Summary:
An overall excellent A/D recorder & player. Most cd recorders suffer as players but the DR-17 excells in both areas.
This is my reference recorder. Most CD-R burns done via computer are inferior to this deck. It will pass HDCD to the CD-R with no degradation whatsoever. Many other lesser quality recorders will show thru in the end but the DR-17 is the clear winner amongst the competition.
Frank F. DHVCD Studios 2001.

Strengths:
Excellent Build, ease of use, great digital & analogue recording capability. Superior playback

Weaknesses:
No seperate right & left level adjustments

Similar Products Used:
Marantz DR-700 Elite PDR-99

Price Paid:  $1500.00

Summary:
Outperforms the Pioneer and Philips machines by a mile in both sound and ease of use. Makes very good to outstanding digital and analog recordings depending on brand of CD used. Very intuitive controls makes recording a breeze. Since I record mostly analog, the CD Sync delay is a non-issue. Excellent playback quality - a tad better than the CD17mkII that it replaced in my system. Same great bass and cleaner highs. I think the PMD100 digital filtering chip may be responsible, since the circuit topologies of the two machines appear otherwise identical. Only caveat - wish it had track index identification. Bottomline: expensive but worth it!

Strengths:
idiot proof; exceptional built, performance & ergonomics

Weaknesses:
expensive

Similar Products Used:
Pioneer PDR509, Philips CDR770

Summary:
I brought this CD Recorder home from a dealer to audition as a recording mate for my Classe CD Player. When I first put a disc in, immediately the soundstage was more expansive, timbre was quite good and the Marantz was more musically involving than my Classe. It had great pace, neutrality and transparency. It isn't as warm as the Classe, but more ALIVE! I am still a little concerned about the harsh high frequencies. It was nasty on dynamic transients. I have been breaking it in from new for about 50 hours. The high end is settling down gradually and starting to sweeten up. I think I am going to like this player very much!!
Soundstaging, accuracy of instrument placing, transparency and overall listenability are marvelous. Much more alive and musical than the Classe. Perhaps a bit more forward in the midrange on my Maggies. I will update after more break-in. I am definitely impressed and am going to keep this player-recorder. I will probably not need the Classe anymore!!

Strengths:
Excellent Build Quality & Sonics

Weaknesses:
A Little Nasty High End, Brand New, Not Broken In Fully

Similar Products Used:
Classe CDP-.5. My System is:McIntosh MC352 Amplifier, McIntosh C15 Preamp, Magneplanar MG1.6qr, Philips Turntable, Nakamichi Cassette Deck.

Summary:
I bought it primarily for the purpose of creating custom mixes of my CD collection. I didn't think the quality of the recording was much better than that made by the Phillips CDR-765 dual try recorder I tried a few months ago.
For $1500.00 I expected the digitally recorded CD's I was making to sound exactly the same as the originals they were recorded from and they did not, so I returned both CD recorders.

I will next try the HarmanKardon CR2 dual tray recorder and see how the quality of its digital copies compare. Also, if Philips ever gets their act together and releases their "new" CDR-775 dual tray model, I will try it also. This model was due out in December but was pushed back 5 months because of a chip problem with the CD text feature. Marantz has their version of this model also due to be released this month (DR-6050) and I may audition it also.

Strengths:
Construction, 3-year warranty, records AND plays HDCD encoded CD's, excellent CD playback quality.

Weaknesses:
Quality of digital CD-R recordings. Price is $1500.00 and it's a reference series, but not pro model so you still have to use expensive audio CD-R's. The CD-Sync function chopped off the beginning few seconds of many songs I recorded and forced me to record manually.

Similar Products Used:
Phillips CDR-765 dual tray recorder ($550).

Summary:
not so many words, it is superb
i am calling it the NEW DRAGON in hifi and recording media

excellent, congratulations to the team of marantz developpers

Strengths:
overall excellent build-quality, high fidelity sound of all music style, build to use for another millenium

Weaknesses:
none, none, none

Similar Products Used:
no