ease of use

Weaknesses:
CD transport is a little shoddy.

Similar Products Used:
None that compare.

Price Paid:  $1000.00 from Sweetwater.com

Summary:
The Alesis Masterlink ML-9600......one word: WOW. It's basically a no-brainer: you establish a playlist, record tracks into it either through analog or digital inputs (at either 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96khz), with available word lengths of 16, 20, and 24 bits. You can then re-arrange, crop, split, re-join (handy for cutting or adding verses, etc.), add EQ, compress, limit, and normalize (yuk!). Then you can burn either a RedBook compatable CD, or Alesis' proprietary "CD24" which contains AIFF files, that are playable on either Macs, or PCs.

I was more than a bit surprised to see this reviewed here (considering this is primarily a home audio/video site). The Masterlink is aimed more towards the semi-pro to fully professional recording studio environment. But I can see where it would be VERY valuable to DJ's, etc., that re-record, and re-arrange tracks for later playback.

The Masterlink is NOT simply a "CD recorder", per se, but a production tool. It's quickly becoming a standard for mixdown in lots of studios. It's also a wonderful tool for recording live performances. I'm VERY proud to be a Masterlink user; I think we're going to see this little jem around for quite a while.

Strengths:
96khz/24bit 2-track recording, full-band compression, limiting, 3-band parametric, other DSP functions.

Weaknesses:
DSP buffer does seem to fill up rather quickly, otherwise, FLAWLESS.

Similar Products Used:
This is a unique product, so far......